THE STORY

All Roads Lead to Farm

Farm owners Chad and Heather both grew up in West Michigan. Chad was raised on a small hobby farm with a few cattle, pigs and horses; Heather, in the Creston neighborhood of Grand Rapids. Chad went on to graduate from Baylor, University in Texas with a degree in Entrepreneurship, while Heather pursued a degree in Nursing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids.

It wasn’t until Chad spent time as a volunteer with the Peace Corps in 2009 that he realized his passion for growing food--and until Heather met Chad that she really began cultivating her passion for cooking.

Chad returned to his hobby-farming roots while in Uganda, where he was assigned to work with dairy farmers to develop cooperative marketing outlets for their milk. Cultivating a garden on the side became a way to truly experience life and relate with his community there. Chad took his new hobby back with him to Michigan, where he began to explore whether it could become a career. After spending a couple of years learning more about farming, he worked for a season with Tom and Katie at Groundswell Farm in Zeeland, Michigan and started Green Wagon Farm the next season, in the spring of 2010.

Green Wagon Farm begins.

Chad worked to save money the farm’s first year, farming in the morning, working a factory shift, and selling veggies at a roadside stand when he had the time. The next year, he hired his first employee (Scott Townley) and started a small CSA. Heather and Chad met in 2012 during the farm’s third official season. Heather was studying healthcare at the time, but began to spend more and more of her time volunteering in the fields alongside Chad. Their relationship began that year, just as the tomatoes put on fruit.

Heather brought an aesthetic vision to the farm and nourished the farm team as it grew. She received her degree in culinary arts from the Secchia Institute of Grand Rapids in 2015. Her organizational skills, coupled with Chad’s philosophical and systematic vision are at the heart of Green Wagon Farm.

The Anderson family has grown the farm from a small roadside stand on borrowed land to the certified organic, family-owned, year-round operation it is today.