I moved to NYC and became a farmer.
When I tell people about Square Roots and being an urban farmer, I’m usually met with a mix of enthusiasm and curiosity. I’m grateful to have a profession that generates such warmth and wonder from friends and strangers alike. Apparently, even jaded New Yorkers are fascinated by the idea of squeezing the equivalent of a two-acre farm into a recycled shipping container.
The most common question I hear is some variation of “How did you get involved with the program/farming?” As direct as this seems, I often hesitate because I still wonder myself. There isn’t a romantic narrative I can neatly trace, or formative epiphany I point to. Truthfully, joining Square Roots was the culmination of a complicated period in my life. Though I am grateful for the perspective I gained in that time, I do not miss the hardship.
I first learned about New York’s rooftop farms in 2014. Vertical farming captured my imagination unlike anything before — it felt like a peek into the future. In 2015, I was fortunate enough to apprentice at Brooklyn Grange’s Navy Yard rooftop farm, but following that, my foray into this nascent industry stalled.
In a short time, I had gone from an investment banker to a landscaper earning $15/hour. My utopian visions were quickly fading, giving way to shame and disappointment. For two years, it was a daily battle to remain optimistic.
Then last August, I was invited to a presentation by Tobias Peggs at a WeWork in SoHo. He introduced himself as CEO of Square Roots and described the company’s mission. The key takeaway for me that night was that the financial incentives of urban farming are quickly aligning with critical social and environmental issues of our time.
Hearing the Square Roots story for the first time was affirmation that the future I envisioned was manifesting and that my efforts were not in vain. At that time, I was losing sleep worrying that I reached a dead end professionally, long past the point of return to the lucrative jobs I previously held. This self-doubt dissipated as I drew connections between my vision for myself and the major themes of Tobias’ presentation.
Tobias and his co-founder, Kimbal Musk, are not the first to recognize the financial potential of urban agriculture, but they are taking a unique approach by focusing on entrepreneur training and community-building. Every day, my job is to get the food that I grow onto people’s plates and foster friendships around that process.
Knowing that I have support from a network of mentors and a dynamic group of peers is reassuring. This stability has freed up precious energy, enabling me to focus on the task of building a sustainable business. Though most of the journey still lays ahead, there is a comfort in knowing that I will not need to travel it alone.
