Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Developers Bet the Organic Farm
by Barbara Damrosch
March 28, 2010 by The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032304607.html
    [Damrosch is a freelance writer and the author of "The Garden Primer." 
Her book The Garden Primer is a classic manual for organic gardening. She and 
her husband, Eliot Coleman, operate an experimental market garden in the 
state of Maine. This garden produces food year-round and is a model of 
small-scale sustainable agriculture.]

Forget the golf course. The hot new "amenity" being offered to residents of 
new subdivisions is a working farm. You don't have to weed it (unless you 
want to), but you can have access to food that could not be more local and 
participate in a slice of vanishing farm life. Ironically, the housing 
developers that are so often the culprits in farmland extinction are starting 
to save some of it.

There is a difference, of course, between the old farming community where 
everyone farmed and a planned community with a farm included, but something 
of the old sense of rural village life can be retained by clustering homes 
and having them anchored by a farm, as part of set-aside open space. Often a 
farm market is set up, or a community-supported agriculture program through 
which residents can buy food shares. Farm-centered festivals and activities 
bring residents together.

Several hundred projects like this are underway or in the planning stages 
throughout the country, but there is no one formula for setting one up. Two 
well-established residential-farm developments: Bundoran Farm 
(http://www.bundoranfarm.com), near Charlottesville, preserved 90 percent of 
its 2,300 acres, including orchards and cattle pastures. Serenbe 
(http://www.serenbecommunity.com) in the Chattahoochee Hill Country, near 
Atlanta, combines New Age vibes with historicity, with three constructed 
"hamlets" and several farms.

By contrast, Prairie Crossing (http://www.prairiecrossing.com) in Grayslake, 
Ill., is an easy commute to downtown Chicago yet boasts a 90-acre farm and a 
"learning farm." Agritopia (http://www.agritopia.com), in Gilbert, Ariz., is 
smack in the middle of an urban area, with an ambitious farm project 
underway. In Colorado, ranches are being preserved with narrow lots 
encircling them like piano keys.

Most of these projects start with a matchup between a fine old farm to save 
and a smart developer with a vision, but in the case of Potomac Vegetable 
Farms (http://www.potomacvegetablefarms.com), west of Tysons Corner, the 
farmers saved it themselves. Hiu Newcomb and her family now have a co-housing 
project (a community with shared common areas and responsibilities) clustered 
in one area, but most of the popular farm remains.

Another uncommon example is the South Village Community 
(http://www.southvillage.com) in South Burlington, Vt., where a percentage of 
house sales will help fund a farm's infrastructure. Will Raap, founder of 
Gardeners Supply Co., provided interim funding as a "slow money investor" to 
create what he calls "a new farming and food hub." Happily, getting the farm 
off the ground first has paid off in buyer interest, as well as providing 
several farmers with an honest wage.

It remains to be seen whether development-based farms will progress from 
enticements to resources that can feed an entire planned community. 
Encouragingly, a project called Brewster Point in Rockport, Maine, will have 
a farm that is scaled to provide a significant amount of produce to all the 
homeowners.

But any progress is good, since farm soil, once lost, is nearly impossible to 
recover. As Julia Freedgood, head of American Farmland Trust's Growing Local 
Campaign puts it: "It's fantastic to see the increasing trend recognizing 
local food as a key element in creating sustainable communities. Ultimately, 
it's helping keep farms in agriculture."