Wise Acres Organic Farm – Robb Thornstenson

0:00:22	Size of farm
0:00:45	Job crisis influenced change to farming
0:01:23	Previous job as a trader
0:02:01	History of the farm
0:03:07	Why Robb chose Charlotte
0:04:34	Why Robb chose farming
0:06:01	A typical day on the farm
0:07:47	Types of crops grown
0:08:34	Farming operations
0:09:46	Drip irrigation
0:11:15	Challenges of growing strawberries organically
0:11:55	Neopestalotiopsis (Neo-P)
0:15:21	Soil protection
0:18:00	Organic certification process
0:19:43	Climate change
0:20:45	Support from other farmers
0:22:16	Common challenges for small farms
0:24:00	Municipal services challenges
0:25:38	Government support
0:26:58	How development is affecting the farm
0:29:15	Labor
0:30:42	Involving family in the farm
0:32:55	Agritourism benefits
0:35:38	Support from immediate neighbors
0:37:23	Using a reservation system
0:38:21	Number of customers
0:39:28	Genesis of additional food revenue
0:42:57	How previous job experience has contributed to farming
0:44:06	Challenges of agritourism farms
0:45:15	The future of Wise Acres Farm
0:47:11	Feeling fortunate
0:48:01	Growing hemp
0:50:26	Advice for young farmers

Sekiya Billman
This is Sekiya Billman interviewing Robb Thorstenson, born in 1972. It is November 7, 2024 and we are at Wise Acres Farm in Indian Trail, North Carolina. Today we will explore working on an organic farm and also working in agritourism. How large is your farm?

Robb Thorstenson
All together, it’s forty-two acres. Started with forty acres and then bought a recently bought an extra couple for street access. So, forty-two acres altogether. When we left Chicago, we had twenty-five feet by 125 feet. So, it was the size of our lot. It has changed dramatically.

Sekiya Billman
So, you were here before you went to Chicago?

Robb Thorstenson
No, we were Chicago first. Yeah, no, we didn’t own this land at all. We were living in Chicago. I was very sad about my job. I was miserable in it, and I did not like getting up and going to work in the morning. So, yeah, I kind of had a breakdown for the wife one night, like I which (laughs) I hated my job, crying and all that. And, you know, she just looked at me and like, “What would make you happy?” And kind of leveled with her about, like, ideas like this. And so that’s kind of how it all got started. But yeah, no, we didn’t start with a farm or anything else. We just knew I didn’t want to do what I was doing. It wasn’t fulfilling at all.

Sekiya Billman
What kind of work were you doing?

Robb Thorstenson
I used to be a trader, so I – market maker. I used to trade tech stocks, and the Nasdaq. Did that for about ten years, and then energy features, so yeah, yelling and screaming at people. I liked it at first, the floors were a lot of fun, very social, lot of people there. But by the time it ended, the floors were disappearing. Everything was going to computer screens, and I was in a room by myself pressing a button, thinking, there’s just got to be more to life than this. So naturally, I became a farmer. (laughs)

Sekiya Billman
And what is the history of this farm?

Robb Thorstenson
It used to be about a hundred acres from as I understand it, Hartis Road: it was the Hartis’s, and we’ve met all kinds of them who have come out. They built this house in the seventies, but a lot of the land, and they’ve broken it off. This was originally part of the land too, and they all broke it off over the years. It had been a goat farm. They had cotton and tobacco, as I understand, it was a pretty hard-scrabble life living on this farm, growing up and then, yeah, they sold it to a Mr. Lee, the Hartises. He grew Asian vegetables, daikon radishes. I think he was a member of a prominent Korean Christian church in the neighborhood. So, he did all that. Then I guess he got in financial trouble and had to go through, not foreclosure, bankruptcy. And that’s where we actually came across the, the property was owned by Wells Fargo or one of these banks, or a collection of banks, and so we didn’t actually meet Mr. Lee. We went through a bankruptcy attorney to actually buy the property.

Sekiya Billman 03:03
And why did you choose Charlotte?

Robb Thorstenson
We knew, yeah, no, we knew the Southeast, so we had kind of crossed a bunch of areas off the list, and there are other areas in the Southeast we liked a lot that had – the schools were a problem. We had all kinds of kids, three kids, not all kinds. (laughs) I guess three is enough, but three kids going to school. So, we knew we wanted, you know, decent schools too. So, a lot of places got crossed off the list. We were looking here, Nashville and Charlottesville are probably the three cities in the Southeast that really caught our attention. And I think Charlotte was a better deal. We came across this property, loved it, and we bought it shortly after the big recession and the big housing crash.

Sekiya Billman
Okay, so when was that?

Robb Thorstenson
2012. I think we first saw it in 2011 so there were no developers. Nobody was looking at this at all. Nobody was interested. It was a lucky time for us. I mean, it was a terrible time for the economy and people, you know, going through foreclosures. But it was, you know, the chance we had to buy a piece of land at an affordable price, which, at this point now, I just, you could, yeah, it’s not an option. We could never afford this land now that the developers are out there looking for it too. So yeah, we just happened, kind of, I had my crisis at the right time when we could also step in and afford a farm. So.

Sekiya Billman
And what sparked your interest in farming?

