‘The aggregate of it all is amazing’: FarmerJawn’s Christa Barfield on growing an urban farming business

If you live in Philadelphia, there’s a chance you’ve heard of FarmerJawn. 

“And the really cool thing is … a campaign called ‘reimagining the corner store’ … visit their website at Farmer Jawn …“

FamerJawn is a business that runs a CSA — a community-supported agriculture program that supplies seasonal produce to Philadelphians. And if you know this CSA, you probably know the brains behind the operation. 

Christa Barfield: Christa Barfield, and I am a farmer, CEO, and founder of FarmerJawn Agriculture.

Christa was raised in Germantown. She remembers growing up with a variety of fruits and vegetables in her house. But when Christa looked around her own neighborhood, she saw that those options were not affordable or accessible in her community. So, Christa became a farmer. At 30 years old, she started Viva Leaf Tea, an organic tea company. And then at 32, she started FarmerJawn and shortly took over greenhouses in Elkins Park. Just last year, she opened a storefront called FarmerJawn Greenery. 

Christa Barfield: I am a person that understands that yes, taking on a lot of things can either cause turmoil or it can be bliss. It’s either one or the other. And usually it’s a mixture of the two. And that has definitely been my experience. But it always ends up great. Which is what it’s supposed to be. So I, you know, whatever the outcomes are, even if the outcomes aren’t exactly positive, the aggregate of it all is amazing.

Her latest project returns to her roots — aiming to make fresh food even more accessible to communities like the one Christa grew up in.

Christa Barfield: I wanted to refocus my time and attention within the city. 

The project is called CornerJawn. In January of 2022, Christa learned that she would be selected to receive a grant, a lump sum to get this project off the ground — but there were strings attached. 

Christa Barfield: So the grant is interesting. I will say, we didn’t actually get any money as of yet.

I’m Nichole Currie, and this is Thriving — an audio documentary about our economic future together. 

I’ve been following 10 Philadelphians for a year to learn what it takes to make it in America. After a pandemic and so much social upheaval: What are the obstacles and opportunities we all face to economically thrive in the United States? Each person we’re following tells us something different about our collective future.

In this episode, Black professionals.

Black Americans usually reach high levels of success by relying on their own perseverance and support from their communities. But eventually, this group leans on outside resources to push them to the next level. That’s the case for Christa Barfield. Christa is using resources to grow her business and support ideas that she hopes will better her own community — but navigating this new kind of support is tricky. 

Christa Barfield: You know, you absorb things as a child that you don’t know that you’re absorbing until you’re in your own life, start to live your own life. And so I had definitely my mother, growing up with a single mother, and she just did all the things, like she made sure — she went to work every day and that was, you know, an achievement because she had to grind. And not only did she just go to work, but she kept bettering herself. 

When Christa was growing up, she greatly looked up to her mother. Christa’s mom didn’t just go to work and raise a family. 

Christa Barfield: Like, school is her thing. She calls herself a lifetime scholar. A respiratory therapist is what I know her original job to be when I was born … in healthcare. And then working her way up to a registered nurse, then working her way up to a nurse practitioner, to now a doctorate of nursing practice, to now being in school for her Ph.D. as it relates to education. 

Christa says the hidden lessons from her childhood are evident in her journey as an entrepreneur. In 2018, Christa launched Viva Leaf Tea, an organically-grown tea company. In 2020, she started FarmerJawn Agriculture, a program that allows customers to buy shares of fresh seasonal produce, much of it straight from Christa’s own farms. And shortly after, she opened a storefront, a garden center in Mount Airy that sells indoor plants and holistic items. From the outside looking in, Christa looks incredibly successful. She’s popular, people support her mission, and some even use her name interchangeably with her brand, FarmerJawn. 

Christa Barfield: So many people will just look on the outside and see, like, all that you have going on. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, she has a farm. She just got five acres of land. And like, greenhouses and like she’s growing food and she got 20,000 followers” … thinking about all these beautiful and wonderful accolades. They don’t necessarily convert to dollars, and that’s just real.

