Fresh Take
Fresh Take is your roundup of all things related to organic and sustainable living. Join Florida Organic Growers staff and guest experts as we discuss everything you need to know about sustainable living, organic agriculture, and how to make the best lifestyle choices that benefit you and the environment. So if you’re an eco-warrior, a dedicated farmer, or just someone looking to make more conscious decisions, tune in to get your Fresh Take.
Fresh Take
Transitioning in the Farming World: A Journey of Resilience and Adaptability
Ever wonder how a love for gardening and a background in marketing can lead to a thriving sustainable farm? Join us as we chat with Jonathan Way, the visionary co-founder of Calusa Farms and CEO of Topiary Creations, who turned his passion into a movement supporting small farmers across America.
Jonathan's journey is a testament to resilience and adaptability. When the pandemic forced his farm to temporarily close, leaving unsold produce behind, he turned adversity into opportunity. By inviting chefs to witness the transparency of his food sourcing, he built trust that became invaluable as restaurants shifted to takeout services. This episode highlights the power of strong relationships and Jonathan’s innovative problem-solving.
From starting Calusa Farms with just $300 to leading Topiary Creations, Jonathan shares his evolution from small-scale farming to large-scale agriculture. His story blends hands-on farming expertise with strategic business insights, showing how positivity and openness can turn challenges into opportunities. This inspiring episode offers practical lessons on overcoming obstacles and thriving in unexpected ways.
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Welcome to Fresh Take, where we at Florida Organic Growers speak to food systems experts about topics related to organic and sustainable agriculture, healthy lifestyles and the environment. To help us continue our programs at FOG, including our podcast, consider becoming a sponsor. For more information on sponsorship, check out our Get Involved page on our website, wwwfoginfoorg out our Get Involved page on our website, wwwfoginfoorg.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome back to Fresh Take, where we explore everything you need to know about sustainable living, organic agriculture and how to make the best lifestyle choices that benefit you and the environment. Today, we have a truly inspiring guest with us Jonathan Wei, previous co-founder of Calusa Farms and now CEO of Topiary Creations. Jonathan's journey to the farming world is one marked by resilience, adaptability and a deep passion for supporting the small farmer movement in America. We'll dive into his experiences how he and his wife built a thriving farm from the ground up, weathered storms like the COVID-19 pandemic and ultimately pivoted toward a new chapter in their farming journey. Jonathan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2:We're so excited to have you and dive into your story, which I understand you like to call the happy funeral, so could you tell us about that Well?
Speaker 3:the origin has to start off with the name Colusa Farms. My wife is from Columbia and she actually grew up on a farm in Columbia and she came to America as a student to learn English and I met her. We fell in love, we got married and we always knew that we wanted to do something entrepreneurial and didn't know what it was. And we also had been. You know, we're also very environmentally conscious. We liked eating well, we were big backpackers and hikers and at one point in time we were living in Asheville, north Carolina, and we always had this huge garden, asheville, north Carolina, and we always had this huge garden. And we became friends with people you know most young couples do.
Speaker 3:And we happened to become friends with a chef down in that Asheville area, which is, you know, known Asheville city proper is known for having some just fantastic restaurants and he saw our garden and he said, hey, I want one of those tomatoes, I want a tomato. That's what he said. Here you go. And he said, no, no, no, I want all of the tomatoes. And so he started planting the seed in our minds that we could perhaps sell to him and deliver to him, and our house at that time in Asheville was so small it wasn't.
Speaker 3:We weren't going to make any type of living, or the word farm did not enter our minds at that time. I don't know why. We were surrounded by farms, and long story short is that we we moved back to Florida and at that point in time, florida was going through a tremendous boom in the restaurant industry down on historic Fifth and Third Avenues, and we saw the same thing that was going on in Asheville, with all these high-end restaurants, really gifted chefs coming into town, exciting cuisine, you know, fusion between you know Thai and French and et cetera, et cetera, and young chefs to our age. And so we started thinking what can we do? What can we do? And we built upon the idea of having like a farm and what we're going to call ourselves. Well, you know, my wife is from Columbia and I'm from the USA, so we called ourselves Col chefs. Oh, cool Indians. Well, yeah, close, and but it was. It was a way for the name to resonate in their minds.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a really I mean, I love me a good love story, first of all, and the fact that it, you know, incorporated farming is a really cool thing because you know you, prior to moving to Florida, did you have any experience in farming at all?
