So this post seeks clarity. Above is straight from the PA Department of State Bureau of Charities Charities Enforcement and Disciplinary Actions. You can look it up yourself. Search FarmerJawn squished together like that. Once in another life, I knew someone who in their other life was an investigator for the Bureau of Charities. This is what they do, they check things out.
See that notice above? That is when they received the letter from the IRS for tax exempt status. If you read the letter, the effective date was mid-2021.
Let that sink in. This has been for a few years. Around this time last year we woke up one day to the news that the Westtown location we knew for 30+ years as Pete’s Produce etc. on Westtown’s campus had been vandalized with hateful and disgusting graffiti.
What is interesting is this news report says that BEFORE the graffiti there had been other vandalism, but correct me if I am wrong (please) that there were no security cameras or trail cameras anywhere? I am guessing if I recall what was said somewhere after these incidents that now they do have cameras? I am glad they do because this criminal behavior is terrible, right? BUT to date these cases of graffiti and vandalism go unsolved, don’t they? And that is a great police department too (WEGO.)
https://www.phillyvoice.com/farmer-jawn-swastika-vandalism-antisemitism-west-chester
After these incidents, subsequent months featured pop up events under the theme of “Only Love Grows”. Interestingly, a lot of the events were not held in Westtown, but other places like Historic Maplewood Mall.…in Germantown.
So a lot of events are off site. She claims people have made her feel unwelcome in Chester County, so maybe one reason is her events seem more often than not elsewhere? As in other than all those lovely acres in Westtown? Take the free egg give away recently….in New York City no less?
Free eggs? New Yorkers wait in line for hours for chance at a dozen eggs
NBC4 NY FarmerJawn was giving away free eggs Friday morning at various locations in New York City By The Associated Press • Published March 21, 2025 • Updated on March 22, 2025 at 10:49 am
And her newly minted interview with desperately seeking relevance, Christina Pirello (used to have or maybe still has a TV cooking show), just days before the cease and desist thing broke interviewed her in Elkins Park. At least it looked like something was being grown on the handful of acres she “farms” over there, right?
Why not give out free eggs at the farm store she got to walk into over at Westtown? Why not show Christina Pirello Westtown too?
So first came Axios which most of us then noticed because of Vista today.
https://vista.today/2025/04/farmerjawn-cease-and-desist-register
https://www.axios.com/local/philadelphia/2025/03/31/farmerjawn-nonprofit-charity-taxes-pennsylvania
Then came the Philadelphia Inquirer article. The reporter I have no issue with but she is part of features/food from what I can tell so we can assume the publicist placed this article?
Part of FarmerJawn lost its nonprofit status. Founder Christa Barfield says the organization’s charitable work continues.
“We’re community-oriented every way you look at it, and no one can ever doubt that,” Barfield said.
by Jenn Ladd
Published April 3, 2025, 10:49 a.m. ET
Next the Glenside Local picked this up.
Next came public chatter and a fair amount of it. People all over talking about it. I wrote about it.
Then comes the stunning public reel thing someone sent me:
That was sent with this screenshot to prove this was public and available for a re-mix:
Lets talk about this: if you ever question anything you are a hater or a racist, correct? And all the flurry of media? Isn’t it more like she talks when she wants something? Also there is still the whole 501(c)(3) of it all on her website and the donation link is still up:
And there is still a live GoFundMe as of the publishing of this post :
But hey, that is not active fundraising right?
And she gets defensive over her business entities being legally registered. Here they are and nice deflection, and no one said they weren’t registered:
FarmerJawn also had health department inspection issues last year. They were resolved, but they happened. So she says somewhere recently she’s letting people use the kitchen over there? I guess that means no more issues, right?
This fauxmer has gotten lots of support and money from all sorts of avenues. A James Beard award, and was briefly it seems a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier. That was for the tea company? Is she still a member?
She talks about keeping employees paid all the time? Has she really? Including all of the time in Elkins Park, as well as the stores she once had at 6730 Germantown Avenue? And what about that wellness spa Mae Bell or whatever from when was that? 2023? (And that wasn’t supposed to be at 6730 Germantown but close by?
