A Portrait of our Farmers: Inverbrook Farm

By Margaret Gilmour

In celebration of Chester County’s agricultural bounty, we’re rounding out our farmer profiles with Inverbrook Farm, a 10-year-old sustainable family farm run by Claire Murray who grew up in Chester County, went away to college and came home ready to spread her appreciation for locally grown, organic food.

Again, the images are all shot by photographer Carlos Alejandro, whose stunning photographs brought all the stories in our series to life.

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As a child, Claire Murray spent most Sunday dinners in West Grove at Inverbrook, her grandparent’s 100-acre property bought and named—Inverbrook means near a brook—by her great-grandfather in the 1930s.

By the time she was about 15-years-old, Murray and her family moved onto the idyllic tract of land with her grandparents, and Murray’s appetite for the outdoors continued to flourish.

This country girl savored the fresh air, sprawling grassland and garden-fresh vegetables her grandmother grew, and headed to Penn State a few years later where she majored in Environmental Resource Management.

It was at Penn State that Murray was first introduced to the CSA concept.

Immediately intrigued, she immersed herself in environmentalism, activism and nutrition, devouring new concepts along the way and eventually adding a minor in International Agriculture and then another in Science-Technology and Society.

“I felt like I’d found my community,” Murray says.

As soon as she graduated from Penn State, Murray headed back home with new eyes on Inverbrook: She saw that it begged to be plowed.

So she teamed up with her uncle Hugh Lofting, who also lived on the family compound and had a timber framing business underway, and the two joined the local farming community. They grew Inverbrook Farm slowly with Lofting adopting a few pasture-raised chickens, and Murray tilling the land.

Today their approach to farm-work is a purist’s ideal: It’s all back-to-basics and hands-on, a sustainable road to mindful agriculture.

It took Murray about four to five years of concentrated practice and trial and error in the garden before she felt as if she really understood the lay of the land. She spent days visiting area farmers, specifically the Kimberton CSA, one of the oldest CSA’s in the country, and at the time, the only CSA in Chester County.

Eventually Murray moved from working part-time in the garden, to dedicating full-days cultivating chemical-free produce in well-plotted fields, her specialty becoming early spring greens. Depending on the day, there are now also four or five interns that help tend the crops and manage farm work.

Murray waited a few years until CSAs became more mainstream before selling the concept to the regulars who visited her booth at the farmers’ markets. This year her CSA sold all 60 shares plus a handful of work trades and donated portions.

On Inverbrook Farm, five-acres are devoted to vegetables that Murray sells to an ever-growing crowd of foodies who appreciate her hard work and just-plucked harvest. Pastured poultry and eggs are also for sale, as is local Angus burgers from Buck Run Farm. Now ten years into living her dream Murray’s interested in “becoming more efficient,” she says, “not necessarily bigger.”

Still determined to make a difference, Murray is active in the community as the Chapter Coordinator for Chester County Buy Fresh, Buy Local chapter, an active PASA member (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agricultural), and vice-chair of the Chester County Agricultural Development Council.

Q. Do you see community support for small farming growing?

A. Yes, definitely.

Q. How can we as the public support small farms?

A. The quick and obvious answer is join CSA’s, go to farm stands and farmers’ markets. But on a deeper level, or community level, making sure our food system is vibrant by supporting the structures the farmer’s need—like land access, education, low interest loans and the distribution system.

Q. Are you hopeful for the future of small farms?

A. Yes. Very hopeful. Ultimately consumer demand will drive farming in the right direction.

Q. What trends do you see growing in the farming industry?

A. A lot of backyard farming. And the Buy Fresh Buy Local movement in general.

Q. Are there any concerns in your business that keep you awake at night?

A. Making the farm financially viable.

Q. How do you spend your winters?

A. Planning for the next year, cleaning out my office, going to conferences (PASA’s Farming for the Future is an important one).

Q. What do you do for fun?

A. I really like music so I go to concerts, go see local music.

Q. What is your favorite food/drink?

A. Food: First greens of the spring or any produce as it comes in.

A. Drink: Coffee or beer.

Q. What is your favorite motto?

A. My motto is a quote from Goethe–kind of long but I love it.  When I first started researching the concept of CSAs I found it:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Q. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

A. Some kind of community development revolving around food.

Q. What profession would you shy away from?

A. A banker.

Q. What sound or noise do you hate/love?

A. Love: Birds and crickets in the morning or twilight.

A. Hate: Jet skis.

Q. Finish this sentence: “The natural talent I’d like to be gifted with is…”

A. …a more comfortable public speaker.

Q. What’s your idea of happiness?

A. Farming.