ABOUT GREEN FAMILY NUT FARMS LLC
Located in Elkhart County in north-central Indiana, the farm currently consists of a small test orchard planted onsite at the Green family farm outside of Millersburg. This rented plot is where we are testing the sustainable silvopasture production system and methods that we intend to scale up in larger chestnut and hazelnut orchards on our future farm in the Fruit Belt of Southwest Michigan. THANK YOU for your interest in this family adventure that we call Green Family Nut Farms! Journey with us as we fail, learn & ultimately succeed at growing healthy, nutrient-dense food the right way.
OUR STORY
Inspiring Next Generation Farmers
The founders of Green Family Nut Farms LLC are David and Inessa Green. Married in 2005, their family consists of themselves and their 3 children: Merci, Ruth and Zach. Their motivation to start a farm business stemmed from their goal of teaching the next generation how to work and how to work together well as a family. David and Inessa each bring their own complementary expertise and interests to the daily management of Green Family Nut Farms.
Your Farmer Bios
David Green
Inessa Green
Born to two missionary kids who were raised in Nigeria, Inessa grew up outside of North Manchester, IN surrounded by foods and cooking/gardening practices that were not traditional or customary to northern Indiana. Her maternal grandparents moved back to the United States when she was 5 years old and established a small sustainable homestead and tree farm which they named Wurajam (i.e. “pleasant” in the Bura language) Acres long before homesteading was a thing. Her subsequent experiences traveling to foreign countries (e.g. Guatemala, Nigeria and Italy) as well as her years teaching elementary school in a largely Hispanic community have given her a love of ethnic foods and food production methods unique to those of her friends and neighbors. Even before her daughter’s health issues forced her to begin using organic foods daily, Inessa was passionate about finding local sources for organic, chemical free and non-GMO food that she could in good conscience feed her growing family. She constantly looks to buy and cook with ingredients that have not been over processed, can be prepared from scratch and then reused (e.g. whole chickens) multiple ways. Her homemade sourdough bread is an inspiration to her friends, family and customers. Inessa looks forward to living on farm at Green Family Nut Farms and homesteading full-time with her family. She desires to introduce others to the homesteading life just as her grandparents and friends have introduced her to it. Her love of photography and her knowledge of and familiarity with different social media platforms like Facebook & Instagram will be invaluable tools to promote Green Family Nut Farms and help potential customers get to know its story and the people behind it. One of her main roles with the farm is as a product expert to educate customers on how best to cook and share healthy, delicious meals using Green Family Nut Farm products. A real hurdle to selling products not normally found in the supermarket is showing customers how to prepare them and how to bring out the superior taste and nutritional value contained within. The ability for potential customers to speak with a product expert like Inessa who can answer their questions and direct them to more in-depth content on-line is a critically important advantage for Green Family Nut Farms.
Beginning at the time his dad moved back to the family farm when David was 6 years old, David grew up working alongside his grandparents, dad and brothers on their small farm in Elkhart County, IN where they grew traditional row crops of corn and soybeans with an occasional crop rotation of wheat or oats. They also raised beef cattle (and some pigs) and grew & baled the hay needed to feed their cows through each winter. Some of David’s fondest memories are of walking from the barn to the house at the end of a long day in the hay field hoping that the good weather would hold so he could do it all again the next day. However, as he grew older David also recognized that his grandpa and dad could not support their families solely with traditional farming methods on their small family farm; in addition to managing the farm they each also had full-time jobs. This meant that they were constantly faced with the challenge of getting seasonal farm work done in the limited time available after working all week for their full-time employers. This realization led David to decide as a teenager that farming was not a viable future career for himself. After high school David earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering at Tri-State University in Angola, IN and began his career in engineering working for an automotive parts manufacturer in Ligonier, IN. Over his subsequent 20+ year engineering career David has worked in a variety of engineering roles but always for manufacturing companies and always with cross-functional responsibilities (e.g. sourcing & purchasing of new components & equipment, customer service & sales and training of customers & employees). Along the way David has earned certifications as a Six Sigma Black Belt and a Lean Manufacturing Practitioner which he uses to optimize, improve and problem-solve manufacturing processes and systems. As co-founder of Green Family Nut Farms David is looking forward to returning to one of his early passions while bringing with him the collective skills and expertise that he has since gained as an engineer and business owner. Because this new, small farm will not rely on growing annual row crops using traditional methods but will instead grow perennial crops and stack complementary, premium crops on the same acreage, David is confident that, once established, Green Family Nut Farms will be a sustainable small farm on which his children will grow and thrive and perhaps fall in love with farming as he did. Our local communities need a new generation of inspired farmers whose passion is growing healthy, nutrient-dense food the right way.