Speaker 3:No, none and nothing. Really, I always loved the garden. I always, whenever I visited a historic site, I would go to the garden, just loved it, loved everything growing, loved the flowers, everything. I would go to the garden, just loved it, loved everything growing, loved the flowers, everything. And when I was a younger boy, my dad would get the garden going and but you know, I didn't know anything, we didn't know anything. We were going down to the hardware store and buying plant starters and throwing them in the ground and you know, if bugs came and ate something, ok fine, you know, but it wasn't something that we, we lived around or depended by.
Speaker 3:My wife, on the other hand, grew up in a big farming family and they're still farming right now in Colombia and it's everything from chicken farming to hog farming to coffee farming, and so that's still a big, a big impact. My wife grew up raising chickens and you know she's horrified by the memories of her and her family. You know, uh, culling. You know 200 chickens in a weekend. So she definitely should do. She did not want to do animal. You know husbandry. But even though I say that about the chickens, we still still have chickens now.
Speaker 2:We always have been, we always had chickens, so we have 16 chickens now and we get fresh eggs and gift them or sell them to family and friends, and then, in 2017, you expanded into Calusa Gardens, where you dedicated, you know, designing and maintaining chef's gardens for restaurants, country clubs and retirement communities, and so I'm curious to know when you shifted into that sort of business, how did you decide what your focus was going to be in terms of what you were going to grow, how?
Speaker 3:did you decide what your focus was going to be in terms of what you were going to grow? Well, I have a business background and I went to business school. I have a master's in marketing. But after business school I became disillusioned for many reasons and I actually became a high school guidance counselor.
Speaker 3:And a lot of free time on your hands after work, a lot of free summers so I knew I wanted to do something on the side A lot of teachers do and so we had decided that we were going to do a farm and at the time aquaponics was just created, just announced and I definitely drank the Kool-Aid and joined the aquaponics revolution and I built one of the first aquaponics centers here on our farm. So we had four, I think that they were like 25-foot aquaponic beds for growing lettuce, and then we had the giant fish tank with 100 heads of tilapia and I quickly realized like there was some business flaws there on operating that kind of structure and if you weren't prepared for those problems, it was not going to be sustainable. So we later started going around to chefs and interviewing chefs, basically, and saying to chefs hey, what is it that you need? Kind of like trying to fulfill a, a gap right and um, because there's already food services here, big food services, and you know, I think I went around and, uh, I'm the kind of guy who will go to the back door of a kitchen and just walk in hey, how are you? You know, and most of the time people get out of here.
Speaker 3:But you know, I kind of learned. Hey, I want to interview you. I'm a local farmer, I'm trying to. You know just the truth. I'm a local farmer, I'm trying to make this work. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Can I buy you a beer? I've got 10 quick questions. I'm not going to be more than 20 minutes. I'm just trying to figure out how this works and if I can play a role in this. And, um, people were like hey, yeah, you can buy me a coffee, you can buy me a beer or no, you can just stand here and talk as I cut, you know, chicken or produce and talk with me. So people started coming back with, you know, your typical laundry list of items and some of them I just couldn't compete with, like corn on the cob, you're not going to.
Speaker 3:It's huge. You need hundreds of acres and we bought a house with 2.25 acres on it and anyway. So one of the things that kept on coming up were microgreens. We get these microgreens it was the beginning of the new trend and they die. They die within a week. And there's one other guy and he's like two counties away and he only comes here like every other Friday when it's a full moon something ridiculous and you can't even pick what you want. He just gives you something and you have to pay for it and he demands cash. And so I realized that there was an opportunity for additional competition and we're like, yeah, we're gonna do microgreens, and we also did like lettuce because we had the aquaponic system going and I was just like fascinated by heirloom tomatoes and so oh, I love me heirloom tomatoes.
Speaker 3:So we went down that route and then eventually that's what really got our footing. You know, in the first year we were growing everything for everyone and failing just as big, you know, and so I couldn't supply even like one restaurant. So the microgreens were the winners when we were doing it that way and we said stop, what are we, what are we really good at here, and let's just focus on those things. And later it expanded into mushrooms and we took a gamble a few years later and we flew out to Washington and we studied with Paul Stamets there. Wow, we learned a lot and we actually built our own mushroom lab in our garage, which many times people confused as like a drug lab, that we were doing something illegal. We had to have conversations with the air conditioning guy not to call the police on us, but at one point in time we were raided by drug enforcement task force because our neighbor called and said that we were doing something and they came and they saw that we weren't. But that's an adventure story. That's a different story altogether.
