Two MBAs who graduated this year from Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley are turning their love for small farming and social enterprise into a business that will feed a growing trend – small farming for urbanites.
Farmcation, which will provide experiences for ‘guests’ such as volunteering, visits to small farms, and cooking classes using local ingredients, was formed in late 2015 by Caitlyn Toombs and Grace Lesser.
Lesser, who grew up on a non-working farm in western Massachusetts, was inspired to learn the craft of farming when she and her husband embarked on an enormous project. For their wedding, they decided that they would provide food for their 240 guests by raising it themselves on the grounds of her family land.
Lesser says, “It was amazing… We poured our blood, sweat and tears into turning over an acre.” The couple raised 65 chickens, along with beets, herbs, kale, potatoes, and greens.
Caitlyn Toombs — who is set to join Google at the end of the summer — and Lesser had bonded over their international development experience. They both held positions in the field before enrolling in the Berkeley-Haas MBA program in 2014. The two participated in Berkeley-Haas’ ‘Social Impact Disco’ in which the two were given the opportunity to form a business plan.
The two won $5,000 as a result of the school’s Dean’s Startup Seed Fund. To develop their plan, Toombs and Lesser relied upon the a team of interdisciplinary students, in addition to a class entitled ‘Eat. Think. Design’ to implement the startup.
Toombs said, “We want to help bring people closer to their source of food, to be more conscious consumers, and to create a better sense of community through food.”