The Accidental Farmer
Thomas McOsker
My work explores the distance between what we measure, what we value, and what matters.
I spent fourteen years on Wall Street building financial systems. Then I bought a coffee farm in the mountains of western Puerto Rico. The farm gave me a new set of questions about what markets count, what they leave out, and what happens to the people and places that depend on them. I write about that education as The Accidental Farmer.
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From Field Notes
Why I Am Writing Here
Somewhere between the coffee trees and the broken machinery, I began taking notes.
Read the essayWhat guides the work
What matters should guide what we measure.
The way we assign value should help people take care of it.
At Copper Hill, that means asking what a coffee tree can yield and what it takes to keep the tree and the farm healthy. A second harvest is one way to test how those questions fit together.
Research
My master’s thesis asked whether coffee leaves and fruit could bring growers another source of income. I’m still exploring that question in the field and lab at Copper Hill.
Explore the researchWriting & books
I write as The Accidental Farmer, from the mountains of Puerto Rico and the shores of Maine.
Read Field Notes / Explore the booksSpeaking
I speak about agricultural economics, how markets take shape, and what I learned moving from finance to farming.
Speaking & press