Speaker 2:Oh man, we have to have a separate podcast episode just for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it sounds a lot more cool and interesting than it really was. They were all very depressed that we weren't doing anything illegal and you know, they kind of you know had their heads down as they walked back into their SWAT trucks.
Speaker 2:And I mean that's a really cool thing that you were connected to him and started your own lab. I'm so fascinated to learn more about that. But yes, we will pivot and save entering this field of farming. I mean, did you was everything self-taught? Were you watching YouTube videos Like I'm just so curious to find out how you really got your hands dirty and successful?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, you know, my, my wife has a background in science. My wife is the science mom, so I've always been jealous over her skill. She can sit down and read like a science textbook. At one point she was actually teaching science and so she would guide me through those parts and together we did everything and nights and weekends. And I realized later, very early on yeah, yeah, we did become involved in like YouTube videos and we did look up like community resources and we did learn a lot with the community resources. And one thing that we learned a lot was like at the time there was like a almost like an internal battle going on between people who were organic and people who were not organic and we struggled with this hugely.
Speaker 3:We really, really wanted to be organic. That was it. We weren't going to compromise. But we realized, being limited budget and being on a small footprint, that we couldn't handle that financially. So we had to make the organic commitment to ourselves and we could not advertise it of course. We could not step on the toes of the other farmers that had gone through this process. So we said to ourselves in a few years we're going to become organically certified, we're going to do this, but in the meantime we're going to hold ourselves to the strictest standards of not just organics but being food safety certified. We saw that in the restaurants. It was very, very strict about food safety certification.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that I mean unfortunately, is a barrier for a lot of people in the idea that you do have to pay more, you know, to be able to run an organic operation. And then, for you know, for a lot of people that decide to make that decision, it's for the most part a really good one because they're benefiting, you know, the land and the consumers. But it definitely is something to consider when it comes to your, your finances, and fortunately there are now different kinds of programs that help cover some of those costs for becoming certified organic. But you know it's it's still something to to say that you know. Following organic practices is also a thing that I find a lot of farmers doing nowadays to the best of their ability. So how did you try to manage that aspect of things?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that for us, we weren't selling directly to the consumer, it was all restaurant sales, and the restaurants restaurants in general many, many years ago had reputations for not being completely honest with the public about food.
Speaker 3:It is especially true in the world of fish, where they were illegally harvesting fish that are too small and buying them from unlicensed vendors. So you had all these new chefs coming right out of chef school, really wanting to do the right thing too, and they felt that, hey, if we're going to write down these greens supplied by this company, this farm, we want to see the farm. So I told everyone, I told all my chef clients please come visit me, please come visit me, I want want to see the farm. So I told everyone, I told all my chef clients please come visit me, please come visit me, I want you to see. I want you to see what we're doing and and one stop at our farm and just seeing how things were, uh, grown and the soil mixes that we're using and, um, you know, the food safety chain of how it went from the farm directly into refrigeration and directly transported to the chefs. All of them were satisfied with it, with what they saw. So they wrote on the menus. You know fresh microgreens from Colusa Farms.
Speaker 2:That's great. I love that kind of transparency when it comes to restaurants and highlighting the farm that it actually came from. That is such a thing that I love to see.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we used to have that grew into an annual day in which I would invite all of the chefs to the farm and I would hire a professional photographer and I would ask them to come in, like in their chef's house and everything, and we would take photos of them and I would, as a gift for coming to the farm, I would send them a big photo of them on the farm, you know, and they in turn, you know, hung that up in their restaurants or, you know it was bragging rights for them. So it, you know, it helped me and it helped them.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's wonderful and I know that you know. In this story there does come a part that we do have to touch on, which is COVID and what happened during that time, the challenges that you faced and the kind of change and pivot you know that you had to make as a result of the pandemic. So I'm curious to know, you know, what really happened to your business at that time and how did you manage that?
