Leveling the Planting Field

As one of few black woman- owner medicinal plants farms nationally, Green Heffa Farms seeks to expand our line of newly launched premium botanical blend teas. By increasing our capacity to process and store onsite, we will also be able to introduce onsite sales, expand educational offerings and launch our agritourism program. We seek to do more than just be a profitable business; we want to be a community and industry resource. Green Heffa Farms employs its 4Es guiding principles of Economic empowerment, Equity, Environment, and Education, By creating a replicable and sustainable farming business model, we will help to diversify the natural health and beauty supply chain by becoming a teaching farm. We will work with BIPOC farmers and growers, with a focus on women, to become raw goods suppliers for major brands in the industry.

We have successfully launched two tea products with much success - our sales have increased by more than 35000%. Yes, you read that number correctly. We have sold out several times due to limited processing capacity. 

I started Green Heffa Farms in 2018, on 15 acres of former tobacco land. I initially started as a monocrop hemp farm which did not allow for sustainable means of cultivation. Many, myself included, have been lured back to agriculture because of the CBD market.  The “more for your money” mindset does not always contribute to healthy environmental stewardship which ultimately affects business outcomes.  Furthermore, inequities in agriculture, the natural health and beauty industries, and in the cannabis/hemp industry cannot be addressed without there being increased support for BIPOC-owned farming businesses.

Farming is challenging - from understanding market demand to developing value add products to the collective need for increased resiliency to our changing climate. I quickly learned that there was a dearth of resources for farmers like me and set about not only to create my own farm but to help others who dreamed of starting, retaining, or expanding their own farming businesses. I brought my 20 years of marketing, branding, and fundraising experience to farming which has yielded tremendous results including a recent partnership with Gaia Herbs and an ongoing conversation with a major e-commerce membership-based retailer offering natural and organic food products. Green Heffa Farms has definitely generated a national media buzz as well including being featured in Oprah's O Magazine. Green Heffa Farms was the face of the groundbreaking Associated Press article on the 2018 Farm Bill, which landed us in more than 200 publications. I was also selected as the 2019 Featured Farmer for National Hemp History Week, the largest national media campaign for the federal legalization of industrial hemp. 

We have leveraged all dollars raised with both public funding sources and revenues. We are in the process of adding our second greenhouse and renovating a 150 sharecropper’s cabin to be our future tea laboratory. 

And we are still growing. We recently did a prelaunch on our first product, Brenda's Balm Hemp + Holy Basil Tea Blend. Named after my mother who was a beautiful grower, it has been met with considerable success.

We have purchased our first greenhouse which will expand our production capacity and all for outdoor classes. We have installed an access road AND we have also purchased a 150 year sharecropper's cabin that we are renovating to be used on our farm for a post-harvest/production facility and to teach small classes. We are launching this campaign to help with the expenses to grow - retrofitting our cabin and our greenhouse. Your support will not only help Green Heffa Farms but countless other women farmers, families and communities. Please help us level the planting field. Every contribution matters. Thank you!