Growing from the ground up
Tyler Froberg, new head of Hope Farms, has big plans for the program
“I drew this in a dream one night,” said Tyler Froberg, the newly appointed managing director of Hope Farms in Sunnyside. The sound of gentle clucks and squawks came out of the large wooden contraption he was pointing at. His creation is a chicken coop, but not just that: It’s on wheels and specifically designed to run over the unplanted rows of his field.
The seven hens and two roosters in the coop go about their business, weeding (by eating) and fertilizing (by pooping) the soil. After about two days in one spot, the mobile coop is moved along the row, and so on. Froberg half-jokingly says each chicken accounts for about one 16th of an employee — it allows his actual employees and trainees to do work elsewhere on the farm.
This is an exercise in efficiency, one of his many contributions since arriving at Hope Farms. At only 28, Froberg’s agricultural bona fides are solid. A fourth-generation Texas farmer, he grew up on his family’s farm in Alvin. His great-grandfather started Froberg’s Farm, which is now headed by his uncle. “My uncle certainly knows how to grow a strawberry,” he said of the farm’s signature offering.
He joined the Army after high school and was stationed at an arms and artillery unit in Washington state, where he worked on a local farm on his days off. The end of his tour led him back to Texas, where he worked for Pearland’s Parks and Natural Resources Department, then moved back on his family farm while getting a bachelor's degree in agriculture at Texas Tech University.
He was working at Alvin I.S.D., first as farm manager and then as an agriculture teacher, when the Hope Farms team approached him. They were looking for someone to head their training and veterans program, and specifically wanted someone who was a veteran, a farmer and a teacher. Froberg was a perfect fit, but he wasn’t sure about it at first. He loved his job; teaching agriculture to kids was always a dream of his, and he was getting to do it at his own high school.
“But after they finally got me out here to see the place, I felt like this is where I needed to be,” he said.
Hope Farms is a project by the Recipe for Success Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to educate children about healthy eating. The veteran program Froberg was initially hired for teaches veterans to grow food and helps them establish their own urban farm at the end of the training. While ramping that up, his role on the farm grew organically, and in May, he was officially promoted to managing director of the entire operation.
The 7-acre farm sits in the middle of a food desert and is a source of subsidized fresh produce for the Sunnyside community. Only a little more than half an acre is currently planted (not counting orchards); Froberg wants to get it up to 2 acres.
“There’s little to no fresh food available to this community,” said Froberg. “Feeding as many people as possible is the ultimate goal. The more food we produce, the more people we get to feed.”
Quadrupling production comes with its set of challenges, which is why he is working hard to smooth out the team’s processes and make them more efficient. Every little bit helps in this regard — hence the chicken employees. He also implemented the use of wood-chip mulch in the field’s
aisles. This suppresses weeds, which eliminates the need for a staff member to remove them, and the soil-mulch mixture is later used as compost to top the rows.
Froberg has many other pet projects throughout the farm. The other day, he visited legendary blueberry farmer Mike Beard of Creekwood Farms near Beaumont (H-E-B’s main supplier of the fruit). He went emptyhanded and returned with 50 blueberry bushes. Now he’s given himself the challenge of providing as many blueberries as possible to his customers. He explains that while large farms may think the answer is to produce a large number of berries at once, he’s going about it more methodologically, by stretching out his season. The team devised a growing model based on varietal selection: The earlyripening Vernon variety is picked first, then the late-ripening Brightwell variety will kick in more than six weeks later, creating a constant harvest that lasts longer. These are the kind of geeky details Froberg gets excited about.
The blueberries are destined for Hope Farms’ Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm shares, which he also plans to grow exponentially. Currently, 25 families get a box of produce every week. Froberg wants to bring that up to 100 — “a big hairy audacious goal,” he said. While the subsidized market is Hope Farms’ mission, the CSA is a guaranteed source of revenue every week, and it includes a donation to the foundation.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the CSA business has picked up as people look to an alternate, reliable source of food. If it continues at this rate and production keeps up, Froberg estimates they’ll be at 50 shares by October. The on-site market, where the team has been providing a contactless drive-through experience, has also been busier than usual. Froberg estimates an average of 30 to 40 families shop there every weekend.
The breakdown of national food systems during the health crisis has made Froberg reflect more on the shortcomings of Big Agriculture. At Hope Farms, they simply don’t have those kinds of problems: they run their own market and have their own driver who delivers produce.
“Our supply chain management is internal and it works,” he said. “It’s confirming what we’ve always known to be successful on small family farms.”
When the outbreak calms down, Froberg is looking forward to providing a new experience for customers. The team has been building a new brickand-mortar store to sell its produce, which will operate as a kind of on-site farmers market. This is all part of his expansion plans and his overall vision of turning people into farmer supporters.
“My favorite part about selling people food is the interaction,” he said. “Being able to hand you a tomato and describe how it tastes, seeing you eat it and the look on your face.”
While he knows the contactless drive-through is necessary for now, he’s eager to get back to it.