Speaker 3:Well, one of the abilities that I have or or, or curses, or, or whatever, however you want to interpret it is like delay of fear and delay of pain. You know, um, you know like ever see someone get like really badly injured and they stand back up and like, yeah, I'm fine, you're like no, no, you're not, You're not Okay. That was us with COVID, and I remember it was. It was a double whammy because in that, in where we live, in our industry, in our business model, we had X amount of days to make X amount of money, because the majority of the year we were either staying afloat or we were, you know, closed or not, or negative, and so you know that was the tourist season and it started around Thanksgiving and ended around two weeks after Mother's Day, and so you're really dependent upon those months. And for us, covid hit, I think, around January, and that's where the money starts, just begins to start coming in. You get the smile on your face and you're like, all right, all right, I'm going to make it, we're going to, we're doing okay, we're doing okay, um, and then you start hearing rumors. You know, in New York, people sick and what are we doing? Closing schools, and then it got down here pretty quick and I think that's the story for most people around the country. You know it's spread like wildfire, you know it's a virus. And I remember trying to push sales as much as I can and my my chef friends were like, uh, we're not buying anything, we're not even sure if we're going to be open tomorrow, you know. And then it came. I was, I was doing deliveries and, uh, I got a call from my other delivery driver hey, they just shut down these restaurants. What do we do? And so we all came back to the farm and I said, you know, I gave a little talk to everyone. I said, you know, I don't know what's going on. You hear these rumors, but you know I'm I'm temporarily closing the farm and I'll let you know what's going on. And we help people. You know a lot of our employees. We had seven employees, they were all women and and we helped them fill out the paperwork to get the unemployment checks. But you know, we basically have a gate that enters the farm and we closed it and we locked it.
Speaker 3:And you know I was looking that enters the farm and we closed it and we locked it and I was looking out at the farm and I said to myself I have $200,000 worth of produce already planted, already out there, and I don't know how I'm going to do this. I don't know where it's going to go, and at least if the supermarkets shut down, we'll be okay. We'll have a lot of food here we could eat and our main crop, the microgreens. There's a certain window in which you have to cut it and sell it, and that window came and went and so we lost that and I'm still sitting there with looking at a lot of lettuce and a lot of tomatoes.
Speaker 3:And then, and then I start hearing things like the restaurants are now doing carry out and take away. So people could phone their orders to the restaurants and then people could come pick up the food. So so I called my chef friends hey, hey, I see this. Hey, help me out. Da, da da. And they basically said to me no, we can't put microgreens on a to-go box. You know it doesn't have the same effect and you know sorry. And then I got a phone call from a very good friend of mine and he was one of the first people to ever help me out with the restaurants, one of the first guys.
Speaker 3:I interviewed one of the first chefs I interviewed and he had moved on to a retirement home and it was a very high-end retirement home and the headquarters were based out in California. And their corporate office was saying we're afraid that trucking is going to shut down and the majority of lettuce right now is being grown out in California. And what are we going to do? And so they called me up and they said have you let all your workers go? I said yeah, unfortunately, and they said okay, we're going to take every single head of lettuce. We don't want any of your workers touching it. We're dealing with retirees, we're dealing with elderly We've already had a few deaths here we just want you and your wife handling it.
Speaker 3:This is, this is when people didn't know about. You know how is it being spread? Yeah, the unknowns, yeah, and you know. This is back when you went to the gas station and you were spraying the pump with the cleaner. You put a plastic glove on to pump the gas. Yeah, you know. So they said just you and your wife. And I was like, oh, I think we can survive.
Speaker 3:And so it was extremely difficult. My wife and I just worked the farm. We just had our second child. She was an infant and we have two daughters and we were the world's worst parents, but basically we just put them in front of the TV and worked the farm for several months, finishing and growing the lettuce harvest, and it was brutal. I mean we worked. I don't know how many hours we worked. I mean we worked way early in the morning. We would bring our trucks back to the farm and put our high beams on early in the morning so we would have light to work by, and then we worked during the day for the daylight, with the daylight, and early in the morning, so we would have light to work by. And then we worked during the day for the daylight, with the daylight, and then in the evening we would turn the high beams on the trucks back on again so we would have light, and we made the deliveries and we were able to keep the farm afloat.
Speaker 3:And at this time there was like emergency relief funds going out, but they weren't going out to farmers Not initially, of course, right, and I was very upset with it. We needed a cash injection immediately. We needed that money immediately because we had lost our window for selling microgreens, which was our biggest crop, and I became very, very upset. So I went on a letter writing campaign to every senator and congressman in the state of Florida just saying hey, you guys are forgetting about us. We're the ones that put food on your table, and this is a huge industry down here. You cannot forget about us. And a few months later they released programs for farmers and I like to think, in part, that I had something to do with saying don't forget about us.