Robb Thorstenson
I’d been thinking: I like small businesses. I like the idea of being my own boss. Cathy did too. We wanted to run something up by ourselves, but we didn’t want to take something we enjoyed and turn it into, you know, something that we absolutely hated. I always thought I wanted to run a tropical fish store. Loved tropical fish as a kid, had all kinds of aquariums. Really geeked out about that stuff. I. But then the reality is, I’d probably be cleaning aquariums and doing stuff like, I’d be around the fish and stuff, but it would turn something I enjoy into a chore. So farming is something we wanted to do. I love being outside. It’s a way to be active. As a trader, I would get in my seat at seven thirty in the morning. I wouldn’t leave until three people brought me food, and, you know, I just, I was sitting on, I was sitting down way too much, and stress and all the other things. So, I think we love the idea of having a farm and be able to fix a property, but I think we also love the idea it’s a job we can grow into. We don’t have to retire. We don’t, you know, we can slow down, but it’s not going to be like at sixty-five they shove us out the door and say, “Thanks, here’s your gold watch now go home.” It’s a sense of purpose. I love getting up in the morning and knowing I got a project that’s going to make the farm better, but it’s great, yeah, rather than a grind, “Not another day.”

Sekiya Billman
So describe like a typical day on the farm for you.

Robb Thorstenson 06:01
Oh, it depends. I mean, during seasons, everything is, is devoted to, you know, from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, it’s devoted to making sure everyone’s having a good time. So, my job, fueling up tractors, fixing things, I used to have, like a set job on the farm where I’d be driving a wagon or something. I don’t do that anymore. I’ll give people breaks during the day, so I don’t really have a typical day. It’s all kinds of chores, things breaking. I get to fix some, maintenance, stuff like that. And then in the off season, slows out a bunch. I get to sleep in a little bit more. I get up at eight or nine. In those days, we work on projects. So, we’ll have, usually a couple big projects we’re trying to get done by the following season, and then also whatever areas we have, trying to step them up. So, everything begins when people come back, the next season starts to look a little better, but it’s a lot of work. I mean, when I was trading commodities, I was in there at seven thirty trading oil. I was done at one o’clock in the afternoon. So, I mean, I had endless free time. I don’t have that so much anymore, but I sure do like what I’m doing. So yeah, and that’s the whole thing. It’s not like a job where you, you know, you know what you’re going to do every single day. It is. It’s a little something different. Um, so, yeah, today I’m, I will be going, after this, going down to Union County to try to get a water and septic permit. So, it’s, and then I’ll do accounting, and I’ll do, you know, taxes are later. I have organic certification coming up in a week and a half. So, paperwork tonight, more stuff. So, it’s not just farming, it’s all the other small business stuff.

Sekiya Billman
Right. What kind of crops do you grow here?

Robb Thorstenson
We start with strawberries in the spring, and that, when that shifts over to blueberries in June. So, through it, through June, we got blueberries. And then that also mixes in with our sunflower season. That usually wraps up sometime mid to late July, August we’ll take off. It’s just too hot to be on the farm. And then we’ll get back into September. And we do pumpkins, just adding Christmas trees this year too. So, our pumpkin suppliers up in the mountains, we’ve been asking for Christmas trees for a couple years. We set aside six hundred, a trailer full of them this year. So, we’ll finish up with, with Christmas trees in around Thanksgiving time.

Sekiya Billman
What are your farming operations and how have they changed over the years?

Robb Thorstenson
They have changed remarkably little. They, most my job’s not farming. And when I do farming stuff, I’ll do the hard: laying plastic rows, running crews, things like this, the more difficult jobs. But as far as like farming operations, so much of it is I don’t really do the labor anymore. I facilitate the labor. I’ll make sure everyone has gloves and shovels and all that different stuff, and then watch them as they do the work. But as far as like, what kind of farming operations do I do? My job is to do as little of that as possible and farm it on, farm it out. I got a father-in-law who loves driving the tractor. I don’t mind tilling and disking and doing these things. Put on a podcast. Wonderful way to spend an afternoon. He feels the same way. So, he does all that stuff. My farming operations come down to running irrigation, advanced tractor work, more stuff like that. If I can ship it off to somebody else for almost any job, I will. I’m lazy. (laughs) Or I’m trying to be.

Sekiya Billman 09:42
And what, what, how do you use irrigation? What do you do for irrigation?

Robb Thorstenson
Oh, yeah, well, we, we run drip irrigation for everything. We have a well on property. It’s fantastic. It pumps nonstop, twenty-four seven, so it’s, we’re really lucky, wonderful water. So, yeah, everything is run through drip, drip irrigation. We’ll set that up: all our crops pretty much. We do have some field crops, but blueberries, we’re dripping them right now and feeding them fish (?) as we speak. It’s been really dry, so yeah, having irrigation, the ability to drip, makes all the difference in the world. I used to get jealous watching other folks who had overhead. You need a lot bigger pump and different things. But being organic, it’s, we don’t want to. A lot of people do frost protection. I know if you’ve seen the orchards and stuff when it’s freezing, and they’ll spray water on it and it freezes, but somehow manages to keep things just warm enough. I don’t know exactly the science behind it, but, you know, I know farmers do it all the time. They’ll run giant sprinklers when it freezes. And I used to think, oh, boy, that would be wonderful. But as an organic grower, keeping things dry is paramount. So, all these, it tends to be a little extra work, but not having overhead irrigation is fine. So yeah, everything is dripped, so we use very little water compared to the average farm here at Wise Acres.

Sekiya Billman
Can you tell me about how hard it is to farm strawberries organically?

