Clermont Farmer Banks Helfrich Is On a Mission to ‘Close the Loop’
by REBEKAH PIERCE
title photo by SAI PATEL
Variety is the spice of life, or so they say — and for Clermont farmer Banks Helfrich, that statement couldn’t possibly hold more truth.
A performer-turned-farmer, Helfrich grows hundreds of different plants on his 7-acre plot.
His goal? To embrace sustainability, one seed, sapling, and delicious bite at a time — and to make sure others know how to do the same.
Giving Back to the Community
Helfrich is doing all this while giving back to the community. “I teach people how to go back to their roots – how to discover their green thumb,” he says.
On the farm, about 60% of the land is rewilded. “I do nothing to it,” he clarifies. “I let the native plants and animals do what they do. I don’t interrupt them. I let them do their thing.”
Outside of the rewilded areas, Helfrich has more than a dozen different gardens, including a sugarcane row, a small vineyard, a food forest, an orchard with various fruit-bearing trees, a tea garden, and of course, comprehensive herb and vegetable gardens.
Helfrich takes a one-of-a-kind approach to farming. Instead of growing basic, run-of-the-mill varieties of fruits and vegetables for resale at farmers markets or to local food cooperatives, he’s instead made it his mission to cultivate knowledge.
Each year, he grows a number of unique crops and holds classes that are open to the general public. For just a small donation, anybody can come on to Helfrich’s farm and learn how to grow, prepare, and most importantly, eat the delicious foods they see growing on the farm.
Seasonal Farm Tours
Many of the classes he holds are seasonal. Right before Thanksgiving, he holds a massive sweet potato harvest, inviting community members to the farm to harvest their own tubers and take them home to enjoy for their own Turkey Day feasts.
Also in November, Helfrich holds a class on how to harvest cassava. Because cassava is a root vegetable containing cyanide, it requires a somewhat unique preparation — it has to be either boiled or frozen within 24 hours of harvest to ensure safe consumption.
Coming up this month, Helfrich will host tours where visitors can harvest everything from apples to okra to beans and even cranberry hibiscus. He’ll teach his guests how to grow their own gardens and even provide them with clippings of trees to go back home and start cultivating themselves.
Each farm tour — which he refers to as a “tour and taste” where people can pick and eat as they go — lasts about 90 minutes.
The Driver Behind the Dream
For Helfrich, these courses aren’t about making a profit, but instead, about creating a sense of sustainability and community.
“I want to have something where people can experience something outside with other people,” he said.
Although Helfrich has deep roots in the entertainment industry, his roots in sustainable agriculture go back much further.
“My whole life, I thought I’d go back and work on a farm of my own,” he says. He fondly reminisces about his childhood spent milking the family dairy cow, making homemade cheese, butter, and ice cream, and growing large gardens with his parents and siblings.
“My ultimate goal is to be sustainable,” he says. “Which means, close the loop and utilize everything on the farm, from food to water to air to community to shelter.”
You can sign up for one of Helfrich’s events on his Here on the Farm with Farmer Banks Facebook page or on Eventbrite. Participants get a firsthand education in sustainability and also walk away with plenty of fresh produce and plants to start their own gardens.
As Helfrich works to “close the sustainability loop” on his own farm, he’s closing a loop in his own community by showcasing the power of education. By sharing his knowledge with others, he’s spreading a love for the land and a sense of community that can’t ever be taken away.
And that knowledge goes both ways, he says.
“If they don’t learn something new [on their tour], I learn something new from them.”
