Business
Sustainable Farming and Profitability
Wyebrook Farm
SACC-Philadelphia spoke to entrepreneur
and owner of Wyebrook Farm, Dean Carlson, about the story behind the sustainable farm and restaurant, and about the
way farming is done - and can be done
in the future. Wyebrook Farm provides an
alternative to the industrial food supply by
creating a diverse polyculture on the farm.
This provides the farm with healthy animals
and great food without any use of artificial
fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, hormones
or antibiotics.
16
Tell us the story behind initiating, and opening Wyebrook Farm.
SACC-PHILADELPHIA
business
at
Dean Carlson found his way to Wyebrook Farm and
sustainable farming, by way of Wall Street, about
15 years ago. He then saw farmland as a great investment. There were however problems with the
way farming was being done, according to Dean,
where farmers were reliant on cheap fossil fuels.
- Michael Pollen’s great book Omnivores Dilemma
opened his eyes to the possibility of sustainable
farming. I decided to purchase a farm and start
implementing sustainable methods. I found Wyebrook Farm in 2009 during the depths of the housing recession. It was the perfect timing because
the farm had been slated for development but
had fallen into foreclosure. At that time, I was the
only bidder for a large piece of farmland.
The purchase closed in March of 2010 and Dean
spent two full years restoring the buildings and setting up the farm, and the retail business opened
in April of 2012. The purchase in 2009 was only the
beginning of a long yet satisfying journey with success and setbacks along the way.
What has kept you going?
- I just believed that I had to do it. I was even ok with
the idea of failure because I felt like it was something I had to do. There are of course setbacks and
failures along the way but because there wasn’t
really an established model for how to do this, I
have always tried to be flexible and figure out how
to make it work. The other important thing was to
have a lot of patience. It has taken three to four
years now to see it start to work.
During a 2014 TED talk on Why Sustainable Farming
Matters, Dean explains that we have to find alternate ways to grow food without the use of fossil fuel
due to the issue of exponential growth.
Will the problem of understanding “exponential
growth in a finite world” ever change? Can we ever
understand that one day we will not have enough
room or enough food?
- The problem of exponential growth will never go
away. It is really more a predicament than a problem. A problem can be solved; a predicament can
only be managed in the best way possible. It is simple math, we have to learn how to live with less, or
the outcome will be forced onto us.
The hope is for communities to unite behind an
idea, which will not lead us down a tragic path with
lack of food and increased health problems. On a
global level these attitudes and ideas have settled
in some communities more than others. Dean argues that there are signs of this in for example Europe.
- It would be nice if Americans would embrace
these ideas but so far they don’t seem to. We are
rich enough to live with so much less! Ultimately,
change will be forced onto us through crisis but I
hope we can avoid that.
”With human population increasing, and
agricultural activity flattening out, there
is only one direction food prices can go and that’s higher.”- Dean Carlson, TED Talk
2012
How will sustainable farming develop when there is
no real profit in the work? What will need to happen
before sustainable farming will become the norm?
- I truly believe that this type of farming will be the
cheapest option in the future. The cost of food
now is artificially low today. It is held down by the
magic of using fossil fuels to produce food. They
are cheap and abundant at the moment but will
not be forever. We have simply figured out a way
to incorporate oil into our food supply. In the US
we use 10 calorie of fuel for every calorie of food
we produce. The other issue is that food today
looks cheap at the supermarket but the real cost