Robb Thorstenson
Oh, it’s terrible. No, yeah, no, it’s absolutely awful. (laughs) So we’re shifting, like blueberries are a native plant. So, we’re, we put those in after the strawberries. Pawpaws are next. We’re going to be putting in a ton of pawpaws. Another native thing is blackberries are another thing we’re looking at doing native as well. Strawberries are not. It’s not as bad as apples. I don’t think to grow in deaning spray (?), but, yeah, they’re really hard. They’re not native. They’re grown on the ground. Oh, you know, there’s been the hardest thing is, there’s a brand-new disease. It’s been around for a while, but it’s called Neo-P. Just sprung up this year. Really virulent. It basically wiped out the entire nursery business on the East Coast.

Sekiya Billman 12:00
Can you tell me, I’m sorry, what is it?

Robb Thorstenson
It’s [Neopestalotiopsis] or something. It’s called, if you do Neo-P, you’ll see all about it. Absolutely destroyed the strawberry. Its’s been around for a couple years. We had it last year. I tested and it was there, and it really hurt our strawberry crops. We almost certainly had it the year before. Just didn’t know. But yeah, it’s out there. So, all these nurseries up and down the East Coast pretty much got wiped out. We had to cancel our order and put in a last-minute order from California. So, they sent these out from California. I have a machine that normally helps me plant. Couldn’t do that this year. These have to be done by hand. So, we had anywhere from ten to fifteen people out at a crack: friends, family crew all. We got them all planted in a couple days. But, yeah, no, that was been and it’s tough because, you know, you read about so much of this stuff from NC State is devoted to conventional farmers. And it’ll be like, you need a class two [pesticide], you know, and then a class four fungicide, and they’re listing all these things you put on it, and there just isn’t anything we can do. Clemson did a study, and there’s a hydrogen peroxide product called Oxidate. So, they’re like, it’s used all throughout organic farming to kill pathogens, viruses, stuff like that, completely ineffective. So, it sounds like there’s one called Howler that might work. But compared to, like, you know, all the arrows in a quiver of an organic or a non-organic conventional farmer, we just, we just got to hope, you know, hope our plants are clean, hope our field is okay, because once they’re out there, there’s just nothing we can do about this Neo-P. And conventional farmers are having a real tough time with it as well. No matter how much they spray, they’re still seeing losses. Say, last year were terrible losses throughout the farm. So, it’s tough because, you know, especially when it comes to stuff like that, we just don’t have anything to control molds and funguses the way other folks do. As far as fertilizing, oh, fertilizers are great. I wouldn’t use conventional fertilizers, even if I could. I think what we’re giving is a lot better. Rotating crops is just a good idea. So, I love the idea of being organic. But yeah, strawberries are tricky. Other ones, blueberries, pawpaw sound relatively easy in comparison, you don’t have to, we don’t spray, but we’re looking at, finally buying some of this Howler stuff and see if we need to spray our strawberries this spring with something organic. Because it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s been a nasty one. So yeah, organic strawberries are, are difficult. We’re, we’re actually the largest organic strawberry grower in North Carolina, as far as I can tell. Can you believe that? So, little two-acre plot. [It] used to be a place called Vollmer farm. That’s where I went and actually learned how to do it, just. Yeah, and they quit strawberries, and got hit by hail a couple years in a row, and total crop losses. So, they stopped growing strawberries, and they concentrate on blue and blackberries. And then the agritourism stuff. So, yeah, difficult. Challenging. (laughs)

Sekiya Billman 15:10
So, you mentioned you use crop covers.

Robb Thorstenson
Yes.

Sekiya Billman
And how else do you keep the soil healthy, and, you know, prevent runoff?

Robb Thorstenson
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, we do crop covers as soon as we plant. So, we do till. So, you’ll probably bump into some no till farmers. A lot of that, though, requires pesticides, things like, or not pesticides, herbicides, Roundup and different stuff, which are strictly prohibitive for us. So, we have to till, and we have to get everything prepared for the beds. What exactly was the question? I’m sorry.

Sekiya Billman
I will find it. I’ll be very precise about it. Yes.

Robb Thorstenson
I should remember myself.

Sekiya Billman
Sorry.

Robb Thorstenson
No, you’re all good.

Sekiya Billman
No, just, how do you prevent soil runoff?

Robb Thorstenson
There you go. So, we use plastic mulch, so when we make the beds, so we’ll grind it all and till it up over a couple weeks, plastic mulch on top, we make raised beds under plastic so that stays there. I don’t know if we consider it a renewable resource. It’s wood chips. So, we’ll get wood chips delivered from local tree companies, you know, giant loads of them, and then we take those, and we dump them out in the rows. As soon as those rows are pulled, we get wood chips on to prevent erosion. And it’s really key for us, because if we get a big rain and a windstorm right off the bat before we do this, there’s a good chance the water washes off the plastic, the wind picks up the plastic and throws it all over the place. I’ve seen it up in trees at other farms. Yeah, yeah, a lot of conventional folks, what they’ll typically do, they’ll do that same thing with the plastic beds, and then they put out some sort of rye grass that they will mow, and then they’ll spray it and stunt it with some sort of herbicide. They don’t want to kill it; they just want to stop it from growing. And then they’ll leave that in the beds. Problems is it takes, you know, a few weeks for that grass to grow up, and in the meantime, if you get a rainstorm that’s all washed away. So, we do that in our fields. Try to keep them covered with cover crops, nonstop. So as soon as something leaves, something else is on the ground. That’s another big one we do. We’re also starting to do some stuff where we: permaculture concepts, where there’s water is draining, trying to plant things along contour so you can kind of dam up the water, so it soaks into the ground over a period of time rather than just rinsing away. So, we’ll make little dams. That’s what we’re going to be doing with our pawpaw crop. Doesn’t work so well with strawberries. You want those to stay dry, but yeah, being able to soak in the ground, that’s another thing we’re going to be doing, and that stops erosion as well.

