Brielle, appreciate you joining us today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

We are serving underserved farmers and youth in rural communities in NC. We have started with talking to our famers and youth in our home town. We have had the opportunity aid farmers with increasing their agritourisim, grant funding, and engaging them with organizations that support farmers. We have also been able to work with organizations like Bread for the World, NC A&T, and Farm Bureau to create agriculture experiences for black and brown farmers and youth. Some of those experiences include conferences, farm tours, opportunities for advocacy, and more.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We are Brielle & Michelle Wright and we co-founded The Farmers B.A.G! We have been in agriculture all of our lives, and decided to start our business in 2020! In the beginning we were focused on selling jams, jellies, and pickled items because it provided us an opportunity to share the homemade flavors we enjoyed with the world! As we began to build relationships with local farmers, youth, parents, and land owners, we realized we had a larger need to fill. Farmers and youth of all ages needed education in agribusiness, positive agriculture experiences, and mental/emotional counseling. My sister and I realized we had the educational background, resources, and connections to fulfill the those needs for farmers and our community. So we started working with farmers in our hometown. So we started working with farmers and helping them develop their business plans, assisting with marketing, and creating opportunities for agritourism. We started hosting events that introduced students to agriculture and understanding the various career opportunities that are part of agriculture.

Our goal is to help farmers and provide positive agriculture experiences to our youth and community. We want to tell the stories of the farmers we help and share the stories of the impact that we make on the youth. All while sharing the taste of home through our jams, jellies, and pickled items!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We have been very blessed to fund our business through grants, business pitches, speaking engagements, and donations. We sell our jams and jellies at local farmers markets in the Triangle and we are starting to expand our online business presence.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

This year we started the 3rd year of our business. It has been an interesting journey that has tested our resilience and reliance on God. We started off the year very strong with goals of expansion, financial goals, and sought opportunities to hire employees. While we were able to meet these all of these goals, the ones we did accomplish came in a way that was not in our plan, but Gods. Our business transportation and our personal vehicle broke down in the middle of the market season. As a result we had to stop attendance to our markets. This provided us an opportunity to rethink our goals and business model. As a result we began to focus on advocacy, training and development, and we began to explore the process of obtaining our non-profit status. We were able to enter a business pitch competition where we obtained funds to assist us with branding and hiring a student intern. We also received grant funding to host an AgCommunity day and we hosted educational farming workshops. We also obtained funds to hire a farm apprentice and she starts in January! Finally, we have been able to speak on panels, tell our story, and help other farmers to obtain their goals. We did not meet our quarterly financial goals but we secured funding for farmers and created opportunities to engage our community in agriculture. So even though our journey did not go as we planned, we knew God had a better plan. We stayed the course and still finished the year proud of our accomplishments

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thefarmersbag.com
• Instagram: @thefarmersb.a.g
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefarmersbag

Image Credits
Demario Campbell John Brown