Looking for the following:
Type of opportunity:
Sale (Standard), Sale (Owner Financed), Lease (1 to 5 Years), Lease (5+ Years), Lease with Option to Buy.
More info: Established, small, market Farm of 3 years (Bear Necessities Farm) with a focus on berries and salad; currently on less than an acre. Looking for medium to long-term opportunity for expansion to roughly 2-3 acres.
We are interested in expanding our current operation, possibly installing a small strawberry U-Pick, and living on the land with our trailer and tiny house. We are a family of four with two kids.
We currently live in Barnardsville, NC, and could stay where we are if the farmland were close enough.
Equipment & infrastructure:
More info: Bare minimum, we need some sort of irrigation possibilities and a hookup for our walk in cooler. A barn for storage and possibly as a pack out would also be desirable. On the right land, we have some dwarf goats that might join us, so some fencing would be a perk, too!
Current production on farm:
More info: Open to different possibilities.
Current farming practices:
More info: I farm organically, and very occasionally use organic sprays.
Qualifications and goals:
Previous farming experience:
Volunteer, Employee, Manager
Number of years experience:
8
Other qualifications:
More info: 5 + seasons working on other Farms, three seasons running my own Farm.
Production goals:
Field crops, Herbs, Orchard, Vegetable production.
More info: Berries, including strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and black raspberries. A long-term lease would let us plant blueberries and possibly other Orchard crops. Lots of salad crops. Some potted plants, several greenhouses for season extension and Sheltering figs. Possibly a very small CSA. Personally, we would grow some subsistence crops, laying hens, and a few goats if possible. Small apiary.
Personal experience and production goals summary:
I, Lewis, am originally from Durham, NC, where my parents still live, and I earned a BSc in biology and environmental science from William and Mary in Virginia. My partner, Jessica, is from Knoxville and has an associate's degree in biology from ABtech. After interning for the Park Service at the end of 2008, I WOOFED a winter season at Pickard's Mountain Eco Institute in Carborro, NC. I then worked my first full farm season at Radical Roots Farm, near Harrisonburg, VA. After working at a science museum for a year, I worked a fall and winter season at Sustenance Farm in Pittsboro, NC. Afterwards, I attended the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine in 2011 while work trading on a homestead in Barnardsville, NC. Wanting to experiment with running a plant nursery, I then interned at Useful Plants Nursery for a year and a half. I then worked a pivotal, split season on Let Us Farm for the first half of 2013 and then on Rising River Farm for the second half, both in Washington State. That season in Washington help me discover both that I wanted to be a farmer and that I wanted to go home to North Carolina. I worked a season at Thatchmore Farm near Asheville, NC, and as a garden center employee at Reems Creek Nursery in Weaverville, North Carolina. I almost started a farm operation at that point, but a teaching opportunity drew me into the education profession for a school year. An enrollment crisis at the school cemented my desire to work for myself and in an agricultural field, and I worked the second half of 2015 at Paper Crane Farm in Mars Hill, NC. In 2016, I opened Bear Necessities Farm, selling at City Market and West Asheville tailgate Market in Asheville, NC. We've expanded the operation to include City Market South for a brief period and a few small wholesale accounts. There is still a lot more room to grow, and having Jessica join the operation in 2017 expanded our ability to do more, as well as get into new fields, like beekeeping. We are now looking for more stable access to land for both the sake of our farm and our young family. Let us know if you have any questions, as we're generally easygoing and flexible on many points, so long as we can all get our needs met. Thanks for considering us!