Sekiya Billman
Can you tell me about your organic certification process?

Robb Thorstenson 18:00
Yeah, it’s just about to start again. So, it took us three years to get the original one. They figure in that amount of time whatever they put on the ground before is pretty much washed away. And for us, what it requires is about this time of year they come out. We have to have a big, long plan. It’s about thirty pages long, explaining why we’re doing what we’re doing, crop rotations, detail of all the inputs we use, dates and everything else. It’s, it’s a lot of record keeping. Thankfully, we don’t have that many crops, so it’s pretty easy for us. Mary at Windcrest Farm. She’s another organic grower who grows, (laughs) I don’t know how many crops and hers. It’s a spreadsheet. It’s a monster Excel program, and I don’t even know how she could possibly do it. So, our certification is a lot easier. They come out, they’ll soil test they have in the past, checking for stuff. Think they did that one year. They walk around the property, they look at your, your sheds, see where all your seed and everything else is stored. Check on receipts. Yeah, it’s, it’s like a full out audit, and it takes all day long.

Sekiya Billman
And who do you get your certification through?

Robb Thorstenson
Ours is through QCS: Quality Certification Services. Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of different ones that get themselves licensed through the USDA, and then we have to pay to do it, and then we get a cost share too. So, there’s a program out there where you can write into, I forget who it is, but they will help pay for some of your certification costs.

Sekiya Billman
I see. What changes have you observed in the people involved in agriculture, or in the crops themselves?

Robb Thorstenson
Well, weather is changing. We’re seeing crop planting dates for strawberries keep getting pushed back. It seems to be accelerating. So, people were talking about in the past, but now it, I mean this weather right today. What is it? I don’t know, mid-seventies? It’s lovely out there. I mean, if you’re not concerned about global warming, it’s great. So, these plants we’re planting are called cut offs, and you know, they’re different, and by the time they hit dormancy, you want your plant to be about the size of a dinner plate. And normally you have to pull row covers on leave them out there for a month or so to push this crop along. We’re not going to have to at all. By the time we hit dormancy, we’re going to be at that. In a couple weeks, we’ll be at this dinner plate or the salad plate size, where we want to be. We don’t have to pull row covers at all. So yeah, that’s one thing. It is definitely warming up. I don’t have a historical perspective on a lot of the stuff. One thing I will tell you, though, is coming from Wall, like the floors and trading on the floors, farmers are way nicer than anybody I met down there. They are way more willing to cooperate. This Neo-P thing. I got a call from Kevin Hall at Hall Family Farm back in, he’s like, “Are you watching this Neo-P this year? It’s terrible.” And then I heard from Ivy Place. And he said, “Yeah, we done cut offs.” You know? This is how they worked. Mary lined up, at Windcrest. She lined up the stuff. I tell you, I’m going to get permits. That was Bonnie from Aw Shucks. She’s competition too. You know? She does the exact same thing. She said, “Yeah, this is,” she gave me someone to facilitate in an ABC permit. So, it’s your beer with tacos. I mean, they’re all just, everyone is, it’s shocking. I mean, because when I was there before, don’t look at my algorithm. You’re going to, you know, don’t look at my positions. Don’t do any of this stuff like I don’t, you know. And everyone was so paranoid. In here, everyone is just so open, there’s a community and not a competition. And I don’t know if that’s the way it is everywhere, but I’ve been blown away at what a difference it is dealing with farmers rather than other traders on the floor. (laughs) I don’t miss them. (laughs) Oh, just imagine type A alpha males, as far as the eye can see, and, oh yeah, anger management issues everywhere. It’s a different world.

Sekiya Billman 22:09
What are some of the common challenges that you’re finding that everyone is experiencing?

Robb Thorstenson
We’ve been pretty lucky, like I said, like, if you’re starting out, financing, I imagine would be all but impossible. I don’t think banks. I don’t, unless you get family and friends involved, I don’t know who’s going to really help you finance. Yeah, so I imagine that’s, that would be an incredible challenge. These days, farms, these new farmers, are on shoestring budgets, and, you know, being able to afford a tractor, or any of these things. You know, they put all that money into land. So that is one thing, having free cash flow to keep the farm going. We’re in a good situation, but I know so many farmers are just struggling with that. Labor was a huge problem at first. It took me probably two years to find a decent crew that come out and help. The amount of physical labor I did those first two or three years was a lot. Too much. So labor was an issue. We’re staffed up now wonderfully. I think we built a pretty good reputation. So now the labor comes looking for us. So, it’s, it’s someone had a sister who worked here, and a brother before. So, it’s, it stays in the family. There’s moms and daughters, all kinds of stuff working out here. So that has gone away. The labor issue is not what it used to be. That was certainly one. Now we’re having issues with local government. They are, we are looking for ways to expand revenue. There’s only so much you can do on forty acres, growing crops. And now, you know, we’re going to be a generational farm, with our kids coming back to help, at least a couple of them to help us. So, we got to carve out some income. Beer is a wonderful way to do it, serving along with, you know, any restaurant you go and find beer, but they’re being sticklers. Water, sewer, you know, things most people, these municipal services, a lot of people just take for granted. Union County Water is, it’s been challenging. We can’t get water. So, we’ve begged, you know, it’s right out here. Both lines run underneath. But unless we’re willing to sell it to a developer who will then, you know, annex in Indian Trail, and then we can get water. So, it seems people are going to want to get sewer out here, we’re going to have to sell a little developer who can, then, you know, do a giant project and tap into it. So that’s been our latest challenge is kind of dealing with the county government. I don’t think they’re really built to, set up for agritourism ventures. They know restaurants and they know McDonald’s, and they know what a classic farm is, where people are, you know, rotating corn and beans. They understand that perfectly well. But the idea like, we have to get original. We have to find different ways to make money outside of just growing commodity. And they just don’t seem to want to cooperate as much. Yeah. Think a lot of it is they think we’re trying to weasel our way around the rules. You know, by being a farm, there are certain advantages at the state level to doing it. You know, you get to, don’t have to do zoning stuff, certain building codes, you don’t have to apply. So, I think a lot of it is they think we’re trying to, like, sneak around the rules by becoming a farm, not realizing, like we are where we’re at. We can’t move to seventy-four to some commercial district. You know, we’re a farm. We were lucky to find this place. We can’t move and do it somewhere else. It’s got to happen here. So that’s been our latest challenge is dealing with the municipal government.

