Farmer Profile for Tom Peck

I have attached my professional resume for your review. As for my farming experience, I grew up, worked and helped manage an 80 acre hobby farm in Michigan. While I was there, we monocultured cash crops on 65 acres in traditional farming, utilized about 4 acres of silvopasture for hogs and goats, and then had traditional rotating pastures for steers, goats and sheep. While we did sell hogs and steers to local butchers for resale, my interest was mostly in goats at the time. We had a breeding population of goats, including boers for meat, and Alpines and Toggenburgs for dairy. I helped develop relationships with Muslim populations near Detroit to sell goats according to their halal requirements. I also marketed goats locally, and was decently successful in our ethnic communities. As part of this, I participated in 4-H and FFA, both in livestock and soil science. Through 4-H, I was granted an opportunity to go to Poland on an exchange trip, where I helped set up their small animal sale requirements and their goat program. It is through this visit that I learned more about the community centered vertical farm, and my interest grew, even as it laid dormant for a few years while trying for the “American Dream” I decided to leave the farm life for college, and spent nearly 10 years outside of agriculture attempting to make life work in Connersville, IN through various jobs. Recently divorced, I moved to our new family homestead in the UP of Michigan where we work within a community sharing co-op, with our emphasis on eggs, berries and cherries. We currently run about 50 egg laying hens, and are working on finishing out 10 turkeys. Utilizing regenerative processes, I was able to help increase our blackberry and overall garden yield by 10% in the first year. We currently have 10 acres usable for livestock, the rest is logged by us (private and community use), and in a year will be professionally logged for commercial use. For future goals, I want to create a sustainable regenerative farm which impacts its community food availability vertically instead of a monoculture. I would like to create a farm that would be able so provide an entire meal for local families, as well as provide educational opportunities for youth and at-risk populations. Running alongside of this, I would also like to work on restoring one or two heritage breeds, goats for sure and possibly cattle. I have a great love of husbandry and want to preserve multipurpose animals for family farms. I have two children (3 and 6) that I want to give the opportunity to be exposed to this way of life, and hopefully be part of the next generation of farmers that do not feel the need to become a monolith, instead be a holistic and vertical farm which becomes a bedrock of their community. In a nutshell, my goal is to create a vertical farm that feeds, protects and educates its community while being a blueprint for other community based farms in the Midwest and beyond. If you have any other questions, do not hesitate to contact me