Speaker 2:That's amazing Way to pioneer that movement, because, I mean, I know that between the years of 2020 and 2021, there was a 9% drop in the value of production, you know, according to the USDA, so that's a really big drop considering that this is a hundreds of billion dollar industry. And you know, I wouldn't say that your parenting skills at the time were the worst, because you were really out there trying to feed people and survive, and I think that's what happened to a lot of business owners in this industry. So I think it's definitely something to be proud of that you were able to do such a thing. So did you? In terms of the aid, what did that look like during that time? What?
Speaker 3:did that look like during that time? The aid started trickling in during the summer months, when our farm is historically closed. Growing lettuce and microgreens in almost 100 degree heat really doesn't work, and our main customer base that's their downtime. Again, we live in a very touristy area in Southwest Florida and so, yeah, the money started coming in, which was a relief. And, believe it or not, we actually struggled with it coming in. We got it like immediately, but we actually couldn't give it away immediately because we had to wait for our workers to come back. And we followed the guidelines closely and we were all within the deadlines and we just started applying for everything under the sun. You know, once you apply for one thing, it gets easier to apply for other things because you already have that data out in front of you and a lot of the forms are similar.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, we got the PPP loan, I think, one and two, and slowly but surely, things started trickling back and it was definitely not easy. It definitely did not return to the level of the profitability. We got an equipment loan and we bought some equipment and we bought a much-needed tool shed and, yeah, we were able to bring back all of our employees who really needed to come back, who really needed to come back. We actually got a walk in freezer too. We had a grant to get a walk in freezer which really helped logistic wise and slowly but surely it came back. And, um, but slowly but surely it came back and I kind of had developed like a new philosophy now that I had these grants and and coming in, I made a commitment to to try and bring the farm as technologically advanced as possible and to use that, those savings, in order to increase the salaries of the existing workers. So I wanted to really say to people I'm paying you a great salary here.
Speaker 3:I'm giving you tools that will make your efforts double and that worked. You get really committed people. You get really committed people. You get people showing up to the farm on their day off. Hey, I just want to check on this real quick to make sure that you know this water line is working. Wow, you're on your day off, Okay, Thank you.
Speaker 2:So so what happened? I mean, it sounds like you guys really are trying to make it work as best as possible and especially provided with the aid that came through. What shifted, I guess, from the time that you were able to pick up the business back up again until the day that you decided to close? What was the shift there?
Speaker 3:Sure, you know there's never just one thing right, there's never well, sometimes there's one thing, but in this situation there definitely wasn't one thing. It was a combination of factors and so the farm had started doing really well. And you know, I got to backtrack a little bit and say, like you know, during the height of the pandemic, when we were really, really struggling, um, my wife decided to leave the farm and get a part, a job, at the naples botanical garden, in which she loved and she loved the staff and she knew them from her previous work experience. So it was just, it was just me running it really, and I had really gotten the farm streamlined and I was looking for other opportunities. And one of the opportunities you mentioned before is I started a smaller company in which we were installing chef's gardens, you know, both visually appealing and somewhat practical for the chefs and the bartenders. But with the recovery I found myself not working like a full day. I really had gotten the operations of the company under control and we were doing good. We were doing good and I started thinking about other business opportunities that would parlay off of the restaurant industry and my connections there. And I had made connections and I had, you know, this time. You know, we're like nine, 10 years into Calusa Farms and I knew all the farmers in my area and became friendly with them and I wanted to expand my operation. And you had all these people from the north leaving the cities and moving down to our area and the price of land skyrocketed and I found myself priced out of land and so I found myself not being able to expand the farm.
Speaker 3:About this time I had a friend of mine, older gentleman in the nursery industry, and he called me and he said a big company has come in and purchased our farm and they want me to train the next person to run it. And I immediately was like no, I'm not working for some big corporation. And he said no, you have to come in and talk with me. Come on, you have to come in and talk with me. So I went in and talked with him and we had several interviews and I was like you know, I'll entertain this possibility, I'll talk, I'll see what's going on. And we talked and we talked and eventually, for several reasons, I said no. And I said no in a nice way, in a nice manner, and he said you know, I'm really sorry that that's your final answer. And, by the way, they purchased this other smaller farm right next to us. Please go over there and meet that owner, because he's in a similar circumstance. He sold the company but he has to stay on for a year to train the next generation to run it. He sold the company but he has to stay on for a year to train the next generation to run it. And I said okay, fine, and I went over there and I met that owner and immediately liked the guy Very intelligent businessman, knew so much. Yeah, he's like.