Sekiya Billman 25:34
Is there any government entity that is a help in any way?

Robb Thorstenson
Oh, the state has been, oh, it’s municipal, county level. It’s been just challenging. I think they just got a lot to do, and they’re not set up for us. Oh no, the Extension Service, the greatest. NC State, the support we’ve seen at the state level has been wonderful. Even at the federal level. We have a big greenhouse. They call them a high tunnel through the EQIP program [Environmental Quality Incentives Program]. They basically gave it to us. We put about ten percent down, and the rest was done by them. So, there are all kinds of programs at the state and federal level. This pawpaw one, we’re applying for a grant to buy the trees. You know, we’re going to do the rest. But there is all kinds of help at the state and federal level. If you go talk to the land grant universities, Clemson, even Virginia Tech, it doesn’t necessarily have to be NC State. They’re wonderful. There’s support everywhere. The only challenge has been, I think, because they’re having a hard time keeping water and sewer for regular, you know, for all the developing going on that, taking the time to put it for a single resident kind of thing would be, they just don’t have time. I don’t think.

Sekiya Billman
And have you been seeing development in this area as well as Charlotte? I mean, I know what it’s like in Charlotte, but it has it just been like, a major issue?

Robb Thorstenson
Yeah, well, it’s, it’s, it’s like crashing around us. So, it’s, you should watch, and there’s, there’s a Publix coming down here. It’s a brand new, big, and then I think a Harris Teeter at the end of the street. All, everything around us is being developed. We’re going to have three hundred neighbors in our backyard. They’re building that right now, yeah, all kinds of stuff. So, we will be surrounded, in a couple years, completely surrounded so being able to expand your farm, like I had an uncle, like I said up in Minnesota, and he, every year he’d buy something and keep adding to farm, couple acres, one hundred acres here, a few hundred there. We can’t do that. Yeah, it’s, it is, development is everywhere, which as an agritourism venture, means they’re customers. So, it’s not, I don’t bemoan it. They have every right to do it. It’s just kind of frustrating, though. And we’ve been here waiting for water and sewer, and, you know, DR Horton goes in next door and (snaps fingers), you know, and we don’t need that much. You know, we’re not going to irrigate our fields with it or anything else. We just want bathrooms, (laughs) just bathrooms and getting that, yeah, yeah. Or I imagine they’re all set up with their water next door. So, yeah, it’s happening, but it’s in property values. I think that’s a big reason we’re seeing so much of it happen. The property value says, it’s exploded. So, Charlotte in general, we just had a bypass put in while we were here. So, there’s an exit to that about a mile and a half. That’s probably how you got out here. And now all these nodes, as you head down towards Monroe and Marshville, wherever these exits are, development is popping up around them, like, like flowers in the spring. So yeah, we get calls nonstop, and it’s not just local folks. It’s hedge funds in California. It’s private equity in New York. I don’t know how or why, but yeah, we get at least two or three calls a week from different developers. And, like I said, not just like Moser and the people around here, but all over the place. So, yeah.

Sekiya Billman 29:08
So how many people do you have working here? And you know, seasonally, you know, all year round, what’s your staff look like?

Robb Thorstenson
It’s almost all seasonal. During the season, we probably have twenty-five employees working at the farm between everything else. Off seasons, we have probably two regular workers, but not really, twenty hours a week. I have wonderful crew. They they’re all church members down in Monroe. So, they get together, they’ll come out on Saturdays. So, they’ll be out actually this Saturday. We’ll have probably eight folks up this Saturday, and they’ll be doing the early weeding. It’s wonderful, yeah. So, it really varies in the wintertime. It’s mostly just Cathy and I poking around. If we need some help, we will get it. Things slow down. And then the summertime, it’s a lot more active. There will be people, probably three to four people on the farm every day, and other employees, besides us, doing things. So, it really goes with the seasons. So come Thanksgiving, when we’re finished with the Christmas trees, things slow down dramatically. I mean, I can’t sit still for too long, but I can sleep in, I can take a nap. I can go into town and go for dinners. I like that time of season, but yeah, no, it’s good. Yeah, we get to do what we want.

Sekiya Billman
And so, you mentioned that your kids are involved?

