• Michael Gebert
  • Matt Ryan at the Talking Farm

Matt Ryan looks and sounds the part of a lifelong farmer. He’s lanky, soft-spoken, a little weatherbeaten, and clad in flannel—so even with that look being popular among urbanites right now, I’m still surprised that he’s only been a full-time farmer since January. After volunteering for the Talking Farm in Skokie for the last couple of years, he became the urban farm’s first official farmer, as part of its five-year plan for developing a sustainable teaching farm selling locally grown vegetables to area restaurants. He and others from the farm and from the Village of Skokie will be doing a session on the legal and logistical issues facing urban farms this Friday at the Good Food Festival (which I wrote about last week here), as part of its day devoted to food policy. I went to the farm on a clear, if still decidedly muddy, day last week to find out more about this emerging model farm on the near north shore.

Ryan grew up in Evanston and had no particular farm experience beyond backyard gardening, and he sums up his past career as “I was a warehouse manager, stuck inside all the time, counting nuts and bolts, making orders and talking on the phone all day. I just wanted to make a change.” Seven years ago he watched a documentary about food and became interested in food policy and how it affects public health. “I felt like by growing tomatoes I could make a change. It was pretty easy, I didn’t have to be a politician or go to med school, and I could have a multifaceted impact on environmental health. Food addresses a lot of issues.” He started a community garden at his church, and volunteered with the Talking Farm. As he got more serious, he went through an urban agriculture training program, Windy City Harvest, at the Chicago Botanic Garden. He was the part-time farmer at the Talking Farm, doing side work in construction and odd jobs for local business (in other words, pretty much exactly like a full-time farmer), and as the five-year plan for the site kicks into gear this year, he came on full time to manage the development of the farm.