October 2020 | Page 117
The Future of Farming
| | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47
over the past several months,” says Ken
Ayars. “That’s an area we have to work on.”
But demand for locally raised meat,
rather than factory farmed, is a good problem
to have. It validated the Bishops’ decision
to start their farm, even though getting
it off the ground involved many struggles.
After being married for ten years, Ester
and Joel left suburban sprawl for farm life.
It was time to start a family and follow a
simpler way of life. They put their Woburn,
Massachusetts, home on the market and
quickly found the beautiful sixteen-acre
farm with a five-bedroom house and two
large greenhouses in Tiverton for about
the same cost as their former home. Ester
was raised in Sao Paolo, Brazil, with parents
who had grown up on a farm, and her husband,
Joel, grew up on a New Hampshire
farm, so they wanted the rural experience
for their own children.
“We got married, had a lot of fun as
DINKs (double-income, no kids), and then
ten years into our marriage, we decided to
start a family,” Ester Bishop says. “We began
paying more attention to what we eat.”
They learned about pesticide use and
GMOs that are in some foods, and decided
to start their own homestead farm to grow
and raise their own food. It was hard for
them to get an affordable mortgage on the
Tiverton property because there is a huge
commercial greenhouse on the grounds,
and it was a non-conforming property.
“No one wanted to give us the mortgage
unless we took down the greenhouse,”
Ester says. “We didn’t want to do that,
so after many phone calls and weeks of
researching, we finally found the bank
that would give us the loan.”
When they bought the farm, Joel was
commuting to Boston for a job in IT, while
Ester decided to leave her job as a medical
interpreter. At that point, they needed to
figure out how to make the greenhouse
viable so they could afford the rising mortgage
payments. At first, they thought they
would grow hops and start a brewery. But
the town of Tiverton would not allow it
due to zoning, so they had to come up with
an alternative plan.
They started a garden to grow their own
food, then bought laying chickens and meat
birds, and goats for milk. Joel continued to
drive to Boston for work while Ester stayed
home with the kids. They put all of their
money into growing the farm, while working
with the Natural Resource Conservation
Service to clear the invasive “gnarly vines”
on the property to make it more productive.
They also received a LASA grant from
the Rhode Island Department of Environmental
Management. Once they started
to grow the farm and get more animals
for meat, they realized they needed more
land for the animals to roam. Fortunately,
they were able to team up with the Coggeshall
Farm Museum in Bristol to give their
livestock access to more land.
“They had forty-eight acres of land with
no farm activity and we had all this farm
activity and we needed more land,” says
Ester. “We brought our chickens and turkeys
there as we wanted them pastureraised,
and it was a success. Now, we’ve
loaned them six pigs that are actively
clearing the grounds by eating roots and
plants.”
The Bishops used their LASA grant to
purchase a mobile processing unit and
they hope to install a well on their Tiverton
property so they can slaughter the
chickens there instead of outsourcing it.
“We had some roadblocks, but it looks like
it’s going forward,” Ester says.
They have a small storefront at the
Tiverton farmstead for selling the meat and
eggs, and they are thrilled that the partnership
with the Coggeshall Farm Museum
has helped them take their business to the
next level. Gnarly Vines Farm is planning
to host some workshops at Coggeshall Farm
so people can learn about the benefits of
locally raised meat and how to use whole
animals in cooking to reduce waste.
“That initial desire to feed our family
healthy foods in a healthy environment is
going very well,” Ester says. “Our kids now
know how to choose healthy foods. They
know about life, they know about death
and where their food comes from.” The
Bishops hope the desire for locally raised
meat and eggs continues to soar, although
the increased demand came out of a crisis.
They’ve also added local seafood purveyors
including dry scallops from Captain’s
Finest Scallops and Sakonnet Lobsters to
their online ordering system for pickup
and delivery, so customers can access seafood
at the same time that they order meat
and eggs. They’ve started a food security
CSA so families can pre-order how much
meat, eggs and seafood they might need
throughout the year and the farm can
then raise it to order and provide it at a
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