Farm Profile: Our Table Co-op
The fresh food that makes it to our tables follows a rough and rocky road. It must survive the legal, organizational and natural trials of a farm business. At Our Table Co-op, in Sherwood, OR, they are doing their best to take the uncertainty out of our food’s future with an innovative and intentional business […]
Farm Profile: Greyrock Farm
Matt Volz had been working the small farm circuit on either side of Lake Champlain, both in upstate New York and Vermont, when he decided to head back to the town he calls home, Cazenovia, NY. “I was really looking for a management position,” Matt recalls, “I wanted to save enough money to eventually buy […]
Farm Profile: Blue Ox Organics
From the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, head east into Wisconsin for just over an hour to find the land Caleb and Lauren Langworthy lovingly farm and call their own. The couple runs Blue Ox Organics. They began farming on rented land, with a year-to-year lease agreement. “We pretty quickly into that […]
Combining Assets and Trust: Waterpenny Farm
This story starts in 1998 when we were both 25 years old and ready to start our own organic vegetable farm. We’d both worked for Chip and Susan Planck of Wheatland Vegetable Farms in northernmost Virginia for a number of years. During our time there we gained the desire to become farmers, as well as […]
Farm Profile: Table Top Farm
Arron Wilder has wanted to have his own farm since he was 19, learning the ropes as a farm apprentice. It’s taken 15 years of looking to create Table Top Neighborhood Farm in Point Reyes Station, CA. “It’s taken a really long time for me to have the right opportunity, the right amount of money. […]
Farm Profile: Food Growing Program
The Food Growing Program started 5 or 6 years ago when the county jail donated ½ an acre of land to the Food Bank for Westchester (NY) as a vocational training garden. A few years later, they acquired another ¼ acre at a school for disadvantaged youth in Yonkers. The focus then was mainly on education […]
Farm Profile: Champlain Orchards
Bill Suhr and Andrea Scott were not intentionally looking for conserved land when they found the 158-acre parcel that is now home base for Champlain Orchards. The land in Shoreham, Vermont had been Laramie Point Orchard, and was in the process of being conserved as agricultural land by the Vermont Land Trust (VLT) as part […]
Farm Profile: Greenbank Farm
From A Growing Culture An Interview with Jessica Babcock, Farm Manager at Greenbank Farm Greenbank Farm’s collection of red buildings springs up from the slim green stretch that is Whidbey Island. North and a leap over the Puget Sound from Seattle, Washington, the farm brings together wild nature and agriculture, hikers and farmers, herons and […]
Farm Profile: Fortenberry Farm
From Downeast Maine comes a story of land sharing and community cooperation. When an organic blueberry farm nestled in between large commercial operations came up for sale, Peter Collin bought the property to save a small piece of Washington County agriculture for organic use, essentially preserving the existing organic status rather than letting it meet […]
Project Profile: Cooperative Farming Research
This project is being led by Faith Gilbert, who is a big part of the greenhorns, a close partner with Agrarian Trust. It is a year-long project that started in March of this year. Cooperative farming, in which multiple farmers co-manage a single property, could be a powerful tool for keeping farmland in the hands […]