Restorative Farms LLC
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : o****h@s*u.e*u
Mission Statement
Restorative Farms (RF) is a non-profit organization driven by its core mission to establish a sustainable, economically viable, and well-managed urban farm as the basis of a community "agrisystem," within Dallas, Texas. This model is designed to be replicable, aiming to serve local communities residing in food deserts with access to fresh, ethically sourced food. Additionally, the organization seeks to offer professional training and employment opportunities, fostering economic empowerment and community development. The founders, Brad Boa, Tyrone Day, Doric Earle, and Owen Lynch, see RF as an opportunity to collaborate with the local communities to co-develop solutions to three critical issues: 1. Providing healthy, medical grade, affordable produce to those who live in food deserts; 2. Boost the local economy by creating income opportunities for the community growers and producers that come from the sales of their production; 3. Providing community members with training, work, entrepreneurial, and leadership experience, empowering them to collaboratively break the cycle of poverty and resource depletion in their communities. We purposefully recruit and provide training jobs to community members formerly incarcerated. In other words, it is not just about maximizing yields for profits; RF is a systems-based solutions-oriented organization dedicated to creating a self-sustaining, climate-conscious, profitable, community-centric connected series of farms and people dedicated to our shared mission.
About This Cause
Programs and Initiatives RF has made significant strides since its inception in 2017, with the establishment of the MLK Seedling Farm at the MLK Jr. Community Center. The support of DART and the acquisition of land at Hatcher Station paved the way for the launch of the Hatcher Station Training Farm, enabling the organization to expand its efforts to address the challenges mentioned above and better serve the South Dallas communities. These efforts have given rise to multiple programs, including the Future Urban Farmers (FUFs) Program, the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program, and the Apprentice Program. As RF's initiatives have evolved, they've introduced the GroBox Business, boosted seedling sales from their farm, acquired a GroZilla Hydro Container Farm for research and food production, and provided training in hydroponic farming methods (a more sustainable approach that uses water-based nutrient solutions). Most recently, RF has engineered a 200-square-foot solar-powered refrigerator to extend the shelf life of produce in the face of unreliable power grids and integrated a Hydroponics Farming System known as a TAPKit. Each of these programs, incorporated technologies, and systems are defined below. Their significant impacts on the local community and the farm's overall progress towards economic sustainability are also outlined below. Programs The Future Urban Farmers (FUFs) Program RF launched the Future Urban Farmers Program in 2019. This program is designed to provide paid vocational training to South Dallas community members, inclusive to all members regardless of their barriers and employment background, to become professional farmers. The FUFs are trained in sustainable and responsible farming techniques such as companion and crop rotation, SPIN (small plot intensive) growing, and rapid rotations planting, as well as obtain a thorough understanding of regenerative soil care as a core principle. The training also includes adopting and using technology such as Netafim irrigation and other technology used on RF's hydro farms. The goal is to ensure that the FUFs will understand and be able to practice efficient growing of organic products at scale throughout the year. By participating in the program, the FUFs generate affordable, fresh, healthy food that will improve the overall health of community consumers, gain a greater purpose through a career and income, transferable technical and leadership skills, and are empowered to change their lives and the lives of those in their community for the better. To date, RF has provided support to a total of seven FUFs. Among those who have received extensive training and are progressing in their professional journeys, three FUFs are launching their own agricultural enterprises with ongoing assistance from RF. Another FUF has embarked on a full-time soil science program at Texas A&M University, while another is employed as a hydro-farmer and instructor at one of RF's partner farms. The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program was created in 2020 to provide baskets of locally grown, seasonal products for weekly delivery to households in Dallas. The program contributes to increasing the accessibility of healthy foods to communities in food deserts or who cannot afford fresh produce. As such, RF sells the baskets at a subsidized price to increase the accessibility of fresh food for the South Dallas community, which makes up 80% of the recipients of CSA baskets. Additionally, the CSA program allows the FUF trainees to learn to plan, grow, and deliver seasonal products. Each CSA basket is full of products that are responsibly sourced from RF's FUFs or local farms in rural North Texas, in turn supporting RF’s farmers, South