Last May, I was attacked viciously online and off for questioning the grant of it all because among other things, the grant application had used that Germantown Avenue address and wasn’t that an odd thing as she no longer was a tenant there, correct?
I and others have been labeled “haters” and “racists” for questioning this from jump. What they always neglect to mention is I have never had an issue with her purported mission.
Also of no 501(c)(3) at present why does her Linktree go to her donation page? Do they have to be called other than donations if 501(c)(3) is not active?
I support supporting local farmers of all kinds and do.
I support dealing with food insecurity issues which is why I support local food banks when I can especially in helping get the word out. So yeah, if her mission statement was more than words at this point, I would be thrilled because there are so many people in need and we live in a world where so many of us have lived on the edge of not being able to be even self supporting.
I am also a big believer in things like community gardens and I think in today’s world having what used to be called victory gardens is a good thing because face it, the US is on the precipice of disaster, which of course will cause a whole other category of haters to rise up because I said that.
I am also not only a supporter of women and minorities in farming, but horticulture as well. Why? Because they are universal things that benefit us all as human beings, right?
I am wondering if the Westtown ought to consider at this point getting a real farmer, not merely a person who checks idealistic or ideological boxes on those acres? The other conversation now should maybe be in the landowner’s failure to supervise and the land’s future? Westtown has not said much of ANYTHING since they approved her to lease the land, have they? So we don’t actually know what they are thinking and how they feel, correct? Can we trust Westtown to keep these acres farmed in perpetuity? Aren’t there still other farmers interested?
And let’s talk about getting the organic status. I have no issue with that and neither does anyone I have ever spoken with. The only detractor is it is honestly expensive to accomplish this. BUT one thing I have never understood is why she didn’t really plant anything much the past couple of years in Westtown? I asked farmers (including female) who told me the land at Pete’s was in good shape and and apparently you can farm land going organic but you can’t sell the produce those years as organic so why didn’t she plant more? And last year (2024) as per a 2023 Daily Local article, 63 acres was supposed to be planted? Did that happen?
FarmerJawn Agriculture is bringing organic farming to the 128-acre Westtown School property at 1225 E. Street Road, along Route 926, where farmer Pete Flynn once grew crops.
For the current growing season, FarmerJawn, more precisely CEO Christa Barfield, is farming two acres, and stewarding most of the school’s farmland. She is letting most of the land sit fallow, for this, her first growing season.
FarmerJawn will only raise crops organically. For fruits, vegetable and herbs to be certified organic by the USDA, the land must be chemical free for three years.
FarmerJawn has big plans for 2024; Barfield intends to grow and harvest on 63 acres. Although the crops won’t be certified organic by the USDA, the harvest will be chemical free.
~https://www.dailylocal.com/2023/10/27/farmerjawn-organic-offerings-growing-at-westtown-school/
During a 2022 Daily Local article it was stated:
Effective Jan. 1, organic farming is coming to Westtown School.
The Quaker pre-K-12, coed, day and boarding school has tapped Philadelphia’s Christa Barfield to farm 123 acres of the school’s 600 acres. She will farm organically, through an unconventional model.
Barfield is replacing long-time Westtown farmer Pete Flynn who retired in October.
How many of those objectives have been met? Again, where is Westtown School on this?
And again, for the record, what she claimed she wanted to do here is NOT a bad thing, but what has she actually accomplished vis-à-vis FARMING? Where is the food coming from that she sells and doesn’t grow? Pete and other markets will tell you who they bought apples from etc.
The problem is there has been a lot of talk and a lot of plans and a lot of spin courtesy of a publicist but what is going on? Other than events etc. off site from 1225 E. Street Road? Have all five acres on that Elkins estate been consistently farmed?
https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/christa-barfield-philadelphia
And the media flurry this time? She ranges between influencer behavior and hiding, but can it be she simply likes to control the narrative which is human?
Now in 2022, she was eligible for a $50,000 grant by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture for Urban Infrastructure for Agriculture. That was a reimbursement grant so did she get that money in the end?
