Beatrice Kamau’s Multiple Harvest

Beatrice Kamau stands outside her newly built hoophouse.

Beatrice Kamau has rapidly outgrown plot and garden. In seven years, she has gone from volunteer, to community gardener, to apprentice, to owner-operator of her own farm. Like many modern farmers, she splits her time between farming and a career– a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). This, her dedication to upward growth in her passion, is one of two qualities that defines Beatrice Kamau. 

The second is her commitment to continued education. Since 2017, she has participated in numerous programs facilitated by local agriculture and conservation focused organizations like Advocates for Urban Agriculture (AUA) and Urban Growers Collective (UGC), including as a mentor in AUA’s Farmer to Farmer Mentorship program, and apprentice with UGC. She has attended regional conferences like Marbleseed (formerly MOSES) and international conferences with Apimondia. She taps organizations like The Land Connection for assistance with land access and The Savannah institute with designing the prairie and agroforest in the back half of the tract that her farm sits on. Additionally, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has provided both capacity building cost-shared funding and consultation for projects like her agroforest, pollinator habitat, well and pumps, and hoop house. 

Today, she owns and operates Multiple Harvest, (the namesake of her operation, which has traveled with her from her incubator to her farm), a 6-acre farm in Beecher, IL where she grows North American staple crops and culturally significant East African crops, about an hour from downtown Chicago and minutes from the border of Indiana. 

When looking at models of success, rarely depicted are the incremental steps–the successes, the difficulties, the through lines, the pivots. Navigating issues like land access, water access, and funding are difficult for the modern farmer, however, Beatrice has modeled this wayfinding exceptionally. Progress is rarely linear, but, sometimes, it’s close. Always important are the lessons learned, and the knowledge shared. 

“Farming runs in my family. My parents were small-scale farmers in Kenya since the 1960s, growing tea as a cash crop alongside a variety of vegetables for both family consumption and sale or barter with neighbors.” 

Her family was one of many families who had farms near their homes, and shared machinery to do the tilling and harvesting of their crops. 

Kamau first came to The United States as a part of a cultural exchange program in 1999. As an adult, she was able to secure a student visa, and studied nursing at Wright College in Humboldt Park.

In the U.S., the culturally significant foods of her youth were difficult to find, and even harder to find fresh. This became important motivation for her when she started farming. 

“I was excited, because, you know, a few people were interested to buy those vegetables fresh, because when you go to the import stores, you find the same vegetables, but most of them will be in the frozen section.”

Amaranth leaves (terere) were a staple food of her youth, but was hard to find in the United States. 

Amaranth leaves harvested at Kamau’s farm

“And, you know, stuff like amaranth, it's very popular all over–the amaranth leaves. And I think that is something that just can grow wild. And there is no reason to have something like that imported from some country, which we don't know, you know, the food safety that it went through, and we don't know how long it has been sitting in the freezer.”

On amaranth in particular, the Iowa State University Extension states on their website, “The three main buyers of amaranth grain in the U.S. are Arrowhead Mills (Texas), Health Valley (California) and Nu-World Amaranth (Chicago, Illinois). Larger companies that use amaranth in their food products, such as Pepperidge Farm, usually obtain their amaranth from one of the above three companies. Arrowhead Mills and Health Valley both sell processed foods with amaranth into the retail marketplace, and Arrowhead Mills sells the whole seed and bags of amaranth flour as well.”

Ironically, the fresh leaves of amaranth, native to the Americas, are rarely stocked by grocers, but growers like Kamau are growing the crop for fresh use. 

“Rather than selling all their amaranth on a bulk basis to one of the companies above, some farmers in the Midwest and Great Plains have developed their own direct marketing,” the Iowa State University Extension website states. 

Production of high quality products for local consumption of culturally significant foods using organic, sustainable, and permaculture methods are the cornerstones of Kamau’s operation today. 

“Today, I grow a variety of African cultural vegetables, including cowpea leaves (kunde), amaranth leaves (terere), catwhiskers (saget), Egyptian spinach (jute leaves/mrenda), African nightshade (managu), and Gilo eggplant (garden egg),” Kamau says. 

The practice meets the needs of the people who shop at the import stores Kamau sells to, jilts the system of transporting shelf-stabilized produce globally, and is income for Kamau. 

Cyclical. 

Sustainable. 

“I feel like it's important to have it available for them, but I think the idea behind it is more powerful than, you know, the money that [...] I expect to make out of it. Just having people who are used to eating fresh, you know, locally grown vegetables, just bringing it back to them, and, you know, showing them, hey, you can eat the same vegetables. You can grow it on your own. You don't need to import it,” Kamau says. 

From the beginning, these values have defined Kamau’s enterprises. 

Hives at located at Kamau’s Beecher Farm

In 2017, Kamau sought out a plot at a community garden, and found one near her Oak Park home at Charles Prosser Career Academy. The site was also home to Farm Lab, founded by Marnie Ware and Jim Lichon. Kamau cites this hands-on experience as crucial to learning about the essentials of beekeeping. 

"Working alongside an experienced beekeeper like Jim for over three years gave me invaluable, hands-on knowledge, and the confidence to start my own apiary. From setting up hives and performing regular checks to maintaining hive health, harvesting honey, and packaging, I learned every step of the process. This experience was transformative, inspiring me to pursue beekeeping independently and share this rewarding journey with others."

In the same year, she attended the Good Food Expo at The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and met growers with Urban Growers Collective (UGC), and heard about their apprenticeship program. 

“I liked their program because it had [...] the training portion of it. And I think around that time, when I was looking around, there was not a lot of training programs for just regular people who want to get into farming.”