Dallas growers, and RF’s rural partner farms by providing greater revenue predictability than local farmer’s markets can guarantee. Revenue earned by the CSA program helps pay for the FUF's training and work. The Apprentice Program Farm The FUF program launched in 2019 was augmented in 2022 by adding the Apprentice Farm as part of the Hatcher Station Farm 2022 expansion. The Apprentice Farm was designed for the FUF practicum. It comprises a 12’x 30’x 100’ high tunnel with 1650 square feet of Netafim irrigated raised beds (RF GroBoxes). The second season of FUF training will entail FUFs creating a business and crop management plan for growing seasonal produce for the CSA program and the customer bases generated by each FUF. The ultimate goal of the Apprentice Program Farm is to provide a supportive space to help FUFs develop the skills necessary to become RF franchise farmers (owning and running their own farm) or to start their own agri-entrepreneurial venture. There is no better teacher for becoming a professional grower than hands-on experience learning through the challenges of growing for the market. Initiatives The Seedling Farm The Seedling Farm at the MLK Jr. Community Center was the first step in RF's vision to create a viable, locally-based urban agrisystem. RF's goal was to form a hub that could distribute healthy, viable seedlings — baby "starter" plants — to its farm, local farms, and community hobbyist growers for easy planting and to sell to local restauranteurs and the greater Dallas community. The seedlings also play a critical role in RF's FUFs training program. In the past five years, RF has grown tens of thousands of seedlings, and it is just getting better and more efficient, increasing its output as it learns and expands. The GroBox Business RF launched the sales of GroBoxes, South Dallas-manufactured collapsible, easy-to-set-up and use raised beds for growing produce from seedlings (starter plants) supplied by RF in 2020. The business was spurred in response to the pandemic and modeled off the WWII victory garden program. The goal is to help home growers and their communities be more food independent and to keep RF's future urban farmers and some local Dallas farmers employed during the shutdown/off-season of markets. A GroxBox is often a community member’s first personal involvement in cultivating and harvesting fresh, homegrown produce, surpassing store-bought options' quality. This typically fosters a deeper appreciation for how fresh produce enhances the health and overall well-being of both the gardener and their family. The GroBoxes can be installed as stand-alone units in the backyard of a house as a “victory garden” or linked together in rows to make a small community farm, as in the case of Austin Street Center’s farm or Joppy Momma Farm. RF delivers the GroBox(es) and provides the particular soil that has been mixed, tested, and developed with Texas A&M Agri-Life and seasonal plant packs selected from our seedling farm. If required, RF can set up a simple-to-use irrigation system and provide GroBox gardening training courses or horticultural training at Hatcher Farm. GroZilla Hydro Container Farm RF created a GroZilla Hydro Container Farm in 2021 to use as a hydro production farm for our community food program. The container farm produces 300-plus heads of over 14 varieties of greens a week for the CSA program. Additionally, the farm serves as a dedicated area for research and development, offering an ideal setting to instruct Future Urban Farmers (FUFs), community members, and DISD CityLab High School interns in the art of hydroponic cultivation. Challenges to The Future Growth of Local Agri-systems and How RF is Addressing These Issues The Current Market: The most significant barrier for many of RF's initiatives is the cost to produce a product competitive with the market price. RF competes with industrial large-scale farms (which rely upon- mass chemical-enhanced mono-cropping, inequitable labor practices, and large government subsidies). Though RF's product has far superior nutritional value to a mass-produced fruit or vegetable, consumers are accustomed to supermarket prices and having access to products no matter the local growing season, making it a challenge to charge a price that covers costs. Additionally, on the local level, RF competes with food programs that give food away for free. Though providing a person food when hungry is necessary, it limits the demand and support of a market for local growers and sets unrealistic expectations in the community. To address this, RF looks for sponsors to support the delta between farmers market prices and industrial farm prices and manage the delta between what it costs RF to produce its products and what it can sell the products for in the local community. Full-priced sales to customers outside the neighborhood total less than 25% of our CSA. Because the primary focus is on those with the least access to fresh produce, these two outside revenue sources are vital to sustaining the CSA program and other initiatives. Climate Change: Unpredictable weather and an unreliable energy grid make farming more complicated and riskier, especially in Texas. For example, none of our partners' farms have products for early fall due to the extreme heat in July and August this year (2023). Dallas needs climate-smart, resilient farming now more than eve