Online Platform for Business & Workforce

Development is Evolving Local Food & Agriculture

New York, NY, September 23, 2019 -- Bootstrap Farmer, a company known for supplying small and medium-sized farms, announced the launch of the Urban Farm Academy during the NYC Agtech Week, a collaboration with entrepreneurs across food and agriculture. 

The collaboration consists of entrepreneurs, teachers, and farmers rebuilding local food systems through the business they’ve created. The classes teach frameworks for developing, running & scaling a business or career inside of the hyperlocal food economy using their own businesses as the proof of concept. 

“We’re people who came from other careers,” said Brandon Youst, a co-founder. “But we didn’t want to be commodity farmers. We wanted to leverage our past experiences to do something different within food & ag.”

This isn’t a typical academy with a typical curriculum. “These are self-guided courses for creating within a hyperlocal food economy.  That means zero-waste supply chains, businesses built on relationships and lean-startup principles” said Youst. 

There are future classes in development for addressing food deserts, teaching STEM through aquaponics and urban farm manager training. 

The goal of this collaboration is to provide a low-cost education option outside of the traditional educational system. With higher education becoming increasingly expensive and less relevant in many areas, the Urban Farm Academy looks to provide an online option for those not needing a degree for the business they want to start, or the job they seek to get. 

“As a business owner, I’d rather see what someone has accomplished rather than seeing what school they went to before I work with them. It’s just a better filter” said Jeff Bednar, co-founder, and owner of Profound Microfarms. “Through this academy, we want to help those who want to join the local food movement in a more practical way, and it doesn’t involve sitting in a classroom.” 

The first courses are available through the website

www.urbanfarmacademy.com. 

For all inquiries, please contact admin@urbanfarmacademy.com.