Corbin Hill Farm & Farmigo: Doing Well While Doing Good

My good friend Benzi Ronen, CEO of Farmigo, sent me this incredible chart from Corbin Hill Road Farm. Corbin Hill Farm delivers food/produce directly from its Farm in Schoharie, NY to Harlem NY, targeting low income neighborhoods. Corbin Hill is using Farmigo and a CSA model to deliver this healthy and fresh food at prices LOWER than the local Harlem supermarkets. Let me say that again, you can get fresher and healthier food direct from a farm at lower prices than a supermarket.

This is what my friend Umair Haque calls Eudaimonic innovation. It is what happens when you reimagine a system from the start, take out the useless middlemen and apply the network power of the internet to break apart the now sclerotic food system. It is what happens when innovative people with a heart and a glimmer in their eye, use capitalism to make money and do good at the same time.

As America starts to debate farm subsidies and big ag, while college grads are starting more small farms than any time in the last 100 years, look to the power of technology to break open an unhealthy and highly inefficient food distribution system that has left the world both obese and stuck with higher food prices. Go Farmigo and Corbin Hill! These are businesses that should be supported so sign up here : corbinhillfarm.com/winterseason.html

Worth Reading: the Mission Statement of Corbin Hill Farm:

Mission Corbin Hill Road Farm (CHRF) supplies fresh produce where it is needed most. In doing so, CHRF re-imagines the relationship between consumers, farmers, and investors; strengthens the linkages between rural and urban communities; and fosters economic citizenship and opportunity in the communities where we operate. What We Do We are a produce distributor who specializes in the needs of low-income communities living in "food deserts." We distribute produce through our Farm Share (an adapted CSA) and ourwholesale operations. Our Model The core of CHRF's model is the formation of strategic partnership clusters. Our role is to connect these clusters (some existing, some new) in order to create an effective system for the production, distribution, and consumption of healthy and sustainable food. CHRF operates simultaneously from two locations: our farm in Schoharie County, NY and an office in Harlem. We do not grow the produce for our operations on our farm; instead, we aggregate produce from our growing network of upstate farmers. This strategy has many benefits, including: protecting our Shareholders (Farm Share members) from the risks associated with only aligning with one farm; ensure that the number of Shareholders participating in the Farm Share is not restricted by a single supply of produce; and open up new markets and economic opportunities for upstate farmers. Click here for a diagram of our operational model.