Speaker 3:Immediately the first time I met him and started working with him, he offered me the job in two hours, he said, and I said and I said I was like I'm not sure if I want to do this. I've worked a lot building this farm and it was an opportunity for me to grow professionally and I think, calusa farms. At one point in time we had like 10 or 11 employees at maximum and we were farming 2.25 acres and I had like two delivery vehicles. And now I'm managing a farm that's 66 acres, we have 55 employees, we do 12 million in sales a year, we have 13 tractor trailers. So it was a big jump up for me in my level of expertise, to expand my education.
Speaker 3:I quickly realized that in many ways running a larger company is easier than running a smaller company. In the smaller company, colusa Farms, if someone got sick and didn't come in, you were doing that job. That's it. Plants will not wait for you when they're ready. They're ready, they have to go Right. So you know I could do everything. So electrical, plumbing, carpentry, sales, fertilizer you just have to learn everything. And so when I got to this farm I had known everything, and I realized too that in in these larger farms people's expertise are kind of like compartmentalized. I'm the irrigation guy I know all about irrigation. I'm the fertilizer person I know all about fertilizer. I had a surface understanding of everything, which has helped me tremendously. Now. That's basically my role now as the ceo. I go around and make sure each department is running good and I look for additional opportunities to expand the farms production right.
Speaker 2:And so how did you feel like your past experience running collusa farms was, you know, transferred into your role as ceo with topiary creations?
Speaker 3:Um, well, I'll say this I think that the, the, the, the company that's that I work for now. They're a finance company and that usually strikes fear in someone's heart, but they're really fantastic company. And they said to me hey, we really know a lot about finance and we, we know nothing about farming, and we realize that you do, so we're going to get out of your way. Here are the parameters that you have to work with your budget and you have to make this work. Can you make this work? We won't get in your way. In fact, if you need something, talk to us, We'll try and help you out. And I'm starting my third year now and they've been true to that. So that made me feel really good.
Speaker 3:And the other thing about compartmentalization is that I see in the farming world that there are great farmers with lousy business backgrounds and that is what I presented to them. I understood about business, I understood about sales, I understood about. You know, I can read a balance sheet in the spreadsheet and the next moment I can be out fixing an irrigation line or talking to somebody about fertilizer or fixing a truck. So that's really what helped me make this transition and to convince them that I was the right person, but I think they had already known that and these guys had made the deal. They had already signed on the dotted line. They just needed to make sure that things were handed over smoothly, which was part of the deal. So there was incentive for them on their behalf too. They really wanted to make it work.
Speaker 2:That's really great. I mean, you had this kind of dynamic background in farming where I think your skills are so comprehensive and it seems that, as a farmer transitioning into a new company, be it a finance company or bigger gardening company or anything of that sort what do you find to be the most challenging aspect of that? And, on the other side of that, what makes you successful? What has contributed to your new role in pivoting into this kind of position?
Speaker 3:I think that before I had before Calusa Farms, I had like the knowledge and the dream, but I didn't have the practicality and the execution of that. So like I knew what the textbook said because I went to business school and here was my dream. But how do you really put that together? Because you know that the map is not the territory. You know that what you learn in school, when you get out now you have to apply it. What does the real world look like when you apply those things you learn in the textbook? And I think the hardest part for sure and I think you know the hardest part for sure was getting Colusa Farms going.
Speaker 3:That was the struggle and that was. You know we started Colusa Farms for $300. That's how much we started and we just for the first three years we just reinvested that back into ourselves. We took nothing out. It was a part-time gig, it was a part-time thing. So you know, you go out and you make, you know four hundred dollars and, okay, now you spend the 400 and you keep on just. And then one year as a school counselor, I was making more money part-time doing the farm than I was full-time as a school counselor. So I I gotta try and do this full-time now and then. That's a big jump, you know, but as soon as you can get past that hurdle and you can convince somebody, hey, I've been around in this position for longer than three years and here are the things that I have done and you don't have to convince them because they can see it there, they can see your operation and they hear of you by reputation and you know, going back to like what is the skill, I always had like a joke that people used to say to me you know, what is it that you do?