To understand the imbalance, you have to look a little closer at Christa’s businesses. She says FarmerJawn is doing well. People sign up for produce boxes every season, and they often sell out. But most small agricultural businesses only break even. She would also like to see her tea company grow and be available in hotels, coffee shops — things like that. And as for her storefront, FarmerJawn Greenery.

Christa Barfield: If I’m known all over, and my store is in one place, that doesn’t translate to people definitely coming from all over to spend the dollars because it’s not convenient to them. You know, we are a nation that likes convenience, and we learned that even more so when COVID hit. Like, we like convenience, and so if FarmerJawn Greenery specifically is not delivering to all areas of the city, or even to our most immediate area, then we may not draw that crowd. 

And Christa doesn’t want her storefront to only be a place people visit every now and then to support a cause. 

Christa Barfield: It would be great if they support it because I fill a need for them. And so that’s what I’m striving toward, I want to feel a need for them. So that’s Black, white, Asian.  Everybody, you know, I’m filling needs.

Meeting people’s real needs … Christa’s been thinking about how she can do that for a few years now. And then she hit on an idea, a way to provide regular goods to a community, support her mission of getting healthy and accessible food to communities, and do so in a physical space: a storefront. 

Christa Barfield: And the name was originally Redefining the Corner Store, and it has now become CornerJawn, is the actual name, which it’ll be branded as, um, which I’m really excited about. 

CornerJawn is sort of like a corner store. The idea came about when Christa was walking around Germantown with a friend. 

Christa Barfield: We went to four or five different corner stores in Germantown and asked … if they were able to have fresh produce, would they. 

They said no because they didn’t think they could sell it. 

Christa Barfield: Which makes sense from a business perspective. So I, you know, I respect that. So then it comes down to how do we change, the psychology of where people find their produce or get their produce from, and how do we also shift the dynamic of what people use corner stores for and what their expectation is of a corner store … 

The idea of CornerJawn was born. The store would still have your staples — snacks, household items, and fresh and local produce. Back then, Christa wanted to open two CornerJawns. She first needed to find two properties to lease. Then, she needed to find more farmland to grow the produce that would stock the stores, and lastly, Christa needed to find a way to do all of this without hurting herself financially. She got to work. 

Christa found properties for both CornerJawns — one in Kensington near Front Street and Kensington Avenue, and one in Germantown near Chelten and Chew avenues. She didn’t sign a lease immediately because she wanted to have all her other ducks in a row first. In June of 2021, Christa leased five acres of farmland at the Elkins Estate in Elkins Park. And in January 2022, Christa was awarded a $50,000 grant by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture for Urban Infrastructure for Agriculture. 

Christa Barfield: It just made sense to do it. And I had been aware of the grant, just constantly looking for grants and looking for money. And it was a good fit. 

The grant is specifically tied to the Germantown location — but Christa plans to have both CornerJawns up and running at similar times. The expenses for the Germantown store will be paid for with this grant. 

In the winter of 2022, I meet Christa at the Elkins Estate. The farm that will help produce veggies and fruits for the future CornerJawns.

Christa Barfield: You just keep pushing. I have too many beautiful things around me. Like look at where we’re standing on the Elkins estate on, the portion of the five acres that is under Farmer Jones’ lease, and you know, it’s just absolutely gorgeous. We’re surrounded by trees, green grass, historic buildings, in a historic neighborhood. My story now gets to be a part of this story, the story of this property, and we get to throw a little Blackness on it, a little Black excellence, and I think that’s dope. 

When we finally sit down, Christa explains how exactly the grant works. 

Christa Barfield: It’s a reimbursement grant. So you have to do some things first.  

Meaning she doesn’t have any of the money right now — she has to spend her own money, and once she can prove she’s doing what she intended to do, she’ll get paid back.

