As both of his parents were doctors, Rijk Gupta grew up surrounded by Western medicine. However, Rijk was always more attracted to the bed of roses outside of his house than the medical supplies within. After studying Plant and Soil Science at UMass Amherst, working as a bartender, and participating in an apprenticeship program at UC Santa Cruz focused on no-till farming, Rijk went to grad school at UW LaCrosse to study Cultivation of Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms. However, a confluence of events including Rijk’s graduate professor getting sick and an accident where Rijk’s leg was badly broken, led Rijk to end his grad school experience unexpectedly early. After this, Rijk started his own dog walking business, which was quite successful, but he never stopped thinking about farming, which has been his lifelong dream. After taking a business planning course with New Entry, Rijk’s love of farming was reinvigorated and he realized that leasing land with New Entry could help him discover what type of farmer he’d want to be when going out on his own. With New Entry, Rijk leased a ¼ acre and began his farm, Anything Grows. Here, Rijk encountered more problems than he had anticipated as, soon after beginning Anything Grows, he had to deal with the COVID crisis. Despite struggling with the COVID crisis early into the establishment of his farm Rijk has not been dissuaded from putting all of his energy into the farm or from working every day to harvest and deliver his foods to people who are also struggling with the COVID crisis and need fresh produce during this difficult time.

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