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Growing with a Purpose
Stepping into one of the three hoop houses at Green Bridge Growers in Mishawaka, Indiana, is like walking into a different world. The air is humid and warm, and outside sounds are muffled and replaced with the trickling of water.
Swiss chard and lettuce plants are stacked and lined up in rows of aquaponic towers. A shed attached to one of the hoop houses is home to seven tanks of koi fish, which are the stars of the farm’s closed-loop aquaponic system. They create waste that flows through the water to the plants. The plants take nutrients from the fish waste, then the water flows back to the koi tanks and provides nutrients to the fish. This system uses 90% less water than conventional farming and reduces the time to harvest by a third.
While most aquaponic setups use tilapia, Green Bridge Growers uses koi because they can live in cooler temperatures. They also grow crops that can handle the cooler winter weather so the farm can grow year-round without needing to heat the shed or hoop houses. This efficient setup is a product of continuous tweaking and adaptation. “In farming, you always have to pivot,” co-founder Jan Pilarski says.
Adapting to difficult environments is nothing new for co-founders and mother-son duo Jan Pilarski and Chris Tidmarsh. They founded Green Bridge Growers in 2013 after Tidmarsh struggled to find work despite earning degrees in chemistry, environmental studies and French. He interned at farms and explored sustainable farming during and after college. Tidmarsh wasn’t alone in his struggle to find work. A staggering 85% of adults with autism were unemployed as of 2021, according to the CDC.
“The needle wasn’t going to change for him [Chris] and his peers unless we built a social venture that put to work the potential of those with autism,” Pilarski says.
Green Bridge Growers is doing just that. Of its 10 employees, half are neurodiverse. Pilarski and Tidmarsh have created a work environment that brings out its employees’ strengths. Work instructions and training are tailored to how each employee works best, often leaning on visual demos and videos since many autistic individuals are visual learners.
“We often text amongst ourselves if there are questions because that’s a form of communication that’s very direct,” Pilarski says. Employees work at their own pace, with thorough and thoughtful work emphasized over speed.
While the farm provides employment opportunities for autistic adults, it also focuses on increasing access to locally grown food within the community. The farm partners with the Indiana Department of Health in a program that works to involve socially disadvantaged farmers, with most of the harvest under that arrangement going to the Food Bank of Northern Indiana. The farm also works with the Northwest Indiana Food Council to provide produce for monthly food boxes for new moms. Additionally, the farm has a presence at pop-up markets in South Bend neighborhoods lacking food access.
Every day at the farm is different. Tidmarsh handles much of the administrative work, evaluating production, researching and blogging. Pilarski does community outreach and explores new marketing avenues for the farm. Both do the physical work involved in farming, too, checking water flow in the aquaponic towers in their greenhouses, feeding the koi (which are fed twice a day and are especially lively at feeding times), irrigating plants, checking for pests and transplanting seedlings.
Green Bridge Growers is the first farm of its kind in Michiana, using aquaponics to grow crops and employment opportunities for those with autism. Tidmarsh says, “I’m proud we’re in the first wave of businesses across the country that put to work the gifts of those of us with autism.”
Green Bridge Growers
61591 Bremen Highway
Mishawaka, IN
574.310.8190
greenbridgegrowers.org
Brogan Dearinger lives in South Bend, Indiana. She writes about food and spends her free time creating art and exploring local coffee shops. See what she’s up to at brogandearinger.com or on Instagram @brogan_eats.
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