Boyle ’08 Cultivates Career and Crops with Emerson Degree
As a small farmer in north-central Vermont, Kayleigh Boyle ’08 uses the marketing and communication classes she took at Emerson every day.
“Especially in a small community and owning a small business, building relationships and having communications skills allowed us to grab a foothold and build trust with people and other businesses,” said Boyle, who has also used her writing skills to land grants for the farm. “Emerson gave me a good foundation for those skills.”
Boyle and her partner, Douglas Wolcik, co-own tiny (one acre) Breadseed Farm in Craftsbury, Vermont, where they’ve grown produce and flowers since 2020. They proudly tout the no-till farm as organic and human-powered; they plant and harvest the land themselves, along with two other young farmers and volunteers. The farm is named for a variety of poppy grown for edible seeds and used in dried flower arrangements.
Seeds of change
While at Emerson, Boyle created her own major focused on marketing for social change. Through a class on marketing for nonprofits with former faculty member Deirdre Conlon, she got involved with The Food Project in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. The nonprofit’s mission is to create a community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds working to build a sustainable food system.
She did some office work, but working outside invigorated her, and she relished the tangibility of tending to a garden.
“My capstone project for my major was speaking to college[s] about getting more local foods into the dining hall, including Emerson’s,” said Boyle. “[Conlon] got me in the right direction and sent me on this path.”
Boyle also participated in the student organization Emerson Peace and Social Justice, which shaped her as an activist and instilled in her a desire to do good in the world.
“We ran a fair-trade campaign. We were raising awareness about the coffee and chocolate industries, and that got me interested in food and agriculture,” said Boyle. “I came from an agriculture community, but it wasn’t until Emerson that I focused on it in a different way. Seeing a lot of people who were into peace and social justice was cool and really pushed me in that direction.”
Days before graduating, Boyle began working as a seasonal park ranger in Boston, devising kids’ programming, including planting a community garden. In 2009, she was hired at Gaining Ground in Concord, Massachusetts, a nonprofit organic farm that grows fruits and vegetables with the help of several thousand community members, and worked there for eight years.
She was then hired by a restaurant group that owns Gibbet Hill Farm and Gibbet Hill Grill, a farm-to-table dining experience in Groton, Massachusetts. She managed one acre of land, and learned more from the management perspective. During that time, she and Wolcik saved up money and looked for cultivable land. They found it in her native state of Vermont.
“We pretty much grow any vegetable you can grow in this climate: lettuce, onions, radishes, winter squash, summer squash, cucumbers, tomatoes,” said Boyle. “We are small scale and want to stay small scale.”
Small, sustainable, nimble
They plant fast-growing crops that can have multiple harvests during the year, allowing them to maximize their growing space and provide revenue. They sell their produce at farmers markets and offer community supported agriculture (CSA) shares. They also sell dried flower arrangements and evergreen wreaths.
“I love all of it so much. I feel so lucky to be able to say that, and that I have work I so clearly enjoy,” said Boyle. “I really do love the very tangible task list [that] every week we slowly tick off, and seeing that progress. You get an instant gratification of seeing a row weeded or a crop beautifully washed and ready to go out to the CSA.”
Boyle is also an avid cook and arts-and-crafter. She’s looking to infuse those skills and interests into Breadseed’s business by developing community dinners, working with a local cook; is hoping to offer wreath-making classes in their new barn; and is also hosting a CSA membership pizza dinner.
Boyle characterized farming as dynamic— she and Doug are thinking about the best way to manage the farming crew, staying ahead of their crop plan, and ensuring that seedlings are sprouting and growing so they’ll be ready for the field. There’s also the administration, marketing (she says walking the farm is by far the best marketing tool) and advertising aspects. She created and manages the farm’s website, and runs its social media.
“There’s a real creative side to farming. Being a business owner and farmer constantly keeps you mentally and physically engaged,” said Boyle.
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