Robb Thorstenson
Thrilled. Yeah, well, two out of three. So, our oldest, actually, she is soldier in the US Army right now. She is, yeah, she’s up at Fort Belvoir. She is helping soldiers with mental health problems, works in a hospital. She is done in sixty-seven days, so she’ll be coming back. Can’t wait. She’s already got tons of plans. So, she knew she wanted to do this from the start. We kind of make the birdies fly the nest and, you know, figure out a little bit in the real world. So yeah, she is. Her twin sister is getting her master’s degree in Chapel Hill, so she will not be joining us on the farm. She is city folk, but yeah, she’s a great, she wants to stay in North Carolina. She’s going to be close. And then the youngest, she’s wrapping up school down here. She’s going to get her associate’s degree and high school degree, kind of wrapped up in one. Yeah, so she’ll be off to school, but she definitely wants to come back here too and work the farm, especially since she gets a chance to be with her sister. They yeah, they all get along wonderfully. So that is wonderful. So, we’re psyched, I mean, and it’s such a big deal for farmers that I talk to, these, especially the generational places where it’s been handed down, and they see themselves as this caretaker. And I know a few where the kids aren’t interested, and it breaks their heart, just because, you know, for generations, they put, you know, their blood, sweat and tears into this farm, and then they know that it’s going to go to a developer, it’ll be housing, or it’ll be a strip mall, or it’s going to be something else. It’s not going to be a farm. You know, when people are buying land around this area, no one’s doing it to farm. No one. I mean, no one. It just wouldn’t make any sense. So, yeah, (laughs) they put a pencil to paper and try to justify building a farm in this neighborhood. Never could do it.

Sekiya Billman 32:39
So, I’d love to talk about agritourism and how you invite and involve community on your farm. Can you tell me a little bit about why you got interested in that? What’s great about it?

Robb Thorstenson
I love the farm because it’s like our forty acres of sanity. You know, you read the papers, whatever side you’re on, and it’s just, it’s a lot. So, I love having the farm, and we get all kinds of notes from people about, like, thanking us for like, it’s like, feels like a sanctuary to a lot of people, where they get to come out and, and forget the problems, and forget what’s on the front page, and just turn off their phones. And I see people out here laughing and hanging out with family and putting their phones, they’re not out there tapping on their phones. And I get such a sense of reward that I never felt from another job. But Cathy, you’d be better off talking to her, but yeah, the refugee centers and all kinds of people come on out. We host school tours nonstop, and it’s great seeing these kids. Like, “Where the where are the strawberry trees?” Like, “Oh, son, hold on.” (laughs) But it’s wonderful being able to teach something. I don’t know that much about agriculture compared to a lot of other farmers, but being able to share what I do know with these kids, wonderful. And most of all, though, just watching people enjoy themselves, and knowing that I’m the one that and Cathy, we facilitated this. You know, if it weren’t for us, you know, this would be housing development, and who knows what these people be doing this weekend. But instead, they’re here. And yeah, so that, that sense of community, where people can come out here, and probably would disagree out there in the real world, as I like to think of it, but you know, here on our little forty acres, they can get along for a bit. So yeah, I love that, that sense of community, and the people who come, I think, are pretty happy to be here. We don’t have to deal with a lot of the customer service problems that I’ll go out and I’ll see happening at other places where I see people kind of venting at cashiers or other stuff. It’s not their fault. And I think people kind of understand out here, so we don’t get, we don’t have to do that. We’re customer service. But I’ve don’t have customer service like other people have customer service. People are very understanding. I think they’re willing to cut us a little slack. They see we’re trying pretty hard. So that’s nice, too. It’s, I didn’t have such a cheerful gang to get up to when I back when I was trading on the floors. It was pretty cutthroat. So having customers, who are, you know, in your corner, it’s great. It is really it’s a community,

Sekiya Billman 35:27
Yeah, that’s wonderful. You feel supported by the community. And what about, like, the immediate community here? How do you get along with your neighbors? Have there been any?

Robb Thorstenson
It has been wonderful, yeah, the neighborhoods we, you know, they all come over and they’re customers on the farm, but like the, the immediate neighbors, yeah, they’re so happy we’re here. We know them all. And when you have a 70-horsepower tractor, you make friends with the neighbors pretty quick. So, you know, we help them out. We understand, like, there’s all these cars coming down. It used to be twenty years ago, nothing. You know, it used to be quiet. Nobody around, and so we’ve changed things. But I think they understand that the change is coming, and it could either be a farm or it could be, what’s coming? EMS center. So, there’s going to be sirens down the roads and stuff. So, I think they understand like, yeah, it’s, it’s dusty sometimes, and there’s some traffic. But, you know, we listen to them, if they got a problem, that’s the last thing I want to do is upset my neighbors. I get so, yeah, no problems we the only one would have been maybe five or six years ago. We forgot to send someone on the corner to park cars. So parked cars are up and down the street. We goofed up, we apologized, and they understood. But short of that, it hasn’t, yeah, we get along great with the neighbors, so that has not been a problem. I have heard other places that have not. Usually, it tends to be along the lines of parking too. I know like the Renaissance Fair, there’s been another farm down in Monroe, I’ve heard about the Whitewater Center, like when they have these big events, like the neighbors just going nuts. We don’t have that problem. We don’t have people parking on the street. With reservations, it’s nice too, we can keep that madness under control. I think the ones without reservations are where it really can get out of control.

Sekiya Billman
Right, and you started the reservation system during like, lockdown.

