Growing your enterprise from beets to spreadsheets with Rebecca Frimmer

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

farm, farmers, business, CSA, land, farming, food, growing, building, years, big, model, work, community, tools, organizations, create

SPEAKERS

Rebecca Frimmer, Farmer D

Farmer D:

This is Farmer D with the Citizen Farmers Podcast, Season 2: Reimagining Communities. Today's guest with me is Rebecca Frimmer from Kitchen Table Consultants. Rebecca, how are you?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Hey, D, I'm good, how are you?

Farmer D:

I'm doing great. Excited to have a nice chat with you. And, you know, just for some context, the podcast this season has been focused on interviewing collaborators, clients, and citizen farmers that we are inspired by and that we admire. And, you know, in this case today with you, Rebecca, this is to me, kind of deep collaborator, friend and ally in the movement. So I'm really excited to dig in a little bit to our collaboration, our work together, talk a bit about your background and passion and expertise and what you do at Kitchen Table Consultants. And so, you know, I thought I'd start off by just saying, you know, what is growing in your garden right now or that you've been cooking in your kitchen, this week, that is a that's exciting that you want to share?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Oh, my gosh, the garden is always exciting. So we have about 50 strawberry plants in our strawberry patch in the backyard. So the strawberries are actually coming in really nice right now, surprisingly, for this time of year. You know, we live in Morro Bay, so we got this weird coastal pocket of climate zone here. And strawberries are doing great. We just pulled out 25 that weren't performing and planted some new seascapes. So that's exciting. And you know, one of the weird things about this super late coastal summer that we get here is that I have red bell peppers on the plant in my garden right now.

Farmer D:

Really?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Yeah! We never got super cold, the plants kept producing.

Farmer D:

That's awesome. I didn't realize Morro Bay had such like a I guess it's kind of got that coastal influence. So you don't you haven't had any like hard freezes yet? Huh?

Rebecca Frimmer:

No, and you know, it gets really hot in October and November. I'm probably not supposed to say this on the show, because it's like our secret amazing season that no one knows about. But it gets really beautiful. And then, you know, we have a fairly mild winter, although it rains quite a bit. So some of those plants that just didn't die off in that end of season are up here to a pretty good.

Farmer D:

That's awesome. Nothing like fresh-picked strawberries, especially with your little ones. How old are your kids now?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Two and a half and four and a half?

Farmer D:

That strawberry heaven, at that age. I have such good photos from the kids at coastal roots when they were little babies just like in the strawberry labyrinth, just chewing their faces off with strawberries. It's awesome. So just for some background, you know, you and I met several years ago on the Pearlstone Project working with dear friend Yakir Manila who was the director. They're at Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center in Reisterstown, Maryland. Right, we both got hired separately, to work together collaboratively to help them with their master plan. What was your kind of your experience from working with the Farmer D team on that?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Yeah, that was an amazing experience. I almost forgot about that. It was so long ago. But yeah, so they were doing their master planning and visioning process. And you know, you guys were there, obviously, from the design and development standpoint. And KTC had joined the party from an operations, you know, financial reality check kind of perspective on how everything was gonna work together. And I continue to work with them after that visioning session on building some budgeting and financial plans around the development of the property and all the different enterprises that we're gonna be taking place within the new plan.

Farmer D:

Nice. Yeah, that was a special project. I mean, I wish there were more of those kinds of places out there, combining the, you know, camp conference retreat, with agriculture and land conservation and community building. I mean, it was cool. They're building like a little Kibbutz little moshav. For listeners, there's the Israel there was a kibbutz movement that was kind of the beginning of the modern Israeli country where, you know, communities were stood up essentially by the government to be sustainable communities, farming and schools. Then over the years, they evolved also some of them into private, intentional communities called Moshav or Moshavin. And I know that one of the inspirations behind Pearlstone was to create an intentional community, a Jewish community-based in values around land stewardship. It's a really special place. That was a cool project to work on with you guys.

Rebecca Frimmer:

As I really want to go back there someday. I left a little slice of my heart at Pearlstone. I mean, the very last workshop that I went to there, I was like, probably eight months pregnant with my daughter, and so my husband and my son came along with me. And, you know, we both just fell in love with the place. I think if we had stayed on the East Coast, it would have been a place that was sort of like a regular routine for our family to visit. My husband when he lived in Israel lived on a kibbutz.

Farmer D:

Oh, nice.

Rebecca Frimmer:

And so the idea of like a modern farming Moshav, you know, on the East Coast was such a cool concept for us.

Farmer D:

It's a cool concept for everybody. Right? This is kind of the premise of like, the agri hood movement, too. And I find that's a whole episode within itself, like kind of exploring different examples from around the world, Israel being a really interesting one. You know, I think, you know, one of the things this is kind of got me thinking is to actually do a podcast interview with Jakir and Greg over there at Pearlstone. Because it is it's such a unique and wonderful place. So yes, so that's where we first met, right. And then you moved out to San Diego. What brought you out to San Diego from the east coast?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Family. You know, my husband and I both grew up in Philadelphia, we both left and live lots of other places, and then made our way back to Philly, I think somewhere around 2009. And he was pursuing his degree as a physician assistant. And, you know, I was working for KTC already at the time when we were getting ready to move to California. And you know, just with our son being born, we just really wanted to be closer to family. My family had moved to LA, his family moved to San Diego. So we thought we would you know, find jobs out there and give it a go. And I remember chatting with my colleagues at KTC and saying, I think it's time to leave Philadelphia, we're gonna go to California. And there wasn't even a hesitation, you know, it's just like, Great, awesome. How can we support that and lift you up within KTC as you take on a move to the west coast, and that's when KTC West was born.

