Urban farming. High-tech farming. Modern farming, or maybe it’s traditional farming? However you call it, farming in the US is shifting against the tide of large-scale monoculture, chemical company-controlled mega farming, where farmers measure success by operating at smaller loss than the year before. The farming industry is on the verge of collapse. Oil prices are dropping, seedstock prices are quadrupling and with mega billion dollar mergers like Bayer and Monsanto looming, US farmers fear the absolute worse is yet to come.
We know the world feels what happens to the US: the current breadbasket to the world in many staples such as corn and wheat.
Thousands of new farmers in the United States are revolting against the system in their own gentle way, by farming with dignity and doing things differently than factory farming. They are creating small business farms in all shapes and sizes from hydroponic greenhouse farms to one acre organic specialty crops farms.
The problem for these farmers isn’t growing. They learn what to do, they love it, and they grow successfully. Their problem, says Nick Burton, in the green business for 20 years and a hydroponic farmer for 3, is now building a media and branding services to modern farmers –– because most do not know how to market and brand themselves.
Burton (pictured below) started a new business growing hyper-local greens for Texans and has nailed the packaging, email lists, and is growing a booming business out of Paris, Texas called the Victory Lunch Club. Burton’s company supplies artisanal salads to your office desk.
He found marketing and media was his calling, his purpose for changing the world and has since created a new business, State of the Soil. It is intended for growers and farmers of all stripes, using any medium and system for farming. State of the Soil is like your Mad Men advertising agency if you are a small or medium sized farm business holder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yniY6lB3fBE
As the company builds out, it will be building conferences and events, starting with an online speakers event this coming January – register here.
The company will support community growers through social media, it will create events, and will provide educational resources to the people who have started farming and want to learn more.
Services will be affordable and not multiples of thousands of dollars, which the conventional ag industry has normally changed for its events and services, so no one but managers of chemical companies and financiers could afford to attend.
Burton is putting farming back into the hands of men and women. If you are keen on joining the urban farming movement, get your message and story right for the farmer’s market. Burton will show how it’s done – sign up here.
Meet Nick at NYC AgTech week happening next week September 19 to 24.
