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About
ACTIVE FUNDRAISER: "Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons Farm Acquisition" Donate
The Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons is a collaboration between a regional land trust, an urban community farm, a university sustainability center and teaching farm, and Agrarian Trust to support small-scale food production and habitat diversity and counter high rates of prime farmland loss.
Interactive Map of the Agrarian Commons Get the full experience on Google Earth
Land Acknowledgement
The Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons is located on traditional and ancestral lands of a number of Indigenous peoples and nations, who have lived in relationship with these lands since time immemorial. We honor their elders, past and present. Much of this land is unceded, and in many cases, these territories were stolen, seized, or otherwise acquired through genocidal actions of the state, colonizers, and settlers. As an organization primarily of settlers, we are committed to renewing our relationships with Indigenous peoples, and supporting Indigenous sovereignty through word and action. Please visit native-land.ca to learn the names and histories of the Monacan, Eastern Siouan, Tutelo, and Saponi peoples who live here in Southwest Virginia.
Legal Statement
The Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons is organized and shall be operated exclusively for the purpose of holding title to property, collecting income therefrom, and turning the entire amount, less expenses, to the AGRARIAN LAND TRUST within the meaning of Section 501(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the “Code”). Agrarian Land Trust, the parent corporation of Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons, is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation exempt from federal income tax under Section 501(a) and described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Code.
Community
ACTIVE FUNDRAISER: "Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons Farm Acquisition" Donate
Growing Partnerships
The Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons is collaborating with local farms and the New River Land Trust to create a local Agrarian Commons in Southwest Virginia, which will be the first in the state. The Agrarian Trust team is also working to develop partnerships with other organizations in the region. Garden Variety Harvests is a founding farm, and Virginia Tech’s Catawba Sustainability Center is an educational partner.
The New River Land Trust works to conserve farmland, forests, open spaces, and historic places in the New River region. They work with partners, including local governments, on larger land policy and conservation issues. They also educate landowners on conserving their land and assist landowners in donating conservation easements to protect their property from development. Since 2002, they have helped protect over 55,000 acres of land in the region and over 26 miles of New River frontage.
The Catawba Sustainability Center will provide educational support and training for the Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons. The Center is a 377-acre farm in the Catawba Valley of southwest Virginia, created and operated through a partnership between Roanoke County and Virginia Tech to provide resources and training for beginning farmers. The center’s small-farm incubator program supports eight beginning farmers.
Founded by farmer Cameron D. Terry in 2017, the Garden Variety Harvests microfarm network currently spans close to one-third of an acre, with about 8,000 square feet of gardened bed space. The farm produces a (garden) variety of herbs, greens, and fruit to further local food sovereignty and the availability of healthy local food. Cameron also maintains Morningside Urban Farm, an educational farm partnership with a local hospital.
Countering the Impacts of Development
In the words of Kim Kirkbride of the New River Land Trust, “The greatest threat to Appalachian farmland in this area is the current real estate boom in the New River and Roanoke Valleys. Farmland is only affordable for developers anymore, and so we are losing a considerable amount of good ground to rapid housing development as Blacksburg and Roanoke gentrify. This changes the way of life here permanently. Once our agricultural soils are inverted and cast aside for residential development, we’ve lost them forever.”
The threat of development, the region’s natural beauty, the ongoing decline of coal and manufacturing jobs, and the long history of small, diverse farms combine to encourage the growth of commons-based land stewardship in the region. Southwest Virginia is the most rural region of Virginia and the most mountainous. Its mountains have contributed to keeping farms small, and perhaps more ecologically minded as well. Row crops that enable large-scale pesticide/herbicide application are more difficult to maintain and less commonly produced, given the unique topography of the region.
Land, History & Community
History & Biodiversity
Southwest Virginia is one of the most biodiverse regions of the country and home to a wide variety of plant, fish, mussels, and amphibian species. This diversity owes to dramatic changes in elevation throughout the region. The New River—the oldest river in the Western Hemisphere and the second-oldest river in the world after the Nile—traverses mountains that are more than 1 billion years old.
Archaeological evidence shows that humans may have begun to inhabit what is now Virginia as early as 22,000 years ago. Before European colonization, three major Indigenous groups lived in the region: the Algonquian-speaking peoples, the Nottoway and Meherrin, and the Siouan- or Iroquoian-speaking tribes. Today, Virginia has seven federally recognized tribes and several tribes recognized by the state, which passed its own legislation for tribal recognition in 2001. As of 2010, recognized Native American tribes in Virginia include the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Mattaponi, Upper Mattaponi, Nansemond, Rappahannock, Monacan Indian Nation, Pamunkey, Cheroenhaka (Nottoway), Nottoway of Virginia, and Patawomeck. Only the Pamunkey and Mattaponi have retained reservation lands ceded to them through treaties with English colonists in the 1600s.
Structure
ACTIVE FUNDRAISER: "Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons Farm Acquisition" Donate
Model
Local Agrarian Commons Board
FARMERS & STEWARDS
Cameron D. Terry
Garden Variety Harvests
Desiree Shelley Flores
Mothers Out Front and Alliance of Native Seedkeepers
COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS
Kim Kirkbride
New River Land Trust
Adam Taylor
Catawba Sustainability Center
AGRARIAN TRUST
Suzanne Pierce
Attorney, CowanPerry PC
Ian McSweeney
Eliza Spellman Taylor
FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US:
Founding Farms, Ranches, & Agricultural Organizations
Founded by farmer Cameron D. Terry in 2017, the Garden Variety Harvests microfarm network currently spans close to one-third of an acre, with about 8,000 square feet of gardened bed space. The farm produces a (garden) variety of herbs, greens, and fruit to further local food sovereignty and the availability of healthy local food. Cameron also maintains Morningside Urban Farm, an educational farm partnership with a local hospital.
VISIT OUR WEBSITE
www.gardenvarietyharvests.com
Local Agrarian Commons Documents
Bylaws
Articles of Incorporation
Land Lease
PARTNERS & ALLIES
Catawba Sustainability Center
The Catawba Sustainability Center is a 377-acre farm and farm-incubator program in the Catawba Valley of southwest Virginia, created through a partnership between Roanoke County and Virginia Tech to provide resources, training, research, and education for beginning farmers.
Along with our founding farms and supporting partners, the Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons looks forward to collaborating with community land trusts and other organizations in the region.
New River Land Trust
The New River Land Trust works to conserve farmland, forests, open spaces, and historic places in the New River region. They work with partners, including local governments, on larger land policy and conservation issues. They also educate landowners on conserving their land and assist landowners in donating conservation easements to protect their property from development. Since 2002, they have helped protect over 55,000 acres of land in the region and over 26 miles of New River frontage.
Press
ACTIVE FUNDRAISER: "Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons Farm Acquisition" Donate