Christa Barfield: You actually have to show the work. You have to raise the money to match the grant and show the work having been done, completed, for you to actually, you know, receive the funds.

Even with the grant, she’ll still have to shell out her own funds, or do more fundraising. The grant only provides a 50% reimbursement. 

Christa Barfield: We apply for the full $50,000, we receive the full $50,000 received [in air quotes]. But how it works is that we show that the product, the project will cost $100,000.  And so with the project costing $100,000, we do the work and then we get reimbursed 50 of that, $50,000. So it requires you to go out and find the money to match the grant.  

Nichole Currie: Now when you say find … ? 

Christa Barfield: Which is a whole different process. Yeah, like whether it’s through more grants, whether it’s through a donor, whether it’s coming out of your own pocket, whether it’s through a fundraiser, even a collaborative working with a partner — any way that you can be able to get this work completed and have receipts to show. 

She has until spring of 2023 to complete the project. She has to show that she has legally acquired or leased a property, renovated the property, and show that the store is ready for business. There is a lingering pressure. If she can’t fulfill the requirements and doesn’t get reimbursed, it would throw off her budget and investments. But Christa says grants like this are allowing her to complete projects that would have been much harder on her own. 

Christa Barfield: See, the thing that I want Black people especially to get away from is we always try to find a way to do it grassroots only. Like, taking a grassroots approach to everything that we set out to accomplish so that we can work our way up, right? So, like, and basically it’s how I built FarmerJawn. And so now it’s a little bit different.

Sameer Rao: Not all Black wealth is a story of escape from poverty.  It’s also a story of joy, of being able to build wealth for the community, of community uplift.

This is Sameer Rao. He’s an editor at Technical.ly. Sameer has followed stories about Black professionals in the Baltimore and DC markets. He says many Black professionals have to pave their way out of financial instability, and they often get their start by producing within and for their own communities — sometimes when other businesses won’t. 

Sameer Rao: Some of the most famous Black entrepreneurs in any city are people who have made money within the communities, with their communities as their main constituents — whether you think about like, Jay-Z, you know, producing rap music for a broader audience, but reflecting the art and styles of where he was from, or you’re going back to the example of Madam CJ Walker, for instance, building wealth, selling a hair product to her own community.

And just as Christa pointed out, Sameer also says Black professionals tend to rely on themselves to do this — which comes with tradeoffs. 

Sameer Rao: There’s a tremendous amount of self-reliance amongst black professionals. And I think that that’s how they’ve been able to thrive, but that’s also been why they haven’t been able to reach the benchmarks that their white counterparts have been able to. 

Sameer says highlighting Black professionals in this Thriving project is essential to examine why there are economic disparities. He says that while Black professionals economically fare well, they still have challenges that follow them into the next tax bracket. 

Sameer Rao: When they get to that level, you could say that they’re probably faring well economically generally, but they are still enduring barriers and income and pay rates that are lower than that of white counterparts with similar educational or professional experience. 

One way Black professionals have found a way around barriers and obstacles is to seek support from state and federal programs. Applying for grants, like Christa did.

Sameer Rao: There are certain things with respect to reaching out for state support or federal support that I think can help. Will it fix every problem? I don’t know. Not everyone can be a millionaire, right? Not everyone can be a professional, and the way our economy is structured, it does not have an infinite, you know, kind of threshold for success. But I do feel like state support can do a lot to alleviate gaps that exist.

Nichole Currie: I thought that was you. God, this is so big. 

It takes me a while to meet up with Christa again, but we manage to schedule an interview in May. I meet her at a new farm she has in West Chester. 

Christa Barfield: OK. So, I just want to get an idea of what we need. I’m dealing with some issues here, so I need to actually find a plumbing store. 

The irrigation system at Christa’s farm is not working due to an incorrect part. And even though I’m here to interview her, the sun is shining incredibly bright, and Christa is worried about her crops. 

