Behind its historic stone walls along Harrison Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, Ocean Hour Farm is improving ocean health through sustainable land stewardship.
As part of the philanthropic organizations and initiatives created and funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt to work toward a healthy, resilient, secure world, we founded the Farm to build upon Wendy’s many years demonstrating the crucial connection between land and sea. After purchasing the 43.2-acre property from the SVF Foundation at the end of 2021, we formally established Ocean Hour Farm. Since then, we’ve been working closely with the team at our sibling organization, 11th Hour Racing, to demonstrate that what we do on land impacts the sea, from groundwater filtration to carbon sequestration, rotational animal grazing to food systems.
“We have this incredible space in the middle of a little basin watershed, where all the water comes into our property and flows directly into the harbor. And lo and behold, the connection between soil and water and water health becomes clear,” says Jeremy Pochman, CEO and co-founder of 11th Hour Racing and Ocean Hour Farm. “It’s pretty remarkable that we can connect these dots right in the heart of Newport.”
Ocean Hour Farm has collaborated with Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC), home to some of the leading permaculture designers and educators in the world, to set goals for the Farm. Together, we wove the core tenets of the Schmidt Family Foundation—resilient food systems, renewable energy, ocean health, human rights and climate change—into a regenerative approach to the land that we could share with partners looking to implement similar stewardship strategies.
“This should not be done in a vacuum. It’s very important that what we do at Ocean Hour Farm benefits the larger ecosystem around us. Rhode Island is a relatively contained space, and it has so much environmental diversity to make it interesting,” Pochman explains. “We can demonstrate different solutions that can be relevant for people in a larger region.”
Yet, before the farm became Ocean Hour Farm, it needed a name. Pochman explains that the organization’s efforts to focus on ocean health, freshwater resources and filtration became critical to defining that identity.
“It resonated with what’s here,” he says. “We wanted to put ‘ocean’ in the name so that we wouldn’t forget about that connection. Ever.”
Ocean Hour Farm is located on Aquidneck Island, along Newport, Rhode Island’s historic ocean drive. Walking to the highest point on the property allows you to see that we are truly surrounded by the ocean.
Once we had a name, our team began developing its infrastructure through protracted and thoughtful observation of the land.
“We didn’t bring or impose any judgment but sat and observed and saw what’s there,” Pochman says. The team watched the sun rise and set, where the shade landed, how birds migrated through, where the water flowed after storms, and when the sheep moved around the fields to feed.
Building on the cumulative decades of institutional knowledge from nine members of SVF Foundation staff who joined our team, we also hired experts in regenerative farming, food and fiber sheds, and education. The Farm slowly developed as a center for education, research, and regenerative agriculture demonstrations.
Our plans for demonstrations include land management integrating plant, animal, and human systems targeting four keystones of global warming: carbon sequestration, stormwater runoff, healthy soils, and biodiversity. We strive to manage the property in a way that allows long-term symbiotic growth between plants and animals. For example, the idea of building a food forest came about from observing existing trees and what other plants would grow well with them, then considering how best to allow them to flourish without pesticides, mechanics, or human modification.
“We’re trying some hearty almonds, apples, and plums: the fruiting trees that grow well here. Not many people know of a food forest as an agricultural approach, but the idea is to be able to harvest entire meals rather than a whole lot of one crop. Instead of 800 tomatoes at once and then managing that, it would be more like five or 10 or 50 or 150 whole meals. It’s much more perennial,” Jeremy says. “Once you have an established food forest, it’s very, very low maintenance. It’s perennial. It doesn’t require radical amendments every year to push all that growth. It doesn’t need irrigation and only asks for minimal support. You prune it carefully, and the clippings become its mulch. A full circle, agriculture mimicking nature.”
A food forest, sometimes called a forest garden, is a diverse planting of edible plants that attempts to mimic the ecosystems and patterns found in nature. Food forests are three-dimensional designs, with life growing in all directions—up, down, and out.
We believe that stabilizing ocean health through regenerative land management is an essential solution to climate change. As our team develops knowledge and tests different farming techniques, we aim to ensure that farmers in the region can implement these concepts on their land to improve their triple bottom line (people, planet, profit). We identified areas of the property best suited to welcome members of the community, from farmers to students to nonprofit leaders. The long barn, for instance, was the perfect spot to build a lab for farmers to come together to evaluate their soils and assess growing techniques. In the heart of the Farm Village, a stone building once used for bulls is becoming a commercial kitchen, where we’ll host dinners for community members to eat the produce grown on the property. It’s also where our education program gathers local students to learn about the value and economic potential of regenerative farming.
All of us at the Farm take seriously our obligation to use everything we produce. Currently, we’re exploring fiber systems solutions—what to do with sheep’s wool and how to develop an economic opportunity for local farmers from that wool. Because sheep in the U.S. are raised for meat, wool is considered a waste product. Most of it is burned or buried, and only approximately 2.9% of the wool clothing worn in the U.S. is made domestically.
“Maybe there’s a bunch of architectural or other interesting solutions that can be done with this, so that’s kind of how we enter into it, and we have all these other questions that crop up, and then we start to explore,” Pochman explains.
Most importantly, our goal at Ocean Hour Farm is not exponential growth forever, Pochman says, but managing our space as sustainably and resourcefully as possible while creating strong, systemic impact that is stable enough to meet community needs over time.
“The sky is the limit with what we can do here,” Pochman adds. “But I think it also means we have a responsibility to try to be excellent in it.”
