Our Team

As you know if you've spent five minutes with us, the Four Root farmers love each other as family and genuinely get real joy from working together as intimately as farming requires. We have a productive and healthy diversity of skills, most of which require wearing oversomes (see above). We are farmers, architects, musicians, athletes, historians, dog people, cat people, miniature Scottish Highland people, enthusiastic cilantro eaters, and enthusiastic anti-cilantro eaters. We all love soup, we have an expansive definition of family, and we’re eternally grateful to be building this life together. One of us is six years old.

Rachel Berg is a Connecticut local, hailing from the Greater New Haven area. Exploring a few paths before finding her place as an organic farmer, she worked on a presidential campaign and obtained a degree in history from the University of Chicago. After stints WOOFing, managing CitySeed farmers markets, working at Massaro Community farm in Woodbridge, and attending UVM’s Farmer Training Program, Rachel landed here with her people, founding Four Root Farm. She is our main vegetable grower (meaning: she runs the show!), instinctively keeping everyone’s schedules in her giant brain, and fastidiously managing every single dollar that comes into or leaves this farm. In addition to growing food, Rachel runs every day, has an encyclopedic memory for presidential history and overly-complicated TV show plot lines, and loves solving puzzles and games of any kind. She has a sixth sense for logistics, is an extra parent to the resident six-year-old, and has proudly authored many a complicated car plan.

Elise Cusano is a born-and-bred Connecticutian, and New Haven pizza royalty. After attending Skidmore College and studying English Literature, Elise moved back to Connecticut, worked at CitySeed, met Rachel, and worked on farms around the northeast until it was time to move to East Haddam and found Four Root Farm with her people. Elise, who is as thoughtful with plants as she is with people, is our main flower grower and designer, manages our propagation greenhouse, and is leading the design and implementation of a massive orchard-rehabilitation project on the farm. She cooks delicious Italian food like it’s a deep intergenerational memory, is an extra parent to the resident six-year-old, a dotting aunt, a floor-napper, a lover of live music, and stops to look at every interesting plant she sees. She has sixth senses for plant health, soil health, and soup texture and flavor.

Aaron Taylor came to farming following a childhood in Vermont, college at Wesleyan University (where he met Caitlin), and a series of disparate career experiments. He found meaning as a social worker in the struggle against poverty and injustice, passion in the creativity of being a professional musician, and excitement in the controlled chaos of a Manhattan immigration law firm, but it was only when he began farming that he found all three. Aaron co-founded Four Root Farm after a stint at Massaro Community Farm. Today Aaron manages harvest on the farm, is the one-person infrastructure and buildings department, is our resident Schezuan chef, and cooks 90% of our meals on the farm. To scale the farm’s impact on our regional food system, Aaron co-founded CT Greenhouse in 2019 in order to provide high tunnels and farm supplies to other farmers around the state.

Caitlin Taylor is a founding member of the Four Root Farm team and an Architect and designer focused on Food Systems. She has previously been on the faculty at the Yale School of Architecture and a Principal at MASS Design Group, a global non-profit architecture firm, where she led their Food Systems Design Lab. Caitlin studied Biochemistry at Wesleyan University (where she and Aaron met as little 20-year-old babies). After a stint as a project manager in a large New York City architecture firm, Caitlin got a Masters of Architecture at Yale School of Architecture, became a licensed architect, and co-founded Water Pore Partnership before moving to MASS. Here on the farm, Caitlin leads FRF’s branding and graphics department, and is the self-appointed photographer, bearded iris obsessive, over-eager hot sauce-making department, and book hoarder. She has a cheerful obsession with our relationship to the apocalypse, aspires to be a grouchy local politician, and believes that deliciousness will save us.

Kiersten Schmidheiser started her professional career working in finance for a toy company. That was all fun and games; however, she missed connection with the natural world while confined to an office. Since starting with Four Root Farm in 2020, she has found purpose and joy in growing food for her community, laughing with her co-workers, and connecting with customers while working the Madison and New Haven farmers’ markets. On the farm, Kiersten enjoys harvesting (read: eating) sugar snap peas, weeding endless beds of onions, and saving tadpoles from puddles. Off the farm, she enjoys rock climbing, hiking and backpacking, and playing board games with friends. On the side, she’s still using her business degree to consult with farmers on their business finances and accounting systems. Kiersten lives in New Haven with her partner and their dog. She loves seeing all her neighbors at the Wooster Square market!

David Berg (aka Rachel’s Dad, aka “Baca Bird”, aka DAD) is Four Root Farm’s face of the markets, Delivery Man Extraordinaire, and all-around MVP. He works tirelessly at our farmers’ markets selling our products and telling bad (I mean DAD) jokes. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Four Root Farm wouldn’t be what we are today without David’s tireless support, both material and immaterial. An organizational psychologist by trade, David grew up in the great state of New Jersey, but has lived in the New Haven area for over 50 years. Spending time at and around the farm over the years has given David (and his wife / Rachel’s mom / Lead Carrot Weeder Robin Golden) a joyful appreciation for local food. When not at the farmers’ markets, David teaches at Yale University and consults with people and organizations all over the world. He also enjoys woodworking, watching UConn Women’s Basketball games, playing rowdy games of cards with his foul-mouthed family, and forging deep relationships with other people.

Ellis Taylor is our resident eight-year-old – technically the genetic offspring of Aaron and Caitlin (in case you couldn’t tell from his excellent hair and adorable freckles), but actually raised with infinite love by his whole big farm family here at Four Root Farm. Ellis is a hysterically sarcastic first grader with a freaky math brain, an overactive love of decorating for the holidays, and a sense of adventure. He loves helping with farm tasks, battling with sticks, listening to ‘melting metal’ music, inventing Pokemon-based currencies on the bus with his friends (who knew they came out programmed to develop money, ugh!), and eating blueberries.