Christa Barfield: The most important thing for me, to be honest, is that my crops can’t die. I just spent the last three hours watering, but I have to get a piece in order for me to be able to irrigate.  

Nichole Currie: Do you want me to go with you?

Christa Barfield: That’s what I was going to say. 

We pack into Christa’s pickup truck and head for the nearest plumbing store. She’s a little frustrated about the situation at hand, mainly because it could’ve been avoided. 

Christa Barfield: Yeah, so right now I’m dealing with irrigation troubles, which is just rough because this is a 123-acre farm that was put together by the previous farmer … Essentially like they were here for 30 years. So a lot of what they’ve done here only they would know.

Christa reached out to the previous farmer to consult last year when she knew that this property would become available for her. She even offered to pay him so that she could shadow him and know the land. 

Christa Barfield: And he declined. He said no. And it’s just rough being a Black woman in Chester County that’s coming out here to be a farmer to actually increase and expand our farming operation. So then dealing with that was something that could have been super simple. 

The irrigation system at this farm isn’t the only obstacle Christa is facing right now. We eventually get around to talking about CornerJawn. Christa first tells me about the location in Kensington, which is not tied to her grant application. 

Christa Barfield: There’s just, you know, there’s a lot that goes into that. We’re in the design phase right now — interior design as well as the architecture, the engineering, all those processes are happening and it’s being built.

This shop will be located near the corner of Front Street and Kensington Avenue. And Christa hopes that it’ll be open on Sept. 15 of this year. But the Germantown CornerJawn needs to switch locations. 

Christa Barfield: The Germantown CornerJawn that person who owned that property revoked it. And as we were starting to put together a lease, obviously I’m like, OK, great. We have the money to do this project. We have listed your property as the property that we’re going to use. And they’ve known this for the last two years and we’re doing all this work to like, make sure we can get the money so that we can do the project properly, and as we start to write the lease and send him different things that he needs in order — because he’s a landlord, so he should be writing the lease — but we’re sending things that need to be in it, stuff like that. And he just decides that he doesn’t want to do it anymore. So that’s frustrating for us because it’s like, all right, we put all this time, energy, and attention on this location specifically and now you’re like, you don’t want to do it.

Crucially, the Germantown CornerJawn is specifically tied to the $50,000 reimbursement grant that Christa was awarded in 2022. Without solidifying a property for the Germantown location, FarmerJawn will lose its funding. 

Nichole Currie: So your next steps are finding a Germantown property so you can still like, access this grant. 

Christa Barfield: Yes. Yeah. Mhm. 

Christa says it may be easy to find a new location — with empty lots popping up all over the neighborhood. And she knows these sorts of things happen. In 2021, the farmer had to leave behind Victorian-style greenhouses in Elkins Park due to an ongoing conflict with the landlord.  So Christa knows that in this business, people change their minds. Setbacks can happen, especially when dealing with a reimbursement grant. In the end, Christa says she would just be happy if the Kensington CornerJawn opens. 

Ultimately, that’s exactly what happened. 

Christa Barfield: Which is crazy. So that means we lost all of our funding. 

In December of 2023, I learn that the Germantown CornerJawn fell through. Opening a store in Northwest Philly is still a goal of Christa’s, but it won’t be tied to the reimbursement grant. 

Christa Barfield: Yeah, that was actually really terrible to have to be starting over, essentially, starting over, trying to get funding. And, yeah, that was not — it wasn’t fun. And we’re still impacted by that now. … You plan your budget and it includes money that you wrote for and that you are granted and it includes a location, and just one fell swoop, we lost all of that.

Nichole Currie: When you knew this $50,000 grant would be reimbursed, right, did you hire people to design the property? Like, what were the investments that you invested in — but you didn’t see the money back because of the whole situation? Just so I can get a better understanding of how, like you said, you budgeted for it, but was there any money spent on it? 

