I think you’ll love today’s show! Today, we talk with Curtis Stone, Founder of Green City Acres, an urban farm in Kelowna, British Columbia.
Curtis was a musician who decided he wanted a different life. He started his urban farm with a $7,000 investment and without buying any land. (That means no debt!) His first year, he earned $22,000 and then doubled that profit number every year for the next four years, ultimately employing 8 people.
He then completely redesigned his entire operation and shrank the size and massively increased the profitability.
Today, he manages his entire operation with one staff person, working 40 to 50 hours per week during the growing season and generating $80,000 to $100,000 of annual profit from his operation. In 2012 he grew more than 50,000 pounds of food on less than an acre of land and used only 80 liters of gasoline!
And, because he’s right in the city, his overhead is massively reduced!
Amazing!!!
Join us as we discuss his history, his inspiration, his methods, and how we can apply the principles of ecology to financial planning!
Links:
- Curtis’s YouTube Channel: http://TheUrbanFarmer.co
- Curtis’s farm website: Green City Acres
- SPIN farming website
- Curtis’s in-depth interview on the Permaculture Voices Podcast
- Curtis’s interview on GroAction.com
The ideas in this podcast, if put into action, could drastically change the lives of hundreds of impoverished families. The goal now is to find a way to introduce this to as many people as possible. Since the podcast aired, have you given this any thought?
I see Curtis has booklets, maybe buying these and handing them out to people that could benefit from them is a good first start.
David
I know that some people have reached out to Curtis for help and further action…my job is to air the information and then I’m hoping people like you will help it get the publicity the topic deserves!
Josh,
I just started listening to episode 141, and ended up listening to this episode first. It is no surprise to me that this is your most popular episode. It is packed with radical philosophical ideas, as usual, but it is also packed with hope. And maybe even more importantly hope on subjects that everyone can relate to, food and social capital (although I didn’t really know what the latter was before this episode).
I grew up mostly in suburban Phoenix, Arizona but I spent the last 9 years of my life living in a small rural town in Spain called Padron. In Spain I was surrounded by very fertile land, and a belief system that the quality of the food we eat is mostly about where it comes from. The recipes are simple but the food is amazing because the quality of the raw materials really shines through. As an added bonus, since the food comes from close by, and a lot of it comes from small local produces, it is also affordable.
One of the most striking differences between Phoenix and Padron is the use of land. In Phoenix, it is all urban sprawl. There are sprawling houses separated by gargantuan streets, and the spacious yards of those houses have one of two things a grass lawn or rocks. In Padron, the use of the land couldn’t be more different. The majority of houses have a garden, and many people have small plots of land separate from their houses where they grow food, or have grape vines.
Now that I am living in Phoenix once again, I have been shocked at the quality of the food, the fact that there don’t seem to be seasons in the grocery store, and that it is just so damn expensive. I love the idea of organic food but paying two to three times the price of non organic food is not a sustainable model to me.
So thanks again for the quality show, and I toast to the future of urban farms and communes.
Chad
Hey Chad,
Thanks so much for the comment! What an interesting comparison between Phoenix and Padron.
If you’re there in Arizona, check out the work that Brad Lancaster is doing. Look at his website and books and find his YouTube videos and lectures. He is super inspiring and he’s doing some awesome work there locally.
I want to have him on the show but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
https://www.youtube.com/user/HarvestingRainwater
http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/ (site seems to be having a problem right now)
https://www.facebook.com/HarvestingRainwater
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Lancaster
http://www.amazon.com/Rainwater-Harvesting-Drylands-Beyond-Edition/dp/0977246434
Although Curtis is one of the best at high intensity, high profit market growing, he is not the only one to generate a living wage from less than 1 acre of production. This new breed of North American farmer is relearning what was already known in the 1700s in England, in the 1800s in Paris, and can still be found around small towns in Europe. Even large cities like Havana Cuba have an agriculture system based on low energy inputs, high intensity plantings, and local distribution. This type of farming employees farm more people per acre or pounds produced than industrial agriculture. And the product does not cost more than large scale, organic farming. The intensity and profit is not driven by mechanization and volume, but on skilled farmers and direct sales to consumers. It is good to see Curtis getting noticed outside of the growing market farming arena.
This is an amazing story! Very inspiring self-reliance.
Is he really making 80,000 profit not in revenue, though? I see a lot of different numbers all over the place. That seems like a bit of exaggeration.
Yes. The numbers change depending on the year, but I don’t think it was an exaggeration.
I’ve been following Curtis’ work for a while now, and he’s a really dynamic person who has carved out a great niche based on his capacity for hard work.
However, both Curtis and the interviewer have blind spots. I agree that people who work hard have a better chance for success. However, I live in a town in southern Indiana with a pretty large black population. I have looked at numerous business publications of various types, and have not seen one black face – not one black person is successful enough to merit inclusion? Why is that true here, when plenty of black people are successful elsewhere? By the way, I’m an older white female who’s new to this area.
Also, as an older person with increasing age-related limitations, I’m not too keen on the hard work model – I was middle-income, until divorce ended my financial security. Now I’m low income, and have a future of relative poverty to look forward to. I will work as hard as I can to have the best future that I can, but I am not pleased to hear that any safety net programs available for people like me should be dismantled so that the “productive people” don’t have to pay more tax than us low income people.
By the way, Curtis is covered by the Canadian health safety net – something we desperately need in the U.S. I had the good fortune to live in the U.K. for years, and the economic inefficiency of the U.S. system is amazing, and yet the U.K. covers the cost of health care for *all* its people at a lower cost than the U.S. system.
There is also a distinction between earned income and inherited wealth. I admire Curtis and all the hard work he’s put into his business. I believe inherited wealth should be taxed more heavily than earned income. Plus, I know how Curtis runs his business – the success of his business comes in large part from his intense involvement with people in his community. If his community is successful, his business will thrive. If his community deteriorates – like the community where I live – his business will have a harder time. You don’t operate in a vacuum, even if your libertarian ideology makes you think you do.
By the way, I subscribed to your podcast after finding this interview with Curtis.
Hi Joshua!
This episode was very inspiring for me. I am saving up to buy a plot of land and build my own straw bale home and permaculture garden. I hadn’t thought about monetizing it, actually. It’s just a dream of mine, and what I consider to be the ultimate homeschool project for my kids. Would you please do an episode on more passive permaculture/farming income? I’m all about the passive income, and wondering how to squeeze the most out of my land plot.