Adam Saunders

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT ADAM SAUNDERS

I am an urban farmer, orcharder, builder, and entrepreneur. Urban Farming: Co-founder of the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture, an educational non-profit. My experience includes strategic planning, project management, development, fruit/vegetable production, orchard management, small flock poultry, composting, bio-char and more. Founded in 2009, CCUA has grown over the years from all volunteer, to a thriving team of 25 staff and hundreds of volunteers headquartered out of Columbia’s Agriculture Park. CCUA runs a wide range of hands-on garden/cooking education and has \"Planting for the Pantry\" farming projects to supply local food pantries. I serve as Campaign Director for the “Build This Town: Campaign for Columbia’s Agriculture Park”. Over 11 million has been raised in the multi-year, multi-phase public-private-project. Orcharder: I run a small nursery to propagate, graft and establish diverse orchards around Columbia, MO. My collection of fruit varieties covers the wide range of flavor profiles of apple, pear, and peach. I work with landowners to add fruit trees into the landscape, manage them into production, and market the fruit. I also do forestry plantings for timber, agroforestry grazing/cropping, and carbon sink - carbon storage projects. Builder: My wife and I have rehabbed a historic property in downtown Columbia. During the pandemic we built an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) with high-performance details for air sealing, insulating and thermal mass. Natural building with non-toxic materials and straw bale insulation via straw-cell framing. The project has net zero energy use goals with solar and high efficiency systems. ADU designed by Monarch Architecture. Entrepreneur: I love to put the pieces of puzzles together and the \"opportunity screening\" entrepreneur process. My work at CCUA has led to deep roots in social entrepreneurism by using urban agriculture as a tool to improve our society. Meanwhile part time projects in farming, timber harvest, and nursery/orcharding connect to a whole different part of the economy and opportunities.