{"id":5739,"date":"2024-07-29T09:09:46","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T13:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/?p=5739"},"modified":"2024-07-30T09:01:32","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T13:01:32","slug":"a-farm-for-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/2024\/a-farm-for-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"A Farm for the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
By Jim Morrill<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
For Ashton Thompson \u201913, it all began with an obsession\u2009\u2014\u2009and a chance encounter. The obsession was aquaponics, a method of growing plants in water enriched with fish nutrients. The encounter was with a woman named Judy Carpenter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At an aquaculture conference in New Bern, N.C., in 2013, Thompson overheard Carpenter say she was starting an aquaponics system at her farm in Stanly County, just northeast of Charlotte, N.C. Ashton told her, \u201cI would work really hard for next to nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So two days after graduating with a degree in horticultural science, Thompson began working as a farmhand at what is now known as Juneberry Ridge. A decade later, at 34, the Stanly County native is the farm\u2019s chief operating officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juneberry Ridge is one of the state\u2019s most unusual farms and a burgeoning destination in North Carolina\u2019s growing agritourism industry. Covering 750 acres, it practices regenerative agriculture, a method aiming to improve the land rather than deplete it. Most plants grow in greenhouses. Tilapia swim in tanks near the produce they help fertilize. Sheep and chickens roam in movable enclosures. Juneberry also hosts concerts, weddings, trapshooting and weekend getaways.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPhotograph courtesy of Juneberry Ridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Education is part of the mission at Juneberry, which Thompson calls \u201ca living classroom.\u201d That\u2019s true for him as well as the students and farmers who come to learn about everything from the ecological cycle of honeybees to regenerative farming. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more exciting to me than being able to learn something,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c. . . if we\u2019re successful, we\u2019re going to change the way the world grows.\u201d \u00a0<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Thompson is also a teacher. He leads tours of the farm, and this year he\u2019ll help teach a class on holistic farm management. A few years ago, he helped come up with a mission statement for Juneberry Ridge: \u201cTo nourish, educate and build a better future.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe said if we\u2019re successful,\u201d Thompson says, \u201cwe\u2019re going to change the way the world grows.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n
By Jim Morrill<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
For Ashton Thompson \u201913, it all began with an obsession\u2009\u2014\u2009and a chance encounter. The obsession was aquaponics, a method of growing plants in water enriched with fish nutrients. The encounter was with a woman named Judy Carpenter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At an aquaculture conference in New Bern, N.C., in 2013, Thompson overheard Carpenter say she was starting an aquaponics system at her farm in Stanly County, just northeast of Charlotte, N.C. Ashton told her, \u201cI would work really hard for next to nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So two days after graduating with a degree in horticultural science, Thompson began working as a farmhand at what is now known as Juneberry Ridge. A decade later, at 34, the Stanly County native is the farm\u2019s chief operating officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Juneberry Ridge is one of the state\u2019s most unusual farms and a burgeoning destination in North Carolina\u2019s growing agritourism industry. Covering 750 acres, it practices regenerative agriculture, a method aiming to improve the land rather than deplete it. Most plants grow in greenhouses. Tilapia swim in tanks near the produce they help fertilize. Sheep and chickens roam in movable enclosures. Juneberry also hosts concerts, weddings, trapshooting and weekend getaways.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPhotograph courtesy of Juneberry Ridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Education is part of the mission at Juneberry, which Thompson calls \u201ca living classroom.\u201d That\u2019s true for him as well as the students and farmers who come to learn about everything from the ecological cycle of honeybees to regenerative farming. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more exciting to me than being able to learn something,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c. . . if we\u2019re successful, we\u2019re going to change the way the world grows.\u201d \u00a0<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Thompson is also a teacher. He leads tours of the farm, and this year he\u2019ll help teach a class on holistic farm management. A few years ago, he helped come up with a mission statement for Juneberry Ridge: \u201cTo nourish, educate and build a better future.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe said if we\u2019re successful,\u201d Thompson says, \u201cwe\u2019re going to change the way the world grows.\u201d<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ashton Thompson \u201913 oversees a holistic farm that features aquaculture and tourism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"displayCategoryID\":9,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"Ashton Thompson \u201913 oversees a holistic farm that features aquaculture and tourism.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,9],"tags":[1479,1480,1481],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-5739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-act","category-newswire","category-stories","tag-ashton-thompson","tag-judy-carpenter","tag-juneberry-ridge"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":9,"name":"Stories","slug":"stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":9,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":260,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5739"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5774,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5739\/revisions\/5774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5739"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=5739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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