In an interview in 2024 for an online thing called technical.ly she talked about irrigation troubles in Westtown among lots of other things.
So the thing about Pete Flynn from Pete’s Produce? Did that actually happen? Now being new to Chester County can be hard for anyone, not just because of race. Being new in any community once you hit a certain age is hard. But it doesn’t sound like the Pete Flynn most talk about does it?
And that whole thing about the landlord issues in Elkins Park where she once had greenhouses?
So according to Resolve Philly (article embedded above):
Things are looking up for Christa Barfield, owner of Farmer Jawn Agriculture, who faced many hardships this past year. In April, Barfield made a big decision to move out of her old space in Elkins Park after facing landlord problems and the destruction of her crops. One month ago, she launched a new crowdfunding campaign to move the organization onto the Elkins Estate.
“I’m not interested in a farm that’s over an hour away from Philadelphia,” says Barfield, about the importance of the location. “I want it to be accessible, simple, and easy for people to go.”At 1760 Ashbourne Road, the Elkins Estate is a three-minute drive and a 12-minute walk from the Philadelphia borderline on Cheltenham Avenue.
Mmmmkay so if she didn’t want to be on a farm over an hour away from Philadelphia, she comes to Westtown?
Philadelphia Eater had an article in 2021 about the whole greenhouse thing and move to the Elkins Estate:
FarmerJawn’s Christa Barfield Left Her Philly Elkins Park Greenhouses. Where Will She Go Next? – Eater Philly
Ok that I can maybe comprehend. A bad landlord and not prepared? That is a learning curve. But then the store at 6730 Germantown Avenue? Poof? It’s gone and what about the tea business? And the garden supply store that next went into 6730 Germantown Ave? And then the spa thing close by that was talked about?
Grid Philly did a big article in 2022 that also filled in more blanks:
154 March 2022/All Topics/Community/Farming/Food
FarmerJawn is breaking new ground with dirt, grit and optimism
by Nic Esposito
February 28, 2022
You can read the whole article on their website. So look, I get that setbacks happen etc., but maybe the reality is that this is a woman who talks a good game and has good ideas, but really can’t execute them?
Too much too soon?
in 2023 PA Eats did a profile:
2023 is Going to Be a Huge Year for FarmerJawn
by Emily Kovach
OK so Westtown chose her for 123 acres when she had been farming less than 5 years?
No words.
So this is kind of a messed up thing with messy problems, right?
So maybe every time she opens her mouth she shouldn’t essentially intimate that if you aren’t like her, you’re bad?
So maybe any time people question what’s going on, she shouldn’t obliquely or overtly play the race card or the sexism card?
So maybe she just doesn’t have the experience plain and simple?
We can have great ideas but in life you can’t always fake it until you make it.
Fox 29 covered her again at the end of February. Here’s a snippet:
To hear the whole interview: https://www.fox29.com/video/1600231
She gets good press. She should, as again she is that rare bird who calls herself a farmer and has a publicist. But the proof is in the pudding. Maybe it’s time to tell the truth and shame the devil as some old people I once knew used to say?
There are just too many questions. And they can’t all be fobbed off as comments from haters, correct?
What will be the future at Westtown?
Will Westtown ever talk about it?
Right now this is all still something I am skeptical of. And after going through her placed media coverage for the past couple of years, a lot of the issues at a minimum come down to a lack of experience. Some will say how can you get experience except to dive right in? Ok right, except we’re talking how many acres of land mostly in Westtown? Perhaps it’s just too much?
It’s time for straight answers. If she doesn’t she runs the risk of hurting the goals she claims to have and the people, all of the people. who are trying to support her.
Will FarmerJawn survive? Will FarmerJawn survive in Westtown? Is this all still too much the Emperor’s New Clothes?
Time will tell.
Sign me, still not a believer and I am allowed. And no, I still have no desire to meet her. Her interviews, when granted, speak volumes. I will however still support local farmers as I always have done. I believe in that. And I also actually love being in Chester County.
Have a good night.