Since 2018, SG Groat (they/she) has been providing timely, honest and affordable service and repair work for farms and teaching farmers how to operate and maintain equipment.

Over the past 17 years of farming, making compost, and teaching adults and kids, SG developed skills in operating and fixing farm equipment. They started their farming journey spending summers operating shakers and forklifts for a cherry farm in northern Michigan while attending the University of Michigan.  SG continued working on farms every year since 2008, improving their skills operating and repairing machinery, while growing vegetables and making compost.

In 2018 SG started traveling to farms in the Hudson Valley to repair equipment and they found a demand from farmers to learn how to service, repair, and troubleshoot their own machines.  SG began informally training farmers, then formalized the curriculum into day-long workshops designed to give farmers the information and understanding they need to keep their equipment operating properly.

Since then, SG has traveled across the Northeast, working with individual farms as well as organizations like PASA, Young Farmers, Glynwood, and NOFA to train hundreds of farmers on the function, safety, and service of their equipment.  SG also works with NYCAMH (New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health) to provide free tractor safety trainings to farmers in New York State.  

For a deeper dive and hands-on training program for farmers, SG worked with the Hudson Valley Farm Hub to create curriculum for and co-lead an 80-hour, Farm Mechanic Basics course for farmers to learn how to repair and maintain their own equipment.  SG teaches the Farm Mechanic Basics course every winter.

Throughout their work, SG strives to make mechanical information more accessible to everyone, especially Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, people of color, women and non-binary folks by creating an open discussion and judgement-free learning environment. SG continues to work with Rock Steady Farm to create and teach workshops specifically for QT+BIPOC farmers. 

SG is based in Greenwich, New York in Washington County.