Grow
Put a neighborhood-sized plot to work producing food and demonstrating what local land can support.
Founder · Sustainability strategist · Partnership builder
It started with the lot next door.
In 2016, Doug Adams bought the vacant quarter-acre beside his childhood home. He grew it into New Brooklyn Farms, then carried that ground-level perspective into sustainability, technology, environmental markets, and cross-sector programs.
FIELD NOTES
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FOUNDER
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FOUNDER
Started in Mount Rainier, MarylandNew Brooklyn Farms
A FIELD-TO-SYSTEMS PRACTICE · EST. 2016
Scroll to explore
Land → food → community → systems
01Founder story / New Brooklyn Farms
One quarter-acre.
A lot of possibility.
¼
ACRE
Mount Rainier
Maryland
Maryland
New Brooklyn Farms01 / A place to grow
Land beside Doug’s childhood home went up for sale. He bought the vacant quarter-acre and started growing food. The idea became New Brooklyn Farms: an urban farm, a green event space, and a place for local food entrepreneurs to take root.
That first project still shapes his work: begin with the real conditions on the ground, build with the people closest to them, then connect the right partners to make progress last.
“I decided I’d take a shot at growing food.” Doug Adams · Modern Farmer, 2023
02New Brooklyn Farms / the living project
More than a farm.
A place to grow.
New Brooklyn Farms grew from a vacant quarter-acre beside Doug’s childhood home. It brings together urban agriculture, a green event space, and local food entrepreneurs—making room for growing, gathering, and community business in one place.
Gather
Use a green event space to bring people together around food, learning, and community.
Build
Support local food entrepreneurs and connect their work with community partners.
Farm life / shared experience
Yoga and Mead Tasting at The New Brooklyn Farm
03Trajectory / six chapters
One idea kept
finding new ground.
Scrub through the milestones. The setting changes—from a farm lot to large-scale programs—but the work keeps coming back to people, partnerships, and delivery.
2016
The lot next door
CHAPTER 01 / THE GROUND
Start with what’s possible.
Doug bought a vacant quarter-acre beside his childhood home in Mount Rainier and began growing food. That decision became New Brooklyn Farms.
04Operations / delivery
Good strategy still needs good operations.
Across member organizations, partner teams, and research portfolios, Doug brings structure to collaboration—setting a shared plan, tracking the work, and keeping milestones moving.
Ecosystem Services Market Consortium · 2023–2026
Partnerships & member experience.
As Manager, Member Engagement, and later Senior Manager, Partnerships, Doug led member programming and relationship work across an ecosystem services consortium.
30 / 35 / 20percent gains in retention, recruitment, and engagement
AeroFarms · 2020–2022
Finance & program delivery.
Doug managed finance for strategic partnerships and coordinated budgets, forecasts, compliance, partner reporting, and milestones for a multi-partner lettuce research consortium.
$4.8Mfour-year research program · five partners
05Technology / product programs
Build systems that help teams move.
At Meta, Doug served as a Senior Technical Program Manager, aligning teams across product, engineering, design, data, integrity, legal, and operations.
100+
product launches supported at Meta
Senior Technical Program Manager · 2022–2023
Meta / Technical Program Management
Bring complex launches into focus.
Doug connected product goals to delivery plans—helping cross-functional teams see dependencies, surface risks, and prepare launches against integrity standards.
- Cross-functional planning
- Launch readiness
- Risk & dependency tracking
- Product operations
¼ acreNew Brooklyn Farms site
80%of county zones expanded for urban farming
100+product launches supported at Meta
30 / 35 / 20percent gains in ESMC retention, recruitment, engagement
06Thought leadership / ideas in action
Make big systems work on the ground.
Doug’s writing connects policy, farm economics, and measurable environmental outcomes. His perspective starts with what a program makes possible, then asks how growers can keep creating value over time.
Why USDA’s Regenerative Push and EcoHarvest Work Better Together
Doug’s article explains how public support can help farmers adopt regenerative practices, while outcome-based markets can reward the verified soil, water, and climate benefits those practices deliver.
Read Doug’s article on ESMCSees what policy enables—and where value is still missing.
He recognizes how public programs can reduce adoption risk while asking how farmers are compensated for the outcomes that follow.
Connects public support with market pathways.
His article shows how practice-based programs and voluntary environmental markets can complement each other.
Makes measurable outcomes matter to producers.
He translates soil, water, and climate results into practical opportunities for farm income and supply-chain resilience.
Stabilizing Farm Economics Through Market-Driven Environmental Outcomes
Doug examines how volatile commodity markets affect farm planning, and how verified environmental outcomes can create a more durable source of value alongside traditional crop revenue.
Read Doug’s article on ESMC07Media / Doug in his own words
The work, in motion.
Watch Doug’s featured videos here, then continue with a long-form conversation about urban agriculture, community health, and the people behind New Brooklyn Farms.
Field recording / 01
BLAK Gardener Talk
Doug Adams on growing community from the ground up.
68
Minutes · full episode
Doug Adams with Kimani Anku
Play the conversationListen on BLAK Gardener Talk
GUEST EPISODE / DOUG ADAMS / 1:08:12
Listen on BLAK Gardener Talk ↗
08Speaking / panels & conversations
Bring Doug into the conversation.
Doug brings a practitioner’s perspective to agriculture, environmental markets, technology, and community development. As a speaker and panelist, he connects big systems to the people who work inside them—and turns complex questions into grounded, useful discussion.
Regenerative agriculture
Urban agriculture & policy
Soil health
Environmental markets
Cross-sector partnerships
Program design & delivery
RegenerativeNYC 2025
Building Just & Inclusive Food Systems
Doug joined Gabriel Morales (Brandworkers), Tagan Engel (Yale & The Table Underground), and Steph Wiley (Brooklyn Packers) to discuss equitable access to land, capital, and markets—and how inclusive supply chains can support diverse food producers.
As an ESMC panelist, Doug connected market and partnership experience with the practical needs of food producers and communities.
For speaking, consulting, partnerships
Let’s grow
something useful.
For a project, a conversation, or a room that needs a grounded voice on agriculture, sustainability, and systems change, reach Doug through New Brooklyn Farms.