Robb Thorstenson
Yeah, oh, yeah, that’s exactly right. Yeah. We were, we were getting to the point where we didn’t know exactly what we were going to do. It was going to come to that too. We’re a tiny little farm and Charlotte’s a big and growing city, and not many organic places to go pick. So, we knew that something had to change. So yeah, no, we did a reservation system called Bookeo during lockdown, and it worked wonderfully. We used to have just terrible problems. People would start showing up on a Saturday at eight thirty in the morning, and they would be rolling in madly until about nine thirty and everyone’s out in the fields, they’re racing to get these berries. Lines. It was, it was, it was a nightmare. That transformed our business. We will never go back to not doing reservations. We just, we simply can’t, unless it’s an off-season kind of thing. But anytime we have strawberries or blueberries or pumpkins, reservations are an absolute necessity. Otherwise, it just gets out of control.

Sekiya Billman 38:19
How many visitors do you get on your farm?

Robb Thorstenson
I think we get about twenty-five hundred in a day. I think that sounds about right. Ava will sell four hundred pizzas a day. We do all kinds of tacos. So yeah, it gets busy, and that’s our busiest days. Strawberries, we’re limited by the number, that’s fall. Strawberries we’re limited by the number of however many berries. It can be a few hundred, so, so up to maybe a thousand on a busy Saturday for strawberries, because, again, we can only grow so many. We get so many pumpkins from the mountains we can: it’s our parking lots, it’s the corn pit. It’s hayrides. Determines how many people come in the fall and the spring, it’s about strawberry. So, yeah, no, twenty-five hundred people would be a busy day in the fall.

Sekiya Billman
Tell me about: where do I have my question here? You know, working with Wise Pie Pizzas and Tacos by Maria. Can you tell me how that all came about?

Robb Thorstenson
Well, the whole idea for a pizza farm, it’s a big thing in the Midwest. I did not know this. Go figure. And Cathy was being interviewed for a book about female farmers. And the author of the book came down, and she was talking about pizza farms that they, you know, they’ll serve pizza, and a lot of times they’ll grow ingredients, and even grow ingredients in the shape of a pizza to kind of let people know where your, we didn’t go quite that far, but, yeah, the idea of having pizza was wonderful. We knew Ava was friends of ours in Chicago, and she is originally from Atlanta, and I know she was desperate to get back south, so she ran a steakhouse back in Chicago. So, she had tons of experience. I did not know what I was, you know, Cathy, and I never really had any experience doing that. So brought Ava on board. She handles it all. I again, I facilitate, do a couple things to help out, but she runs the restaurant. And then most of our businesses, they get paid an hourly wage like everybody else, and then at the end, we cut them in on profits. So, she’s, all our, Prani does it with flowers. Ava does it with pizza. Maria does it with tacos. The extra profits, we cut them in. I was trained as an economist, so I love incentivizing stuff. (laughs) So and they, they, you know, they’re thrilled, so they get cut in on the profits too. Yeah, it just kind of started out, we, I bought a cheap trailer. Is used in the first Gulf War. They drag it behind Humvees so it had nice big, you could put a lot of weight on it and then built a giant, ordered it from California. It’s like a kit, and it just kind of fits together like a puzzle. And throw some stucco on top and started cooking pizzas off it. So yeah, it’s been wonderful. And again, it’s just ways that we can make money that we don’t have to grow something or start chopping down trees to make extra fields, or because we’re really limited in that aspect. So, finding other ways to make money that don’t require growing something? Yeah, we love it, and it’s fantastic pizza. Who’d think you’d go to a farm and find a great pizza? So, Ava knows what she’s doing. She does it really well. The freshest ingredients. There’s no Sargento on it. It’s local cheese and it’s local ingredients. So, yeah, it’s been wonderful. And again, we fill that up every reservation. She cooks as many pizzas as she physically can. She can’t make any more unless we make more ovens or more space. So that’s great with the reservations too, because it’s not like a restaurant where people are rolling in and you have to figure out stuff. She knows at the beginning of the day exactly how many pizzas she’s going to make and what they’re going to be. It’s like an assembly line, and she’s churning them out nonstop, and she’s awesome. (laughs) It is so much fun watching because I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have the first clue. I would be a disaster if I was down there. So that’s been wonderful for business. Yeah.

Sekiya Billman 42:39
Fantastic. Have there been unexpected ways in which your previous work life and your education has come in handy, you know, in kind of unexpected ways in your life here as a farmer?

Robb Thorstenson
I mean, yeah, but I don’t know how much trading has to. Yeah, not so much, trying to think, not really. I, the ability to ask people questions and ask for help, something I probably was a little intimidated before my other job, and once I got on the floors, I learned that skill. So being able to ask for help has been a huge one. But no, you know, and I, the small business part of it, the math and the financing and stuff, yeah, that’s definitely helped. And, you know, understanding where the money’s coming from and where it’s going, huge part of the business. But as far as, like, helping you with farming, not really (laughs) at all. Like I, I’m very rarely out there running regressions in the field. (laughs) Thankfully. I think I did that for a reason. I didn’t want to do that stuff anymore. I think I probably purposely got away from it, just because twenty years was enough.

Sekiya Billman
What is an aspect of farming that people wouldn’t consider or is misunderstood by the general public?

Robb Thorstenson
I don’t know. I think there’s probably a lot of it, where we used to be so connected to farms. They used to be part of the family. Everyone grew up on it. This area, at least we’re not, there’s no real farms the way they kind of used to be. People will lease out land to farmers, and they’ll come in and do a few acres here and few there, but it’s not traditional farming the way it used to be. I think that’s at the county level. They don’t particularly understand. Like, if you’re going to keep farms around, you kind of have to open up the playbook and let us try some different things. That’s where we’ve had the big problem is trying to get people at the county level to understand, yeah, we’re a farm, so we’re going to be growing stuff in the field, but we need all kinds of sources of income to keep this place going. We can’t just do it growing berries. So that’s been a hard one, relaying that to the local officials. But as far as our customers, yeah, I don’t, I don’t really know, because I, yeah, that’s a tough one. That’s a tough one.