Kamau joined UGC as an apprentice in 2017. For four years, UGC provided hands-on learning, and, later, land access as an incubator. Perhaps most important: she was given the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. 

“I [...] learned one big thing: I was trying to grow vegetables that I used to grow back in Africa, but it was important for me to to know the timing [...] because the weather here is different, so I have to know when to start them, and when to to to put them in the soil when the temperature of the soil is really like over 65, because I had a lot of unsuccessful planting episodes where I would just plant something [...] in March, when the weather looks nice, and then you know the snow comes and you know nothing ever survives so…”

Unfortunately, because UGC rents land from the city, incubator farmers could not plant crops like shrubs and trees. This put a ceiling on possibilities of her operation. 

A part of her vision was a farm of her own–a large scale farm that would be expensive and difficult to find in Chicago. 

“There were endless details to consider—soil quality, location, acreage, distance from work, and, of course, mortgage costs. All of these considerations fit together like a puzzle; it’s often a matter of give and take. But finding the right land was just the beginning. Transitioning from city life to a rural setting brought its own set of challenges, from using well water and maintaining a propane tank for heat to sharing space with the diverse wildlife that roams the countryside—a true test of resilience,” Kamau says. 

During her time with UGC, Kamau attended field days with the Land Connection (formerly Farm Link) in Beecher, IL at Tulip Tree. She was looking for land online, and when a property became available in the area that checked enough boxes, she made an offer. 

“Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. This land is more than just soil and space; it’s a blank canvas, ready for me to bring my vision to life. I’m excited to cultivate row crops, create a thriving apiary, and plant fruit and native trees that will not only provide sustainable income but also enrich the soil and support a diverse ecosystem”, Kamau says. 

Soil is delivered to Kamau’s farm.

As an incubator then owner-operator, funding has always been an integral aspect of maintaining the sustainability and independence of her enterprises at every step, even though she came to the table unsure of her abilities. 

Kamau received her first funding as a grower from AUA. She applied for both AUA’s Covid19 Support funding and for the inaugural Capacity Building Grant in 2020. For the latter, she was awarded a grant to finance storage, sanitation, and irrigation at her UGC incubator plot. 

“I was so excited because, you know, but it was just the gesture of, you know, somebody appreciating what I am doing. And, you know, it was a big struggle, because I was trying to do farming at the same time working a full time job.”

While the support was important, it was also affirming. 

“[T]hat funding really went a long way. And not only just for acquiring equipment, but the feeling of being appreciated [because of] the hard work that I was doing. That really was also [an] uplifting time for me.”

Now knowing that funding was possible and upscaling in mind, Kamau started saving money to purchase a vacant lot in Chicago, but the cost and acreage became a sticking point. 

“I get all the resources in the city, and a lot of people are doing farming in the city who I know, and I can always go to them and get, you know, tools or resources from them. But then, when I was looking for land, the kind of space that I was looking for, it was going to be difficult for me to get it in the city,” Kamau says. 

After she purchased her Beecher farm, building the infrastructure and financing operation became the priority. For this, a different approach and different funding sources were needed. 

To finance the infrastructure and upscale the capacity, Kamau applied for and received NRCS’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) funding in 2023. With the grant (a cost sharing program) she built a 30 x 96 ft high tunnel (cover cropping included), and, as of fall 2024, is in the initial stages of building 50 x 50 ft pollinator habitat. 

In 2024, Kamau received additional funding from NRCS’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to fund a three-acre agroforest, utilizing alley cropping and hedgerows over three acres. The Land Connection, Savannah Institute, and Climate Land Leaders have all assisted Kamau with mapping, and consultation on crops and growing methods for the project. 

It has taken a multi-pronged approach and countless hours of research, networking, and planning to access resources from so many sources. 

“I am deeply grateful for the continuous support I received from AUA through the Farmer-to-Farmer program, as well as the benefits from the hands-on workshops they offer. Additionally, the NRCS cost-share programs have been invaluable in helping me implement conservation practices. The technical assistance provided by the Savannah Institute, along with the knowledge gained from Climate Land Leaders' weekly workshops on best conservation practices, have been crucial in advancing my farming goals.”

None of this happens without Kamau putting herself out there, explaining her vision of a sustainable, environmentally-conscious, community-minded operation to those with the resources to facilitate and fund. 

In her 2020 Capacity Building Grant application Kamau writes, “I am not very good at grants. I had support writing this grant, because I usually do not have the right words to write grants. AUA’s Covid19 was the first grant I ever received. Aside from grant writing, it has been difficult to access funds because I work as a nurse and my time is very limited. I often work the night shift then have gone straight to the farm so I do not have time to look for additional funding. It has been difficult to access funding that is not tied to a farmers market or that gives funding for capacity building versus a community project based on food”.

Kamau’s words clearly illuminate the challenges many modern farmers reckon with: keeping up with your profession and passions, and growing and fundraising. Funny enough, Kamau’s own words also provide a solution to the challenge: “support”. Despite her initial difficulty with grantwriting as a skill, her ability to network and ask for help made it possible. 

Rarely do small-scale farmers become farmers to fundraise. Never does anyone enter an industry as a finished product. Pricelessly important is the vision and mission that undergirds an enterprise. A vision well-communicated to receptive funders is the best chance a small-scale farmer is going to get to make that vision real. With local, regional, and now federal support, opportunities have come in spades to Kamau. 

Her message to other growers looking to do the same: “do your homework”. 

AUA hosts a workshop on irrigation installation at Kamau’s farm. Participants from the Farmer-to-Farmer Mentorship program and volunteers assist with the installation.