Community Partners - Stories
As described in the "About" section, there are many types of community partners who can play diverse roles in helping you acquire your farm. The stories below describe specific farm projects as well as community-wide or regional projects. Each example offers a look at the diverse ways that community partners come together to help with farm access.
1. Crimson and Clover Farm secures land with a 99-year lease from the nonprofit, Grow Food Northampton, MA: Read about how Grow Food Northampton worked with other community partners to conserve the Bean Farm and then provide a long-term lease to Crimson and Clover Farm.
2. Conserving an Athens, VT farm to provide an ownership opportunity to new farms and a trail extension for a community conservation group: Read about how the Vermont Land Trust and the Windmill Hill Pinnacle Association worked with young farmers and several community organizations to conserve and make affordable this farm while providing public access via a trail easement. This was also made possible through government agencies providing funding to buy a streambank buffer to protect water quality.
3. Building experience at an incubator farm and then working through the VT Farmland Access Program to buy a farm: Watch this video to learn about how these farmers got their start at the Intervale Incubator Farm in Burlington, VT and then went on to buy a farm through the VT Farmland Access Program.
4. CSA fundraising towards conserving a farm and setting up a long-term lease through a "community land trust" in upstate NY: Read about how the farmers of Peacework Farm in upstate NY worked with their CSA members, a local land trust and the Equity Trust to raise funds for the purchase and conservation of their farm and then to set up a long-term lease situation through a community land trust model.
Reprinted with permission from Elizabeth Henderson. A version of this story appears in: Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen's Guide to Community Supported Agriculture (Chelsea Green, 2007), pp. 66-67. Available through Chelsea Green.
5. One of the First CSAs in the US works with its members to secure and conserve land in NH: Read about how the Temple-Wilton CSA members in NH helped raise money and secure land for their farm including a 99-year lease.
Reprinted with permission from: Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen's Guide to Community Supported Agriculture (Chelsea Green, 2007), pp. 66-67. Available through Chelsea Green.
6. Local Conservation Commission helps raise funds and spearheads a group of community partners working to conserve and make available a NH Farm: Read about how the Walpole, NH Conservation Commission worked with USDA, the State of NH, and the Trust for Public Land to conserve and then make available the Ballam Farm along the Connecticut River while also protecting the town water supply.
7. Community Land Trust Model applied at Indian Line Farm, Great Barrington, MA: Read about how the community rallied to raise funds to purchase Indian Line Farm and provide access to a new generation of farmers through a Community Land Trust.
8. Farming on Publicly Owned Land in MA: Read about some examples of publicly owned farmland in Massachusetts
9. East Montpelier, VT Community-wide conservation project: Watch this video to learn about how the community of East Montpelier came together to conserve farms in town as well as provide public access for a variety or recreation activities.