Meet Brittney Rooney of Beaverland Farms

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Brittney Rooney.

Thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Beaverland Farms began in 2015 as an urban agroforestry market garden. As we built up the farm over the years, we expanded from solely offering produce to offering other products like pasture-raised chicken and fresh-cut flowers.

We all face challenges, but would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Living and farming in Detroit has been both the most challenging and most rewarding part of our farm’s journey. The balance between an urban environment and a natural one is delicate, both in the context of the land and the residents. Through the years, we’ve learned how to navigate and work with both.

Living and farming in Detroit provides an incredible opportunity to live out our farming dreams while having access to all a city offers. It also allows our community to enjoy food and flowers that were grown close to home, giving people a more environmentally friendly option than the grocery store. With this opportunity to farm in Detroit, we believe it’s our responsibility to educate folks when necessary on the benefits of eating local.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business.
We grow all our food and flowers in natural systems that value biological mechanisms and life processes over the use of chemical inputs like fertilizers and pesticides. Our practices are intended to mimic the complexity and resiliency of a natural ecosystem while yielding the highest-quality edible and floral products.

You can always feel good bringing our food and flowers into your home, knowing that they were grown with ecology at the forefront of our decisions, which is good for the environment and good for you.

In an attempt to make local products more accessible in our area, we are opening a Farm Store during our 2024 season. It will feature our food and flowers alongside other local products. Our hope is that people can come and get everything they need to make a meal with all locally sourced ingredients.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Any farm is only as strong and as healthy as its soil. For us, years of nutrient building with additions of compost and organic matter, shallow cultivation, and strategic disturbance have built an environment that supports a vibrant and diverse fungal network.

We value creating a community of like-minded people by building a space to host events and working with other local farms through our collaborative CSA. We believe in the continued growth and expansion of the products we offer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.beaverlandfarms.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beaverlandfarms/
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/beaverlandfarmsdetroit

Image Credits
Carrie Pitzer