Leaving the corporate world, our family wants to create an innovative sustainable farm that produces fresh, healthy, nutritious produce for our community while restoring our earth’s precious resources. We began our journey by purchasing an existing aquaponics farm in South Fort Myers one year before being destroyed by Hurricane Ian. Aquaponics utilizes tilapia fish to produce the nutrients for our many lettuce varieties while using less than 10% water than traditional farms. The lettuce is harvested 6 weeks after seeds are sown and stays fresh for over three weeks in rethe frigerator and tastes so good. We realized that sustainability is more than just resources and more income was required, so we invested in chickens to produce farm-fresh eggs. We harvest multi-colored eggs from safe ranged hens that are naturally and organically fed. We built an open-ended chicken coop that allows our hens to get plenty of exercise and eat in pasture fields of nearly an acre on each side of the coop. The entire range is covered with netting to protect them from the numerous birds of prey around our property. We lost 2/3 of our flock in Hurricane Ian, but we have survivors.

Our farm has over 200 tropical fruit trees and plants (many varieties of bananas, papaya, mango, star fruit, cherries, and other citrus).

We also keep beehives that produce beautiful honey while pollinating our many fruit trees and other produce we grow at our farm. The bees are finally thriving after much effort to restore them after losing everything in Hurricane Ian.

Our hens are so happy and spoiled. We have another chicken coop for our bantam silky chickens. We are constantly adding new young hens to our flock. We encourage children to visit our farm and gather eggs as there is no better joy than finding an egg under a hen.

Hurricane Ian destroyed our farm and we are rebuilding our aquaponic systems and will be producing lettuce again in 2024. In 2025, we will be growing microgreens and mushrooms in our Controlled Environment Agriculture utilizing shipping containers.

We will be adding solar panels to eventually provide all our energy needs as our goal is to be fully sustainable while producing zero waste as we will eventually be recycling everything on our farm.

Although EFC farms was covered with nearly seven feet of water due to Hurricane Ian and nearly everything was destroyed, we knew our recovery was our goal. 

Committing to our future, EFC Farms is excited to announce the construction of a new processing, educational and event center on the north end of our farm. This building, “The BEC”, is being built to hurricane standards and is replacing the former processing building. This new building was designed by John Spence, an architect with Moore and Spence Architects in Fort Myers, and will have a commercial kitchen, complete AC throughout, meeting rooms, space to seat 175, an elevator and backup generators. Fowler Construction is the General Contractor and anticipates finishing work by December 1, 2024.

We are excited to use this space to process our produce while providing this space for educational groups in our community to learn about sustainable farming and for hosting individuals and groups in our community with a comfortable space for special events and meetings.

Follow us at EFCFarms on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook to see our progress and learn more about our recovery journey.