his career. Instead he saw it as an opportunity to pursue an entirely new path — a path that started in his own backyard. For several years, he and his wife, CJ, had grown their own pesticide-free vegetables. They also had been members of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm that supplied them with fresh produce, and believed that good health starts with wholesome food. Following his dream of starting an organic market garden operation, Thornton visited with organic farmers throughout South and Central Texas, and researched the ins and outs of growing produce for the local market. The more he learned, the more it seemed he was called to farm. “I love working outside and working with my hands,” says Thornton, who grew up around agriculture and worked on farms as a teenager.
Janet Hunter
The couple soon launched Spirit Pioneering Farm on a small plot outside of Victoria. While CJ continued to work as an engineer at Caterpillar, he worked the soil, planted his first crops and added pigs and chickens to the little farm.
Tyson Thornton, owner of Spirit Pioneering Farm, a CSA farm near Victoria, Texas
hen a manufacturing company in Victoria, Texas, moved to another state in 2013, a number of residents in this city of 63,000 found themselves out of work. Among them was process engineer Tyson Thornton. Spirit Pioneering Farm
“I just started praying and asking the Lord what I should do,” says Thornton, who chose to remain in his native Coastal Bend region rather than relocate.
A typical weekly harvest share from Spirit Pioneering Farm 34
A Texas A&M University graduate with a degree in manufacturing and mechanical engineering, Thornton could have viewed the plant shutdown as a door closing on
Thornton’s vision quickly became reality. Today, Spirit Pioneering Farm supplies seasonal pesticide-free produce from October through June to about 75 customers and five restaurants in the Texas Coastal Bend region. In five years, the operation has expanded from a 1.5-acre tract, where the land was wooded and sandy, to a 6-acre market garden farm with three greenhouses. “Our mission is to bring the freshness, diverse varieties and nutrient density of the organic backyard garden back to the tables of our farm partners and customers,” Thornton says. Unlike many small produce operations that sell directly to the public at farmers markets and roadside stands, the Thorntons decided to operate Spirit Pioneering Farm as a CSA. Under this type of business structure, customers — or “harvest share” partners, as Thornton calls them — purchase annual subscriptions costing a few hundred dollars that guarantee them a specific amount of fresh produce each week. LANDSCAPES
