CrowdFarming: East Fork Investment Opportunity
Investors earn returns while supporting East Fork’s regenerative hemp farming through Steward — the world’s first CrowdFarming platform
In July 2020, we launched an innovative pilot fundraising campaign with our friends and partners at Steward, the world’s first CrowdFarming platform. As a first for businesses in the United States, anyone in the country was able to invest in our organization directly and earn back their money plus a 10% return in 3 years.
This pilot raise was smashing success: we met our $50,000 funding goal within a week. And investors have been excited not only about the 10% returns they'll receive, but also about supporting our mission and connecting with us directly.
Now we’re building on the success of the pilot to a larger fundraise. Head here: https://gosteward.com/farms/east-fork-cultivars for more details and to invest in East Fork!
Why we're fundraising and why we're doing it with Steward
Our nation's agriculture system is designed for large-scale commodity agriculture. It's not an accident that we have this system. And it's not sustainable.
If you’re not a large-scale farm, if you’re small and focused on sustainable agriculture, even if you are successful, you likely struggle to access the capital you need to grow, to do things more efficiently, to become a self-sustaining operation and better achieve your mission. That's certainly been our experience.
While hemp and cannabis prohibition has ended in Oregon, traditional banking and financing options remain difficult to access, even for established organizations with strong cash flow and credit history, like East Fork. In 5+ years we've never once missed a payment. In the absence of conventional loans and lines of credit available to most businesses, East Fork has grown through the support of friends and family via simple, amortized loans with attractive interest rates and terms.
That's where our good friends at Steward come in.
Steward is the world’s first CrowdFarming platform, helping sustainable farms to flourish by letting regular people legally and securely invest in them directly, and prosper alongside them. Whether you're an investor looking to build wealth without compromising values, or a small-scale sustainable farm like us looking for the back-up needed to take that next step, Steward makes it work.
We're jazzed about what Steward will do for encouraging and supporting more small-scale sustainable agriculture across the United States. And the support it'll provide to values-driven cannabis farmers that don't want to sacrifice their ethics or standards in order to scale.
And we're pumped to be the first farm on Steward's CrowdFarming platform.
Due to a recent precedent-setting rule change at the SEC, we're now allowed to share our offering — gosteward.com/investments/east-fork-cultivars — far and wide: any adult in the U.S. can participate.
Individuals can invest as little as $100, or as much as $100,000, and they will receive a 10% annual return. The loan term is 3 years. We will use the capital to expand our breeding program, fund organic certifications for our entire hemp supply chain, and help us expand into retail via @hemp.bar.
While the global COVID-19 pandemic has created changes and uncertainty, the demand for East Fork's superior therapeutic-grade plant products has continued to strengthen. Commonly used in managing anxiety, pain, sleep, and numerous medical conditions, millions of people rely upon CBD-rich organic hemp and cannabis products.
By backing East Fork, investors choose to proactively foster a positive future for regenerative agriculture and organic plant medicine, as we continues to demonstrate the industry's leading operating standards.
Sustainable farmers are stewards of the land - taking responsibility for the soil, nourishing our communities, and proving that there is a better way to do agriculture. Now individuals across the country can actively support farms like ours and earn a good return.
