How entrepreneur Edvin Ovasapyan is building a regenerative agriculture empire – New York Daily News
Content support provided by Studio 1847
At a time when Californian agriculture is increasingly defined by water shortages, bankruptcies and consolidation, entrepreneurs Edvin Ovasapyan And Shery Zarnegin prove that there is still room for major innovation – and profit – in dirt.
As co -founder and operator of One Tree Hill FarmsOvasapyan does not only restore the neglected agricultural land along the central coast – it performs an evolutionary commercial model which mixes regenerative agriculture, the diversification of products and the vertical brand. With the creative director and strategist of the Zarnegin brand, he built more than a farm: he launches a strong growth company with the potential to redefine the AG sector of California for a post-industrial economy.
From urban grain to coastal grain: the path of a practical visionary
Before turning to agriculture, Ovasapyan has built a reputation in the world of real estate and commercial development in southern California as a pragmatic problem solver with high tolerance for risk. With training in operations and private investments, Ovasapyan has seen agricultural land not as a relic of the past but as a class of undervalued assets-in particular in regions such as the central coast where the microclimats cooled by Ocean remain underused.
In 2017, he and Zarnegin structured a takeover of an orchard from the declining lawyer in the county of Santa Barbara. He had been beaten by drought, underinvestment and absent property. But where others have seen responsibility, Ovasapyan and Zarnegin have experienced an opportunity. “Everyone told me that I was wasting my time,” recalls Ovasyapan. “But we did not only buy land – we bought time, land and optionality.”
Build a high performance agricultural asset
From the start, Ovasapyan approached the farm as a recovery company. He stabilized the production of lawyers, introduced Geisha Coffee and invested in regenerative agricultural practices to increase long -term soil value and reduce the costs of chemical inputs. The corporate model has focused on double -season income: coffee harvested in the spring and lawyers in the fall, stabilizing cash flows and insulating against price volatility.
In its current form, One Tree Hill Farms:
-
Produces 100,000 pounds of lawyers and 5,000 pounds of specialized coffee per year;
-
Operates on renewable energy systems and closed loop irrigation;
-
Has developed a owner cascara product, derived from coffee cherries;
-
Maintains low general costs by maximizing vertical integration through agriculture, transformation and packaging.
“We don’t consider it a farm,” says Ovasapyan. “We consider it as an agricultural brand platform – with land as our operational foundation.”
Strategic synergies: lawyers and coffee in revenue pairing
One of Ovasapyan’s first commercial innovations was to combine the culture of lawyer and coffee. Unlike many producers who have trouble with monocrop vulnerability, Ovasyapan has designed a double merchandise system which maximizes the efficiency of the area and creates a long -term land value.
The advantages include:
-
Shared infrastructure: Cafes thrive under the canopy of avocado, reducing irrigation and energy costs.
-
Resilience to ecosystems: the diversity of cultures improves pollination, the fight against pests and the microbiota of the soil.
-
Divided cash flow cycles: Provide two harvests at different times of the year reduces financial tension.
In the United States, few farms cultivate the two cultures on a commercial scale – which Ovasapyan considers a competitive gap. “If you can do dual culture work in California, you are not only agriculture – you make a return -to -risk yield.”
The brand factor: from goods to lifestyle product
While Ovasyapan directs the operations, Zarnegin focuses on the external identity of the farm. It helped integrate One Tree Hill Farms into a consumer-oriented brand, with original stories, packaging innovations and product extensions such as Cascara infusions, which are now trendy in the food circles of well-being and specialty.
Together, they explore direct channels to consumers, agritourism experiences and even a range of limited edition agricultural products for chefs and retailers. “We are not in the volume game,” explains Zarnegin. “We are in the value creation sector – where taste, history and sustainability intersect.”
Restore land, reconstruct the value
Basically, One Tree Hill Farms is a land restoration project. The Ovasapyan field acquired had been recorded, exaggerated and left in ruins. But with regenerative techniques such as the rotation of deep rooted crops, composting systems and retely carbon soil strategies, the farm is now a showcase of what is possible when entrepreneurship meets environmental intelligence.
And it’s not just a question of sustainability. It is a question of recapitalizing agricultural real estate in distress through a model which hieres resilience on the scale and diversification rather than extraction.
Model failure: 300,000 trees and beyond
With an initial success to his credit, Ovasapyan provides for a major expansion, aimed at planting 300,000 lawyers and 300,000 cafes in the next decade through the coastal foothills in California. It currently covers additional properties and builds a partner network for out -of -site roasting, traffic jam and distribution.
Its objective is not to become the next major industrial cultivator, but to reproduce the One Tree Hill model in other microclimates, to take advantage of technology, modular agricultural systems and a strong design to create a franchise plan for regenerative agriculture.
Entrepreneurship in agriculture: a new generation emerges
For Ovasapyan, the future of agriculture does not belong to large companies or nostalgic homesteaders; It is up to agile and informed operators who think of the founders.
“The earth is only part of the equation,” he explains. “You also need a brand, a supply chain and the capacity to adapt quickly. Agriculture is difficult, but it does not need to be stupid.”
With One Tree Hill Farms, Ovasapyan hopes to show what is possible when you combine a venture capital style strategy with ecological thought – and prove that even in a state of drought and too regulated like California, there is always a future in the soil.
To follow One Tree Hill Farms or learn more about investment models in regenerative agriculture, visit Onereehillfarms.com or follow Edvin Ovasyan and Shery Zarnegin on Linkedin.
Originally published:
