Erin Hyman ’20 is a firm believer in the values of tradition, but she isn’t running her farm with a traditional business mind set. Instead, the Environ-mental Science & Technology graduate has set out to completely reinvent how Marylanders interact with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).
Before she and her fiancé, Sam, launched Red Plate Farm in Middletown, Maryland, Hyman spent five years working at Moutoux Orchard, a full-diet CSA in Loudoun County, Virginia. There she learned the ins and outs of farm management, from growing vegeta-bles to livestock operations, and also realized some of the flaws of the industry’s traditional CSA model.
“I feel like a lot of farmers say that they’re not business people,” says Hyman. “But when you become a solo farmer like this, you also have to be a business person. When I was starting, I felt like I was most passionate about how food is grown and providing really good food. And so I just wanted to make it the most accessible way for people to get food. But when a lot of people hear about a CSA, they’re like, ‘Oh, I always get stuff that I don’t want, I’m not going to eat it.’ So with 11 items a week in a box, people get overwhelmed, feel guilty and then they don’t want to join a CSA.”
To help alleviate this “veggie guilt” for those who love the idea of supporting local farms but aren’t in love with mandated weekly veggies, Red Plate Farm offers the ultimate farmer’s market hack. Their debit-style CSA provides the best of both worlds. Customers seed an account with an upfront balance then shop her market stand each week for the fresh vegetables and herbs they want.
Her rejection of the traditional model extends into Red Plate’s operations as well. Rather than take on the financial burden of purchasing land, she chose to lease acreage from Open Book Farm to lower her upfront costs.
Getting started in this fashion came with its own challenges, but Hyman again chose to innovate.
“At first the owners were like: ‘we don’t have a place for you to get water,’ ” says Hyman. “‘Our well is not strong enough for irrigation and we pump from the pond and we don't really have space for you to also pump from there. You might be able to try the creek.’ ”
She had never irrigated from a creek before, but she refused to allow this to be a roadblock. Through networking with fellow farmers, she found the guidance she needed to install a gas-powered pump at the creek by herself.
Despite rewriting the narrative of the CSA, naming the farm was deeply connected to tradition. The farm’s name draws inspiration from one of her fondest child-hood memories.
“The original ‘red plate’ was gifted to my parents at their wedding and it was sacred in my house growing up,” Hyman said. “If you did something special: aced an important test, won at a big sporting event, or got a 4-H award, you got to eat off of the red plate that night at dinner. My three siblings and I all coveted it. Eating off the red plate meant you were being celebrated. Now, as I think of what I want this farm to represent, it’s exactly that: the joy of a family dinner and a return to tradition.” While it’s too early to judge success on the returns, Hyman is hopeful for the future.
Channeling American novelist and agriculture advocate, Wendell Berry, Hyman says: “I’m in this business ‘to make a living, not a killing.’ If I can be comfortable providing food for people in our community, and if I’m building a life that I feel is sustainable, then that’s really all I need. And if I spend my life farming, then I will be extremely happy.”
-Andrew Muir