Christa Barfield: I mean, definitely time is a huge resource that I can never get back and I’m paying for time. I’m paying for people’s time. I can’t give you like, hard numbers because I don’t have that in front of me. But all in all, there were people that I had working on this project. And that’s where a lot of the loss comes from, is that the money that we plan for, that we budgeted for our year, so that I can continue to pay people, was lost.

Christa budgeted the reimbursement into their plan for the fiscal year — and losing it has left a big hole. 

Christa Barfield: I think this is just the nature of business for sure, but also the impact is harder when you are from a marginalized group that has less access to capital to begin with. 

But across Philadelphia, the Kensington CornerJawn is on a trajectory to open. It was slated for September, but Christa pushed back the opening date.

Christa Barfield: This project is also a long time coming and construction everywhere is slow, so it’s nothing that we really have control over.

Christa can see the finish line and imagine how it will impact the surrounding community in Kensington. 

Christa Barfield: I really love where it’s at because it’s in close proximity to where the need for what I believe is food is medicine is. There’s an exorbitant need there. It is gentrification, but it’s more so to me, it’s improvement of a community that so desperately needs it. And we can’t actually expect the health of people to improve unless the community improves aesthetically, even financially, that those things are necessary and important in order for us to actually see the health of our communities soar. 

Christa has walked away with some lessons. 

First, she realizes that reimbursement grants have tradeoffs that can leave disadvantaged groups worse off than their counterparts.

Christa Barfield: Saying like, “OK, you’re granted this money. You have to actually come up with the money on your own first, spend it, and then we’ll give it back to you.” Like, that whole thing is ridiculous. It’s absolutely absurd because it continues to marginalize the people that you say you want to empower. 

What Christa is really hitting at is that finding the money to start the project, even to be reimbursed for later, is a hassle. She says the lengthy process may have cost her the property in Germantown. 

Christa Barfield: Because this person who we didn’t have a formal lease with is like, “Hey, we talked, you know, we’ve been talking about this for over a year now. What’s going on? What’s going on?” And we’re saying, like, “Oh, we’re up, we’re working on this. Like, don’t think we’re not, we’re like doing the things. We’re obviously working on this” — but then, you know, when all the work that we put in finally hits, it’s like, OK, great. Here we go. We finally got it. Everything we need. And we come to them and say, like, “We’re ready. This is the plan. Have a meeting with our engineer or architect and show them what we’re doing.” And then it’s like, “Never mind. I think I want to go in a different direction.”

Despite all the setbacks, Christa is feeling good about where the Kensington project is heading. And now, sometimes, she thinks the Germantown property just really wasn’t meant to be at this time.  

Christa Barfield: This first CornerJawn in Kensington is going to have such great impact on this city and allow for us to be able to have a proof of concept that we can test in other places. Because in my belief … everything happens for a reason. So like, Germantown wasn’t meant to be the first one, right? That’s really where I’m at with it. I’m fully grounded in my faith knowing that there is no issue. Like, we are going to be fine. And that this is going to do what it needs to do for the community and allow us to bring it forward elsewhere as well. 

For Thriving, I’m Nichole Currie.

Thriving is brought to you by Technical.ly and Rowhome Productions with support from the William Penn Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and the Knight Foundation. 

Learn more about Thriving at technical.ly.

Thriving’s executive producer is Technical.ly CEO Christopher Wink.

The series is reported, produced, and hosted by me, Nichole Currie. 

Our story editor is Jen Kinney. Managing producer is Alex Lewis. Mix and sound design by John Myers. 

Special thanks to Technical.ly editors Julie Zeglen, Christina Kristofic, Sameer Rao, and Danya Henninger, and to JG Geller and Laris Kreslins of Box Theory for use of their South Philly studio. 

This episode features music from Blue Dot Sessions and Philippe Bronchtein. 

Our theme music is by Flat Mary Road. 

Thanks for listening.