Speaker 3:I said I'm a farmer and you know, in this area, unfortunately, you're not seeing or hearing too many farmers, so people are automatically like wow, okay, you know what, farming what? And one of my jokes off of that, basically, was I'm a farmer. That means I'm an electrician, I'm a plumber, I'm a carpenter, I'm a driver. You know we can do everything and I didn't know how to do plumbing or electrical or carpentry. Prior to any of this, I didn't know, and so I just struggled and I read a lot, I did the YouTube videos and, you know, one of the things I was saying earlier was that I remained open to everyone's ideas. I remained open to everyone's ideas, even the farmers that had disastrous operations and things that were like, hey, this is against my standards, that you guys are not organic or that you guys are so sloppy with your fertilizer. This is not how I want to be. But let me look over here and try and find one thing out of this disaster that I can adopt. That's positive.
Speaker 3:And there were little informational pieces of gold around and so I did put that together and I did remain open-minded. I had a lot of organic farmers come and see my operation and say, wow, I didn't know you could do irrigation like that. I'm going to do irrigation like that. And you know, we used flood and drain tables and I have one organic farmer now. He's like I love flood and drain. You're using them in an organic application? I certainly am, and I'm saving water. Wow, good for you, man. Cool, I'm glad I turned you on to that.
Speaker 2:Wow, good for you, man Cool. I'm glad I turned you on to that Well. So if you could you know you know an effort to wrap up the conversation today I want you to be able to share your top piece of advice for any kind of farmer going through hardship, transitioning. You know, what could you tell them today?
Speaker 3:that might be something that you think they need to know based on the experience and talking with a lot of farmers, I realized that what I was saying before about their specialization like they could be the best farmer in the world, but they didn't have a business sense. They didn't have a business sense, they didn't have a sales sense and they didn't have a marketing sense and they couldn't read books and the balance sheet and those types of when I say books, that's what I meant by that. You either have to learn those skills, because a farm is a business, and it's great that you have a passion, that you love it, but unfortunately that's not enough. You have to have that business sense, and if you can't develop it yourself, you might not have the time to. You have to team up with someone who can. You have to team up with someone who can. They'll make your life tremendously easier and the farm will operate like a business, and so that's the biggest piece of advice, and I think that the other piece of advice is that just always remain positive, keep your eyes open. There's I feel I'm not trying to get too spiritual here, but I think that if you put good energy out, you'll get good energy in return, and if you keep on just saying, I'm going to be alert as I walk through the day, as I talk with people, for other opportunities out there. You'd be surprised what falls in your lap and you'd be surprised at how many of the opportunities fall in your lap or how many ideas you fall in your lap. Now, out of all those ideas, maybe only one of them is good and only one of them sticks Fine. At least there's opportunity out there, and I think that that is basically what happened with me.
Speaker 3:I knew that I was too young to be working like four or five hours a day and I couldn't do that. When I had a new child. I knew I had to go out there. I knew I had to earn extra income. You never know what tomorrow brings right Absolutely, especially with this hurricane and the disaster. So you never know one day from the next. So you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your family to grow as much as possible as a person and your farm, and if you come across a wall, like I did, just stay open.
Speaker 3:I was looking at starting an ice manufacturing business because I saw that a lot of the chefs had a need for ice. They were always going I can't get ice, I can't get ice. The refrigeration was a problem. Their kitchens were so small, their refrigeration in their kitchen for storing the produce was so small, but when the tourist season came they needed double that amount of space. So I was talking with companies about renting out refrigerated trailers to them, and these were things that came up because I had a farm, because I was doing deliveries to the chefs, and I just turned up that dial in my mind to be hyper focused on what's going on around you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're constantly learning, I think, in this industry, and you know your journey speaks for itself and that it's an ever-changing landscape, and your story specifically really has left us with so many valuable lessons about perseverance, adaptability and the importance of small farms in our food systems. And your dedication to the small farmer movement and commitment to sharing your knowledge, I think, is even more critical, especially for inspiring folks listening who may perhaps be the next generation of farmers and food entrepreneurs. So I want to take a moment to thank you, jonathan, for sharing your story with us today. It's very powerful.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. It was great talking with everyone.
Speaker 2:Thank you and for those listening. Jonathan's experience reminds us that farming isn't just about growing food. It's about community resilience and being willing to change course when life calls for it. I hope you found his story as compelling and insightful as I did. Thank you for tuning in to Fresh Take. Make sure to follow us for more conversations like this one, where we explore the stories behind the food that fuels us.
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