Sekiya Billman 45:10
What do you see for the future of Wise Acres?

Robb Thorstenson
Oh yeah, we’re going to keep growing, pawpaws are next. Oh yeah, we’re going to start. We want to keep the trees. So eventually we’re going to have a bigger beer garden. That’ll be out in the woods as well. And it looks like we may be able, have a better chance of accessing sewer down there. Bathrooms. I would love bathrooms. You know, we’re working on season extensions, finding ways maybe we can stay open later, during Halloween, or even this fall, we’re looking at maybe doing some televised sports, serving tacos, letting people watch college hoops. Got great college hoops, wonderful colleges here in North Carolina. So, finding ways of stretching out the seasons is going to be a big one. Bailey’s big project. She’s going to do a giant animal area. That’s one thing we’ve noticed is if you’re going to have an agritourism place, you’ve got to have animals. They love them. So, she’s going to do a much bigger animal area. We’re going to bring in, she loves animals, so she’s going to take over that completely, bring in donkeys and others, you know, some bigger animals. So, a much nicer experience. And put it out in the woods so it’s shaded as well. So that is going to be a big one she wants to work on. Eventually, I want to do a putt-putt golf course, but that’s years down the line. (laughs) But yeah, all kinds of stuff. Just keep growing and finding ways to, you know, increase revenue, but at the same time not losing sight of what we’re doing as a farm, you know, not straying too far from that mission of, you know, a place for people to hang out and find good, healthy food.

Sekiya Billman
If you could give your past self one warning, what would it be?

Robb Thorstenson
One warning. You know, the thing is, we have gotten so lucky. I, we picked the right place. There’s not, just by random luck. I love the neighborhood. We don’t flood. We don’t and it’s not because I was real smart getting into it. We just kind of lucked into it, and Cathy and I have been on the same page. That’s been a problem with other farmers, the workload and some different stuff, it takes its toll, and it’ll happen to us too. You know, when we’re in the, you know, the midst of a season and everything’s going, yeah, we’re not always, you know, we’ll snap at each other like anyone else, but we’re on the same page. So that’s been good. Warnings. Well, the one thing is, I would never grow hemp again. That was our worst mistake we ever did on the farm. Again, it was being encouraged by the state. It just started with the CBD program. So, we grew it, and it was beautiful, and it was, I mean, the test results were outstanding, and the plants were gorgeous. Smelled like college. It made you smell like (inhales) (laughs) anyway. So, it all worked out great. But then come harvest time, it was endless people coming from Charlotte, South Carolina, all over the place, guns, shots were fired at the house. Oh yeah, I walked outside, flipped on the lights, and they shot through the trees above me. The kindergarten class after all this. So, they were out there ripping plants out, running everywhere, cops, all this stuff. So that was just pretty short-sighted on this one. So, it was all over. We finally got this stuff out of here, drying and at the processing plant, I had been up, hadn’t had more than maybe ten hours of sleep in three or four days. You know, because every night they’re coming. Finally finished, and then we hear from the elementary school. The kindergarten class went on a walk right after all this happened: loaded gun, revolver laying right there, just like, “Oh.” So that was one. Don’t chase the money. So, hemp, we will never grow that. Ginseng. I’ve heard the same problems. It sounds fun to grow, but again, it’s such a high value crop, people come on your property and if they see it, steal it. So, no one’s ever shot at me for my strawberries. So that if I was to tell myself one thing, it’s yeah, don’t go chasing money and some, and some hot crop. Be careful.

Sekiya Billman 49:47
Wow that is a story. That is.

Robb Thorstenson
Yeah, I had no idea. No idea.

Sekiya Billman
Was that sort of early on in your…

Robb Thorstenson
That might have been like year four. So, yeah, it was right after they, um, finally allowed it for North Carolina farmers to grow hemp for CBD. And, oh boy, that was a nightmare. Yeah, so that was early on, yeah, yeah. That was rough.

Sekiya Billman
So, my last question is: What advice would you give for people who have just been doing this for a few years, or just starting farming, agritourism, either, either one?

Robb Thorstenson
Yeah, have a life outside the farm. It’s easy to get, you know, and I’ve still, I’m still struggling with that, finding ways to get off the farm, especially during seasons. But having a life and having doing things other than farming is pretty important. Yeah, it’s going to cost more than you think, so make sure you have some savings, because I, that’s another one that happens is, things, something happens, and it’s something’s always going to happen. And unless you have a little bit of savings there to fix that tractor or repair whatever, life can get really, really difficult. So that’s, that’s something too to think about, is, yeah, it’s, it’s always more expensive than you think, and money’s tied up. It’s kind of always been applied to farmers. They’ve had to borrow money to get the crop in, and then, you know, they they’re not able to pay it off until the end. And if they don’t, and they borrow from a bank or something. That’s how farmers really get troubles, borrowing to put in their crops. So that’s another thing. So, yeah, that people don’t tend to think about, they think about buying the land, and that’s just the start. No, you have farming background.

Sekiya Billman
No, I’m actually else I’m going to stop this. Okay, so much. Oh, yeah, yeah. I.