A Chance Encounter

Although Calixta Kilander grew up in the countryside, farming was never on her radar as a career. Aside from picking fresh raspberries from the garden as a child, food production held little appeal. It wasn't until she was 19, feeling unsure of what to do with her future, that she saved enough money to travel to India. There, she witnessed firsthand the profound connection rural communities had with the land, an experience that would transform her perspective.

"It was shocking to see the contrast between the human impact on the natural world - the waste, pollution, poverty, and lack of safe food and clean water - and the deep relationship rural communities had with the land as they produced their food," Calixta explains. "It suddenly became so clear to me that I had found my calling. I was going to dedicate my life to learning how to grow food while respecting and rebuilding the land."

After unsuccessfully searching for an organic agriculture course in the UK, Calixta applied to and was accepted at a liberal arts college in the United States where she studied Sustainable Agriculture and Sustainable Forestry.

Upon graduating, Calixta spent several years working on organic and regenerative farms across North Carolina, Hawaii, Florida, Colorado and Massachusetts. Farming across diverse climates and production systems, she gained invaluable experience with fresh produce, livestock, and grain, as well as supplying markets ranging from direct-to-consumer sales and CSAs to wholesale, retail and cooperatives. "The USA was decades ahead of the UK in terms of organic and regenerative farming," she says. "I absorbed as much as I could, building relationships with farmers who remain mentors to me today."

Armed with years of practical experience, it was a chance encounter back in England that gave Calixta the opportunity to put everything she had learned into practice.

While visiting family in Cornwall over Christmas, she met Brian, a retired farmer who had grown vegetables with a pair of working horses. Just 30 minutes after meeting her, he offered her the horses, having heard about her experience in the USA. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so of course I accepted," Calixta recalls. She packed up her life in the United States, shipped second-hand horse-drawn equipment from Amish communities to England, and returned home to establish Flourish Produce on just 0.8 hectares of land. "Looking back, those first few years were driven by pure passion and determination. I was naïve about running a business, but everything I've learned has come along the way and I'm still learning every day."

Scaling With Meaningful Change

To begin with, the farm only sold produce to restaurants, where demand quickly outpaced supply. "Flourish was the sweetheart of London's finest chefs. We could never keep up with demand and had an ever-growing waiting list each month," Calixta recalls. The early success created space to take risks and expand, but as more land came into production, the operational demands grew sharply. Long hours, rising labor needs and increasing logistical complexity revealed a natural limit to how far the model could scale. "The more hectares we took on, the more labor was needed, the more time, and stress. We were often working 18-hour days and it became clear that, despite the endless appetite from chefs, florists and shops, there was a ceiling to how many customers we could serve with our resources."

To build greater resilience, Calixta began working with an organic wholesaler, creating a more efficient system of bulk supply while maintaining direct relationships with customers. This shift reinforced her belief that regenerative agriculture can have a far greater impact when it moves beyond serving a privileged few and becomes part of the wider food system.

Over the last eight years, Flourish has grown from 1 to 32 hectares while staying rooted in its founding principle: giving back more to the land than is taken in each year’s harvest. The farm sits on light sandy loam typical of East Anglia, previously used for conventional arable production of wheat, barley and oilseed rape under chemical and machinery-intensive systems. As each new field comes under stewardship, it is transitioned through restorative practices, beginning with diverse green manures designed to build soil organic matter, increase biodiversity and improve water retention.

The results of this commitment are evident. “We've been involved with nutrient analysis of crops from 20 of the leading organic farms across the UK, where we came second for nutrient levels in our produce,” says Calixta. “With so much biodiversity and food produced 52 weeks of the year, our land is showing us what it can do as we take the steps to gradually restore balance.”

Today, the farm grows more than 750 varieties of vegetables, herbs, salads, fruit, cut flowers and heritage grains, supplying independent shops, restaurants, home delivery customers, florists, bakers and wholesalers. “For me, it’s a garden of Eden in a sea of conventional wheat fields,” Calixta shares. “We have over 750 varieties from across the world. Everything is growing together in synchronicity on one piece of land.”

Flourishing Into The Future

At the heart of Flourish Produce are three guiding pillars: ecological sustainability, social sustainability and financial sustainability. “After eight years of blood, sweat and tears - quite literally - we’re finally there,” says Calixta. The farm now produces significant volumes of food in line with biodynamic, regenerative and organic principles, with measurable improvements in soil health and wider the ecosystem.

Alongside ecological outcomes, Flourish has placed equal emphasis on people. The farm supports its community of employees, opens its gates for chef visits and events, and actively shares knowledge with customers and neighboring farms. Financially, while challenges remain, the business is now profitable and continues to grow year on year.

Looking ahead, Calixta hopes to contribute to the wider farming community through initiatives such as Top 50 Farmers, seeing it as an opportunity to exchange knowledge and deepen collaboration across the sector. “I’m grateful for the chance to learn from other farmers from across the world and to meet like-minded individuals and learn from their experiences,” she says. “I could only hope to offer the same to others. Human connection is so important and it would be a privilege to be part of this network.”

From 1 hectare in the corner of a field to a 32-hectare regenerative farm producing hundreds of varieties of food, Flourish Produce reflects Calixta Kilander’s belief that farming can be both restorative and scalable. At its core is a simple but ambitious idea: that regenerative agriculture should become part of the mainstream food system. For Calixta, the future of farming lies in bridging ecology and scale, reinforcing that the impact of regenerative agriculture depends not only on how food is grown, but on who it reaches.

Written by Top 50 Farmers and Jasmin White