Farmer D:

Nice. I think I bumped into you at like the ag Expo. What was it at the fairgrounds?

Rebecca Frimmer:

That's right, the, boy was that the Farm Bureau Expo?

Farmer D:

Yeah

Rebecca Frimmer:

That's right. I had my son in the stroller I was with my husband, bumped into you.

Farmer D:

Maybe I was giving a talk or something. I can't remember why I was even there. I was just checking it out. It was like, Oh, yeah, there you are. And then I think at the time, I was just starting to bring Farmer D consultant into Leichtag Foundation. Right?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Yeah. I mean, it was just one of those moments. I remember heading over there and saying, Well, you know, I'm new here in San Diego, I just want to meet some people. And I know this guy, Farmer D from the Pearlstone project, I've got to find him at some point here in San Diego. And literally five minutes later, you're standing in the doorway to the Expo.

Farmer D:

I love when things like that happen. I feel like I'm in a moment like that right now. You know, I just landed at Serenbe yesterday, after four months on the road in the RV. And here I am literally the house that we rented, there was one house available to rent, you know, furnished monthly rental here. And it's literally across the street from the farm, I look out every window, and I'm looking at the sign that I designed when I was starting the farm almost 20 years ago here. I love it, it just gives you faith that you're on the right path. So yes, we had that fortuitous, kind of bumping into each other again, a few years after Pearlstone, and the timing was great. That was when I think I like recruited you to come and help me kind of be an interim kind of COO collaborator with Farmer D.

Rebecca Frimmer:

Exactly. And then you know, we had a great time working together over the next year or two, while we remained in San Diego.

Farmer D:

It was a great, that was a great experience. And I really enjoyed working with you and I wanted to dig in a little bit with you on this podcast because, one, as you know, we work so closely together on so many projects and so much of the work that you've been doing and that you do within the context of kitchen table consultants, I think it's really important to highlight and just learn from some of the things that you're seeing out there in the field. And so I was curious to kind of dig into that a little bit and what's been interesting to more recently right is when we, so just for continuity sake right, so you worked with me at Leichtag when I was doing Farmer D inside the foundation. And you know, we did some mission and vision kind of work. It was interesting actually to even explore this topic a bit maybe not so much now but you know, being an intrapreneur right kind of where I was a director of the foundation you know starting Coastal Roots Farm and bringing my practice, my consulting practice, into a foundation. We worked together you and me on how do we realign the mission of Farmer D to fit within this broader foundation mission? And, and how do we kind of integrate that work into the broader mission and framework of Leichtag Foundation? And that was an interesting process.

Rebecca Frimmer:

It was, it you know makes me think of a presentation that my colleague Elaine just gave at the PASA conference which is the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. I think it was called something along the line "Where Head Meets Heart-how mission and management meet to inform success". The title kind of summarizes what we were working together within Leichtag Foundation and Farmer D Consulting is like how to marry the goals of the two organizations and how to create operations that dovetail together to reach a singular goal.

Farmer D:

I guess I'm starting to have like, that's a cool, I'd love to hear that talk. And then I'm starting to have kind of these like, I don't know if I call them flashbacks or like, anxiety around all the work that we did with integrating into their Salesforce system and all the like systems and processes and bureaucracy that were required to work within. It was good, it forced us it forced me anyway, to be more structured, more diligent, more intentional. And it's interesting, because I've adopted some of those same principles as mission-based principles that, that we explored together, at Leichtag, and apply them, you know, now that I brought the consulting outside of Leichtag several years later, after doing that for a few years, and went back on my own. But I applied the same principles of like, really realigning my mission and values, not within the Leichtag Foundation, but just for Farmer D, right, for what I'm really most passionate about and wanting to do in the world, and which has led me to work in more and more with you. So, you know, maybe let's start there. I mean, what, for you personally, kind of what's your mission? What drives you to do this work?

Rebecca Frimmer:

That is a loaded question Farmer D. But I'm happy to answer it. So, you know, I started down this path a long time ago. I mean, I've always been an entrepreneur, you know, started my first business when I was 18 years old, with two partners in college. But and I, you know, I was raised in a family business as well. So, you know, I understand, at some deep, intuitive level, that desire for control of your destiny and your path and your journey, that can really only exist in an entrepreneurial lifestyle. And at the same time, my first career was in hospitality, and in event management production. And as I was kind of phasing out of that career, I went through a personal health crisis. And it was at that time that I really started to understand the value of food as medicine, and the value of good sustainable agricultural practices towards creating food that keeps us healthy, as opposed to food that makes us sick, right. We've all seen all those documentaries, and, you know, even just recently watching Kiss the Ground. This is like another example of a really powerful film that teaches those lessons, right? So I went on a journey to heal myself, and, you know, work with some really good doctors. But through that process, I educated myself about GMOs, and I learned all about glycophate problem across the world, and so on and so forth. And you know, at that time, I made a really conscious decision to pivot my career and take the experience that I had in general management and running businesses, and then, you know, have an MBA with a focus in small business and entrepreneurship as well, and pivot that experience towards keeping good food on the table. You know, as I was educating myself about how our food is grown, and the chemicals that are utilized, you know, you also come across all of the statistics out there about how farmland in America is shrinking, and how the average farmer is aging out, and what does the future of our farmland look like, and how at certain times of year or in certain locations, it is truly difficult to procure food grown by the small local farmer using the best practices to get the food that you actually want to consume, put in your body and feed your family. So it was at that point that I made a decision, like, I'm going to pivot my career into a place where I can work with local farms and food businesses to help them be more successful financially and take all that experience in general management and financial management and apply it to a space where I felt like I can make a difference towards that ultimate goal.

Farmer D:

Yeah. I love that answer. That was so good. Man, I love it. Oh my gosh. So I want to go and kind of two directions here. So I'm kind of catching myself, I want to kind of go back a little bit too and kind of understand some of your experiences. But before we do that, let's go forward a bit. And tell me a little bit about what you actually do at Kitchen Table Consultants, like tell me about the projects and kind of the work and, and you know, that was a bit of kind of your personal mission. So also just to kind of add some color to kind of work etc is about and what they do as an organization and tell us all about the team and just you know, give us the rundown.

Rebecca Frimmer:

Absolutely. So, yeah, my career went through a little bit of an evolution I didn't obviously like immediately pivot from managing hospitality businesses and running event businesses to working for KTC. There are definitely some hops along the road in the middle there. But I've been with kitchen table consultants for, since 2016? 2014, since 2014 at this point, We are now a group of 15 consultants based around the country. We're a virtual team. So while I started with KGC, in Pennsylvania in 2014, I now live in California, we have another consultant in California. We also have consultants in Washington, Texas, New England, Mid Atlantic, etc, Michigan. So what do we do? We help farmers and business owners figure out how to grab the wheel and navigate their business to the optimal financial destination for their long-term success. So what that means to me is different types of business and financial coaching for business owners so that they can land their business where they want it to be. So some of what we do is that one on one coaching piece, some of what we do is workshops and training. So we develop farmer training programs as well. So for example, I ran a program, still running for the last two years, in San Diego County called San Diego farming for profit. Where we're training a cohort of 11 farmers on financial management best practices for their farm, and, you know, strategic thinking, budgeting, and then assessment as they move throughout the year. We also do some strategic planning, we have a bookkeeping division, we have a sister organization that does marketing support for farmers. So I think that gives a good idea of what our work looks like. And essentially, our consultants are a collective of entrepreneurs. So we've all been in that position where we know what it feels like to have to make payroll and make big decisions with a limited budget. We've practiced what we're preaching. And, you know, we even have some former farmers on our team as well.

Farmer D:

I love it. It's such an important service that you guys are providing. I know so many farmers over the years who get into it for the passion, the purpose, not always, are they business savvy, or do they even care as much about the business side, but, you know, for I've seen a lot of small farms, you know, put in 150% not make it and, you know, a lot of it is just because they, you know, took on too much or didn't have the advisor that, you know, the advice that you provide, to help them make some of those important decisions that can make or break, you know, a pretty fragile and vulnerable business-like, like farming and farming is fickle, as we know, and totally especially trying to do small sustainable agriculture in an environment dominated by big Ag and big food. And it's a that's a whole, you know, whole nother rabbit hole. But one of the things that you said, I'm interested to dig into with you a little bit more I know, we've worked together, you know, on business plans for really diversified dynamic farming projects, a lot of them in an agri hood context and a community context, right, where you've got kind of this farm that's serving many purposes, it's, it's not only growing food to feed the community, but it's also providing a place to build community and teach and connect and educate and host events and workshops and school groups and, you know, to try to not just provide food to the residents through a CSA, but also oftentimes through a market and farmstand, or a restaurant or an event venue or food donation programs. And so what's been, you know, it's been great working with us is taking these really complex farm organisms, farm business models, and trying to, you know, with your experience, and all those different areas, are really trying to come up with good business models and approaches and setting up these kinds of projects for success financially. Talk to me a little bit about what you're seeing out there, you know, what are the main kind of trends that you're seeing in your clients? And what's kind of working right now? Or what do you see as kind of hopeful trends that are happening right now?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Yes, I would love to speak to that. And I just want to kick back to one thing that you said, as you were introducing this question, which is that, you know, my colleague, Ted, one of the founders of ktc, always says like, farmers only get one shot of season to do it. Right. Right. Whereas if you think about like a retail business or restaurant, you get a shot every day, you know, you put a lot into this one effort, you want to see it work out. And as you were talking about with the arrowheads like, oh, there's an event venue, and there's a market and there's a CSA, and so on that cluster enterprises that makes the farm ecosystem, the farm business ecosystem is complicated. And that's really one of the reasons that our work exists, right? Like, if you want to do better, whatever better means to you, whether that's like, you're bringing another family member in and you need to generate more income because of that, or, you know, the farm isn't providing enough for your family or whatever it is, unless you can clearly have sight of how each of those enterprises is performing to the bottom line. It's very hard to understand how to push and grow your business, right? So it's that financial teasing out, that can be a big piece of the work that we're doing and not just teasing it out. But teaching the farmer how to steward that work moving forward, right. It's that teacher person to fish approach. And then give them the tools give them the rod, so they can move forward and do that themselves. That's really the goal. So you were saying what's working what's working for farmers right now. So, I mean, since 2009, and we've worked with about 430 businesses, half of those being farms, the other half being in supply chain and local food support organizations. And those farms are of all sizes, right? Like we work with the two-acre farm down the street from you that has an 80 member CSA, all the way up to like the lady moon farms, with massive amounts of acres across three states. You know, that's like all of that falls within our purview. But most recently, we've been working on a lot of projects under the Pennsylvania farm vitality grant. And, you know, Pennsylvania's got a really progressive Department of Agriculture. And they provided 100 grants this year for farms to do $10,000 worth of business planning. So that's a lot of money in grants. Good job, Pennsylvania. But having the chance to look deeply and work with all these farms during a time of like rapidly changing market, right, because of everything happening with the pandemic across the country, has been really insightful. And you know, what we've seen working really, really well is farmers that have been able to like, you know, one of those things is that farmers have to have a degree in everything, right, you have to know how to do everything. So farmers that have been able to be really nimble and pivot their sales channels in these trying times, and really get competent and direct to consumer marketing quickly, and be able to offer convenient services like home delivery, and additional inventory assortment on top of their farm product. So for example, if you had a traditional CSA. And now in addition to the traditional CSA, maybe you're offering like a choice CSA where you get to choose some of the items. Or maybe you're offering home delivery on that CSA. Or maybe you're also purchasing like cheese and pantry items and local meats from other farmers in your region that you want to support and support their practices, and share their story with your customers. And so now your CSA members can fill their CSA basket, get some additional items they need to complete the meal or complete the week. Or maybe it's not traditional CSA at all. Maybe now you're doing more of like an e-commerce business where in addition to CSA shares, members can join and just order what they want to order. And be reminded each week as you have the conversation where you tell the story of your farm and keep everybody engaged. And then they want to reorder and continue week by week, even though it's not a traditional CSA structure. You know, we were seeing a lot of movement in, in Farm to School as well. I know it's a super weird year for that as well. But a lot of schools are still preparing meals for pickup curbside.

Farmer D:

Amazing. Yeah, there's been some really, we worked on a cool project this year with Numi foundation that were doing, they were doing gardens in the schools in Oakland and they pivoted when the kids stopped going to school to doing food, you know, getting healthy food to especially like low-income families that were that was kind of their main meal for the day was the school lunch. And they started to work with them, we helped him kind of develop a program, working with, you know, small, diverse farms, getting fresh produce into those fat to those families through the school district. And working with community-based organizations. And it's a great, it's been really amazing to see just with COVID, how many organizations have stepped up to try to fill this huge gap in food insecurity in this country. It's really sad, especially childhood hunger, and just the nutrition issues because the type of foods that are in these schools, it's just you know, it's not, it's not what we want to be it's not the food system that we want to aspire to, to have healthy kids learning and being able to be prepared to learn. But you know, so that's really interesting to hear. And one of the things you mentioned, you know, that Pennsylvania farm viability grants. I mean, what an amazing resource. I'm curious, is that an ongoing program? Is that program getting rolled out in other states? That sounds like quite a model. Tell me a little bit more, are there other projects or grants or funds that farms and farmers can tap into like that to get, you know, services from organizations like us?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Yeah, I mean, that program is unique and really forward-thinking, I believe that they're in the process of figuring out for the budget if they're going to be able to roll it out again next year. I think that, you know, if there's an opportunity to talk to folks and other state departments of agriculture that want to get on board with projects like this, it's so helpful for making sure the farmers have the support system, the technical support that they need on the financial side, to make sure that their farm has a long term plan for staying in business. You know, the idea is working on financial plans with these farms, so they know that they're going to be able to maintain what they're doing for the long term.

Farmer D:

It's so interesting, and you were saying to me before we started the interview that you know, a couple of these farms that are looking for transition that are aging out and looking for someone to take over their farms, otherwise the farms are going to just basically you know, fold after building up these incredible working farms and there's a lot of farms in transition. I mean, are you seeing a lot of that kind of where this generation gap between, you know, farmers, the average age of farmers, I don't know where it is now. Is it in the late 50s? It's been, you know, in the Upper 50s for years now, early 60s. Are you seeing a lot more young farmers coming in? Or is there hope that some of those farms will successfully transition to another generation?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Yeah, I mean, I've seen both right. Like, I see a lot of beginning farmers that are young starting up. I think, in different parts of the country, it's a really different story, like land prices and land access are so wildly variable across our regions. I mean, clearly, in San Diego County where we were both living before the price of land is astronomical. Right. So being a farmer, and not just farming on the land, but you're cultivating this fertility, like you're cultivating this long-term health of the land. It's so much harder to get behind these long-term impact decisions to have like bountiful harvest over time, if you don't even know that you're secured in a lease for a long period of time. So much better of a feeling, I think, for the business owner, if you own that land as you like, put your time and your effort and your investment into turning the soil into the most healthy biological system. It's all over the board. You know, there, I work with farmers of all ages. But there is an aging out issue. We see articles, you know, in the industry publications all the time about farms, that are aging out and they can't find a successor. And I think that this really important work of like bookkeeping, best practices and clear sight of the financials, and being able to run financial analysis is a really key piece for somebody who's looking to pass their farm along, because how can a person step in and take over an operation, if they can't clearly see how that operation is performed in the past, to use that as a model for how the operation will perform in the future, right, like, if you know that you need to make payments to the farmer on a quarterly basis for the next five to 10 years to pay down the farm, that's a huge commitment, you need to know that you have a pathway to success. So we've done some work around that to some funding organizations out there, like Dirt Capital, that are helping farmers take on the financing for properties as well. So like even if you're just trying to like get onto a piece of land, having a clear plan and budget is so important. So an organization like that, or a lender, like farmlink can help you figure out, you know, can help them decide whether or not to finance your project, if they are going to finance it, you know, what success looks like for you on the other side, what kind of payments you can afford to make. But I think, you know, overall, ultimately, you know, all of the farmers would love to own their land.

Farmer D:

Right? I mean, it's such a big topic. And you know, you can mention land access and affordability, and you know being able to build equity. And, you know, it's, there's so much to unpack in that alone. And we're just scratching the surface on so many big issues. As we talk about these things, I mean, you know, I was just talking even yesterday to the farmer here at Serenbe, you know, sweet, sweet guys, and I'm gonna interview him on the podcast soon to compliment my interview with Steve Nygren, the founder of Serenbe. And it was funny, he was saying I can't find the records from the farm from just the last three farmers, right. I think it's been throughout for farmers since I started it 15 years ago, which is not a lot. But the records didn't pass along for some reason. And you know, and that has been really challenging, actually a huge challenge for them, just the continuity and the history. And I think some of these transitioning out farms, it is so much easier to step into a working farm that has not only the infrastructure and the systems, but the wisdom, the knowledge and generational wisdom that can get passed down. It's actually interesting, because when I did this interview with Steve Nygren, he talks about before he started Serenbe, one of the big pieces of the puzzle that he had to solve first was advocacy. He had to change policy, to make sure that the kind of pattern of development for the region was going to be conducive to what he wanted to do. And that when it started to accelerate growth in the area, that the growth that came with the success of Serenbe would be done in the not in the old school traditional kind of destructive suburban manner, but in this more regenerative, you know, clustered conservation model. And I think, and he was even referencing similar challenges in different industries, like in agriculture, which is the systems are set up for failure, and they're not set up for success for some of these things. So it makes me think, especially the you know, I think there's some hope in this administration right now that there's, there's some potential for shifting some of these policies and funding sources towards programs like you mentioned in Pennsylvania. And I can even see a program where like, some of these aging out farmers can get some funds to train another generation to transition, like a transition fund where someone could get a job and go apprentice, and then ultimately be able to, you know, have a pathway to ownership and business, business ownership and land ownership. Anyway, I'm gonna, you know, there's so much that could be done in the advocacy side and the policy side, because our policies around the farm bill for so long have been so geared towards big agriculture, and not towards solving some of these challenges that you work on every day.

Rebecca Frimmer:

Absolutely. And, you know, some of the things that you said, like, just triggered two things in my mind, as you were talking about the management transition on the farm, you know, what an issue that can be, right? It's like finding somebody who is a competent, hard-working manager, and then keeping them on the farm over time. I mean, you know, farming is very entrepreneurial. And I think, you know, a lot of farmers get into it, because they want to be able to have some ownership over a farm, they want to have that connection with the land and with the production. So one of the, you're asking about trends, one of the trends I have been seeing a lot of the serious farmers, I would say a lot of farmers that have been in business like less than 10 years thinking about or starting to work on employee-owned models. And so thinking about how that impacts the future of the farm and farmer staying together on a piece of land is really powerful. And one other thing was just also about farm incubator models and farm incubator organizations, right, like Alba, here in California, where farmers of all backgrounds, and origins can like come together on a piece of land, get some education and assistance, and then actually get a small plot of land, to, you know, prove out their first business model, and then hopefully, you know, be successful and then eventually graduate from that small plot and move off onto their own piece of land. Those programs are really valuable, in creating a space to incubate farms in the future.

Farmer D:

And there's really not enough of them. I mean, and it's interesting, I was actually it's funny, you say that, because I was about to say, you know, I'm actually having an interview lined up next week with Travis from the Intervale, which I'm really excited about. Yeah, cuz then, you know, the interview has been at the forefront of that incubator model for decades, and have learned so many things along the lines of what we're talking about incubating farmers, you know, access to land and equity and just all these interesting cooperative models. Yeah, that stuff is really interesting. And it's complicated, because it's not really our society hasn't really created an easy pathway. I remember it's funny, actually, I remember when I was trying to buy my farm 25 years ago, that I went to the FSA, the Farm Service Agency, to try to get a beginning farmer loan. And it was a joke. I mean, it was like, it was just not at all set up for the- they looked at me like I was crazy. They're like, what are you going to grow? I had like a list of 150 crops for a diversified CSA with a small dairy and all these different things. And they were like, well, we don't understand you. You don't fit the box. And, you know, I didn't have enough experience to get a loan to get going. It was just, yeah, it was a little discouraging. I didn't give up and I persisted and eventually got a loan to buy the farm. It actually leads me to one of the questions that I was thinking about, as you were talking, that I ran into early on when I was farming, which is you know, I'm a biodynamic farmer, right. So I started a biodynamic farm, which means I had animals right out the gates: cows, chickens, goats. And I was, you know, raising, I was raising the feed for the animals, which is in a biodynamic system, that's what you do, you close the loop, you're not trying not to import anything, if you can. So feed for the animals, and you produce your own fertility with the manures, and compost and then grow diversified crops. And one of the things that really a pivotal moment in my farming career was after I think it was my second season, and financially, things were a little tough, and my partner at the time, James and I were kind of deciding which direction to head in. And he said, you know, we were looking at it saying well, we could either focus on our three or four major cash crops, and just really focus on that salad mix heirloom tomatoes, you know, there were a few things that like that did really well the market, you could get you to have good margins and, and we would cut out, you know, we'd move away from the CSA model, and more to kind of a cash crop less crops, you know, more of them to try to get the numbers to work. And I remember running the numbers and just getting completely depressed and saying, Why am I planning my farm around the numbers? I didn't get into this, for money, I realized I need to make a living, but I'm compromising all these biodynamic principles. You know, yeah, sure, on a spreadsheet, the dairy operation didn't make a lot of sense, or the chickens but in the farms ecosystem and the soil health and the diversity in the vibrancy of it, it made all the sense in the world. So how do you look at you know, when you when you're working with farmers on farm viability, and business planning, how do you balance that like special-because that's what our society did. And that's how we got into monoculture in the first place, right and how we've gotten away from these diversifies farms and moved into these highly specialized monoculture farms. I mean, how do you balance that farming for profit, specializing in cash crops with farming for ecology and diversity and community?

Rebecca Frimmer:

It's so hard. You know, and I listen listening to you to talk about biodynamics, like what a beautiful cycle. You know, there's one thing about being a consultant, right? There's questioning the answers that you hear and asking hard questions and helping farmers and business owners go all the way through the journey to the destination on paper, and then talk about trade offs and choices, as far as you know what they personally need to achieve as far as income for your family, like I heard you say, "I didn't get into this for money". And so often, that's the way that it starts, right. It's a passion for growing or passion for pickling, or, you know, whatever the business owners passion is, and they're really good at it, and they just go and the first couple years, they work so hard, and they try to figure out how to eke out that profit, and they're often willing to get by on much, much less in those early years. But like, you know, we're not superheroes, as you know, as humans, right? It's like, we can do that for so long, and then slowly creeps into burnout, right? Maybe we start to feel frustrated with our business. You know, my husband and I owned a backyard lettuce operation at our place in Philadelphia. We had a high tunnel in our backyard and we grew hydroponic lettuce for a cooperative and two restaurants as like, our side income on top of me managing Greensboro farms, and him being a paramedic in the Philadelphia Fire Department. And, you know, we were always trying to make these trade-offs and choices. So, you know, speaking from a place of experience, I don't think that farmers necessarily want to compromise the health or quality of their land for profit. So I just want to make sure that that wasn't like implied in the question. Yeah, I mean, we always have to make trade-offs, right, like if we want to make more profit, so that we can send more kids to college or we have a big family, and we just need more money as that family grows, or whatever it is, it doesn't have to be at a sacrifice to the quality of the land and the quality of the product. Like there's one farm that I've been working with this year, they shifted their direct to consumer model a little bit, and they're actually turning a really nice profit on a lot of the additional inventory assortment items that they offer on top of what they're offering from their own land. So they're still taking really good care of their piece of land, they're just offering their customers a larger assortment by bringing in like dry beans from some other farms and offering that in the pantry section or bringing in cheese from some other firms and being able to do markup and resell that or knowing that they have a greater demand for produce, but they'd have to really beat up their land to be able to like eke more out of that harvest. So working with another farmer close by that has a different cost structure and a different business model and does wholesale but operates by the same principles as them and being able to purchase in to, you know, again, kind of boost their offering and boost their sales without necessarily having to just, you know, beat the crap out of their piece of land.

Farmer D:

You know, it's so interesting, when you frame it like that. It just speaks to the power of collaboration, and this idea of like, when I think back to like, I was trying to do everything on my farm. And I remember having this idea and I was working actually with Jeff Poppen the Barefoot farmer on this 20 years ago, this idea of creating more of a biodynamic farming community, where instead of everybody trying to create, you know, one person trying to create the whole cycle, the virtuous cycle that is the biodynamic farm, you have special people who do dairy, and that's what they do, but they're integrated in their share land, and they share infrastructure, and they share markets, and they share, you know, life with people growing specialty vegetables, or doing fruit and doing, you know, other unique aspects of the farm. So there's something that really goes a layer deeper into this question of like, why we're so siloed in our kind of capitalist mentality, or capitalist structure? Yeah, it definitely kind of harkens back a bit to the back to the land movement, and this idea that like, working in community not only helps with the farming piece and creating that diverse farm ecosystem, and spreading the word around and people specializing, but more importantly, it's, you know, really speaks to the value of building community and working together and sharing in that process and that abundance as a community. And, you know, I think that's part of what attracted me to this whole idea of like, kind of agrihood community-based model is that, you know, in an ideal scenario, that's what happens and, and actually, it's funny because I remember the original vision, I didn't talk about this with Steve in the interview, but the original vision that was kind of based on the Intervale that there'd be this kind of like, series of small farmettes, and people would grow berries or raise animals or...and we plan this in some of our projects now where that's kind of the vision. It's like, you have your core community farm that serves the community and then you have this land, dedicated, that's been conserved as part of the master plan, that's there to provide, you know, affordable access and resources to support other farmers that become part of that ecosystem. And that's where like having like a KTC, you know, involved in those projects to help create those business models and opportunities. But I was listening to you should listen to this, it's actually really fast. I was listening to the, to Rudolf Steiners, agricultural lectures on CD, the other day, I was driving the RV. And my wife doesn't love listening to them, they're a little bit esoteric and kind of out there. So I was like, I was driving by myself, I'm going to put the lectures on, and it was, it was so interesting. There's this section in the introduction in the first part of the lectures, where Steiner talks about, and he's kind of harsh that like, it doesn't make sense for someone who hasn't grown a beet, to look at a farm on a spreadsheet. It is so fascinating, how he really goes into this whole kind of philosophy around, you can't look at the farm, as a business, and on a spreadsheet without understanding what's happening with a beet in the soil, and its relationship to the whole. So you know, what I love about working with you, Rebecca, is that you've farmed, you've been in all the different aspects of farming from nonprofits, running your own business, to being on the hospitality side and the education side and the MBA business side. You can look at a farm not through just a spreadsheet, you can do it, you can put a pretty badass spreadsheet together, but you understand how to grow a beet.

Rebecca Frimmer:

Thank you. I mean, that's one of our tenants like at KTC, we operate by four philosophical principles. And one of them is that we've walked a mile in your shoes, like we've spent more time running businesses in the trenches, and we have consulting. And you know, we understand that. And there's there's another quote from Eisenhower, "You know, farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're 1000 miles from the cornfield". So, you know, it is always harder than it looks. Nature happens. There's, I've worked with farmers that have experienced devastating floods. And we've like worked together on GoFundMe campaigns, where their CSA members have like, pulled it out to save these farms from a financially devastating season that might, you know, lead to the worst outcome, which would be bankruptcy or loss of the farm. So it is amazing, the community support, that we do see for the local farms around the country. But yeah, it's not easy. And it isn't just about the spreadsheets. But there's, I think, a big import, it is a big, important piece. Like I was talking to a farmer yesterday, that wasn't sure if she wanted to work with KTC or not, she hadn't quite gotten her head around yet. And she's like, "I think I need some help, and I'm not sure. Every year we've just kind of run by the seat of our pants. And, you know, we've been doing this for 10 years, and we are we're making a profit. But you know, I don't know if we've just gotten lucky or when that luck might run out if we don't start planning". So it's, you know, it's a seesaw, right? There's, there's benefits to planning. And then there's like a, you know, feeling of freedom to just going for it. But when you get to the end of the year, you can't go back and do it again, you only get one shot a season.

Farmer D:

What are you seeing as the biggest challenges with your clients and in the movement in general?

Rebecca Frimmer:

I think challenges in the movement are definitely different with like the individual challenges that I'm looking through a lens with my client, right? I mean, we have some big challenges in the movement around land access and affordability and around, you know, diversity, equity inclusion principles for, you know, equal lending and equal access for all. I mean, there's a lot of issues in the movement in general, but I think we're making good progress. But the issues that I'm seeing with my clients are specifically just that like the way that we've built, I guess it is a movement issue too, the way that we've built this thing, the farmer has to be an expert in everything. You have to be a great marketer, you have to be a great grower, you have to have some financial chops in order to put all the pieces together and figure out how your business is doing. And it's just overwhelming and you know, seeing a lot of burnout. And I think that that's why over the last, you know, 10 years or so we've just been seeing increasing demand for the services that we offer because farmers are finally starting to realize, well, if I can get some help with my marketing, and I can get some help with my bookkeeping, I can make some big strides and growth pretty quickly because of sustainable agriculture, eating local, eating healthy, you know, eating chemical-free, it's just growing, eating organic or whatever organic might mean to you. It's just growing and there's tremendous opportunity if only we can grab it and not just leave it for you know, big corporations. I mean, if you just look at the impact of what KTC has done in the last year, through the clients that we've worked with, we have touched: $100 million of local food sold, over 10,000 acres of farming and over 1000 employees or you know, people working on farms and local food supply chain, just in the little cluster of businesses that we've worked with in our team at KTC. So that's pretty powerful, just knowing that you know that we are working with some businesses on small to mid-size and tier.

Farmer D:

That's awesome. That's amazing. What do you see as the biggest opportunities for these farmers that are trying to make it work? I mean, what, what is working? I mean, what do you think the opportunities are in the future? That might make it easier?

Rebecca Frimmer:

It's a really good question. You know, I do think there's variation from like business model to business model, on what makes you successful. But I think the biggest things that we're seeing, as far as make it or break it for success is being able to have like a profitable home delivery model. And that may change after the pandemic. But that has been the biggest factor of scaled growth that I've seen across like congruent size farms in the past year. And to build your model in a way that supports the cost structure for that. So not being afraid to charge what your product is worth, not being afraid to charge a delivery fee that scales and appropriate to the size of the order, you know, and, and just diving headfirst into the storytelling style of marketing.

Farmer D:

That's so cool. It's so interesting to hear. I don't know if I ever told you one of my best friends who came and worked on the first farm I ever apprenticed on, The Prairie Dog Farm in Wisconsin. He came out to the farm in one evening, and he was like D This is insane. I don't know how you're doing this. This happened to be like sunset, we were like raking in a cover crop and the mosquitoes were just like, eating us alive. And he's like, this is crazy, like, get me out of here. He's like, I'll help you sell your produce. So he started selling produce in town. And it actually got him, he started the first home delivery organic kind of CSA model in the country, called Pioneer Organics, appropriately named and it became like this huge success when like, Webvan had tried to like go national, with a home delivery model, he was starting grassroots, telling the story of his farmers, and, you know, aggregating and adding different, you know, dairy and breads and meats and toiletries and everything. And he built an incredible business. And I mean, now we know now there's ironically, literally, embarrassingly, just walked out the door from the RV, and somebody delivered some instacart to our front door. Kind of sad, and very real. So I'm curious, you know, on the, on the home delivery front, and on some of these business models, what are some of the tools out there that farmers can use to make- because that can be a daunting thing, setting up the inventory management and the ordering and the logistics and the delivery logistic? What are some of the tools that folks can look at, to make that a little easier?

Rebecca Frimmer:

Yeah, there's a lot of tools out there. You know, one of the things I wanted to say is you're telling that story is like, I think there's also tremendous opportunity in this, like in between parts of the local food supply chain that are almost invisible, right, that their standard consumer doesn't think about, right, like in value-added meat production. And, you know, just the meat processing and value-added production piece, as far as like getting the products created. You know, I think there's tremendous opportunity in that co-packing space where, you know, the pickle maker and the jam maker and the crop maker and so on and so forth, are using a third-party facility to like process those farm-fresh products into something more shelf-stable. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of great tools out there. And by no means do I have exposure to all of them, although I do try to you know, poke around and see what everyone else is doing as well. On our website, we have some podcasts and downloadable tools, and if you sign up for our email list, we can you know, kitchentableconsultants.com, we continuously send out like a monthly email update that usually has some kind of tool or description of approach to take around certain problem solving area. But you know, good old fashioned spreadsheets I think are the best tool for figuring things out like, Hey, what's my average cost per delivery when I put together all the different costs of transportation and logistics and so on and so forth. So if you're charging enough that you're not actually losing money on the delivery model. But there are software tools out there. I have farmers working with lots of different ones. One is Harvey. Harvey is like a customizable CSA software that also lets you have a digital farm stand for extras and individual purchases. I have farmers that are using you know regular e-commerce tools like Shopify or Barn to Door. I have, you know, some people that are using local food marketplace. There's another one called Local Line. There's another e commerce software that was developed by a group of farmers, I believe in Illinois or Indiana, sorry, guys, I can't remember which one, but developed by Seven Sons farms, and that's called Grazecart. And that one is really focused towards farmers that are doing meat, the way that lets you do drop points and variable weight items is really great. And some farmers using Squarespace so it's all over the road. I think the important thing is just to have a tool that lets us do some analysis on your sales versus cost so you can understand what is it isn't working for you.

Farmer D:

Love it, that's great. Anything that you want to share that you don't feel like we covered in this? It's been an awesome conversation. I think there's a lot of things we could dive back into. But I feel like we've covered a lot of ground.

Rebecca Frimmer:

We did I always love talking to D, we always have these really interesting conversations that sort of blend, like the philosophies of the movement with the practical nature of just, you know, needing to find a pathway to success for the purposes of longevity. You know, it's like, how do you keep doing something that isn't working? And there's always a way to combine passion and profit, there's always a way to combine heart and head, to be able to move towards, you know, a vision that has legs that you can take to the next place that has long term vitality, built into its bones.

Farmer D:

Love it, you know, and as somebody who's been trying to figure out how to make a good living, doing the good work of growing food for community, it's this perennial passion of mine to just try to figure out new models that work for the farmer, work for the land, and, you know, work for the consumer, you know, so that good food can be affordable and accessible. And so we have a lot of work to do, and I'm just really, really honored to be you know, in collaboration with you and KTC. And I think that there's gonna be a lot of really great stuff that we're gonna work on together in the coming years. Thank you so much for doing this interview. And folks, check out KTC and the great work they do and tune in next time for the next episode Citizen Farmers Podcast. Have a great day, Rebecca, thank you.

Rebecca Frimmer:

Thank you, D. Thank you so much for having me today, and you know, so grateful for this collaboration and this friendship.

Farmer D:

Now Me too. Okay, we'll talk soon.

Rebecca Frimmer:

All right. Take care.

Farmer D:

Bye.