“The Temple-Wilton Community Farm is a model that other farms and communities would do well to study, for it may demonstrate a way to revive local agriculture and the plentiful social benefits that come from it.” – Trauger Groh and Steven McFadden, Farms of Tomorrow Revisited
Temple-Wilton Community Farm
Since 1986, the Temple-Wilton Community Farm has been deeply involved in the difficult work of stewarding community. Located on Abott Hill in the southern end of New Hampshire, this pioneering project has spent the last 38 years exploring the possibilities and practicalities of community farming. Founded by Trauger Groh, Lincoln Geiger, and Anthony Graham, the original vision for the farm was a biodynamically managed operation supported by local families. Temple-Wilton was one of the first community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms in the United States, and through an innovative approach to land tenure, it has become a living model for farm preservation and support through community ownership.
Currently, the farm feeds over 100 households by growing more than 40 types of vegetables, managing a state-certified raw milk dairy, and rotationally grazing a flock of egg-laying hens. CSA members can pick up their produce, milk, and eggs from the on-farm store. There are no set pick-up times, produce lists, or limitations to what quantities they can take. The store is also open to the public and stocks additional foodstuffs produced by the farm including cheeses, yogurt, assorted meats, and value-added products from other local businesses. Also located within the farm is Hilltop Cafe, a thriving restaurant opened in 2011 that uses the food produced to create seasonally inspired dishes, expanding on the gifts derived and shared from the thoughtful stewardship of the land.
A Case Study for Community-Held Land
Becoming a community staple with a long legacy of positive impacts imparted to the land and people has been a journey. Living up to the original mission of growing food on land leased and borrowed from community members has taken a lot of innovative thinking and commitment from generations of intentional labor, capital, and spirit contributors. To better understand this trajectory and its lasting impact, I spoke with Co-Executive Director of The Farmers Land Trust, Ian McSweeney who played an integral role in securing land for the farm, and former apprentice Drew McCaskey, who experienced the magic of the project and its challenges, firsthand.
Drew apprenticed on the farm for two seasons and attributes many invaluable life lessons to his time working the land and living within the Temple-Wilton community. He currently manages the prepared foods, kitchen, and deli departments of Ozark Natural Foods, a co-op in Fayetteville, Arkansas. This co-op has existed for more than 50 years and highlights the vibrant local products of farmers, bakers, and craftspeople of the region. Drew notes, “My journey in agriculture has been very important in my life, and I can really feel it in the manager role I have here at the co-op. My experiences, especially in the Temple-Wilton community, have helped me when working with people that come here from a variety of different backgrounds.”
Like many young adults who find their way onto working farms, Drew’s path to agriculture was a unique one. His interests rested somewhere between the arts and sciences, and after an initial apprenticeship at the Fulton Center for Sustainability at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Drew saw how his two passions came together in farming.
Using the Biodynamic Association’s Mentorship Program network, he found himself visiting the Temple-Wilton Community Farm. “When I first visited the property prior to working there, it was so inspiring to me to see how diversified they were. In biodynamics, the farm is considered a living organism. This land felt that way. It felt like intentional ecology; the farmers and the community that supported the farm were active members in the health and vitality of the farm organism.”
Ian McSweeney found his way to the farm through different circumstances, but became deeply involved for many years due to the same admiration for land management and community. Since 2007, he had been running a private foundation in New Hampshire called the Russell Foundation. The Russell family hired Ian to run the foundation which included raising money, giving out grants, and facilitating local land transactions. While the initial focus of the foundation was on the protection of natural resources and open space in southern New Hampshire, Ian’s vision allowed the mission and work to evolve and grow, with a new focus on farmland, farms, and community spaces within a broader geographic region.
Securing Land to Farm
In 2010, Ian was contacted by one of the founding farmers of Temple-Wilton Community Farm. “I got contacted by Lincoln. The Temple-Wilton Farm had, at this time, moved operations around between the towns of Temple and Wilton. They farmed on shared lands, some of which was located within life share communities and some farming was taking place on founder Trauger and Alice Groh’s land. They were leasing a farmstead and began acquiring land through fundraisers and conservation easements and had acquired an orchard through a project done with the Living Lands Trust.”
Lincoln contacted Ian to secure more land for the ongoing operations and sustainability of the farm. They had recently been given the opportunity to buy a piece of farmland located close to the main leased farmstead and wanted Ian’s help raising funds, negotiating with the town, and working with the USDA to secure a conservation easement. Though these things fell into Ian’s wheelhouse, he had mostly worked from the angle of land conservation and hadn’t yet preserved land destined for community ownership.
He brought the concept to the Russell Foundation and expressed the essential role foundations like theirs could have in preserving small-scale, active farms. Though this was very different from other current projects, the Russell Foundation took on the project and set up a fundraising effort to purchase the land and began to obtain a conservation easement from the USDA. All was going well when the foundation reached 80 percent of its fundraising goal for the purchase of the property, Lincoln was tragically gored by a bull.
Ian recounts, “It felt very intense, stepping into this new project and just beginning this new relationship with this community and suddenly we were sharing the grief of this horrific event. Once he was mended, the event compelled many to give towards the farm and we were able to raise the rest of the money we needed to reach our goal.”
There’s Still Room to Grow
The success of this initial collaboration sparked the beginning of another project to secure more land for the community farm. Through their work with the Russell Foundation, the Living Lands Trust, and others, the farm acquired four parcels of land, all close to the farmstead they were leasing. This historic 68-acre farmstead known as Four Corners Farm was the heart of operations and held all of their infrastructure including their dairy barn, intern housing, farm store, and an old vacant house. The lease wasn’t secure and the owner was unwilling to fix anything or provide any equity for needed improvements to buildings and systems. Temple-Wilton Community Farm asked Ian if the foundation would be willing to help them purchase this essential parcel of their operation.
Unfortunately acquiring this piece of land wasn’t going to be as easy. Ian explained, “The farmstead acreage had already been placed in a conservation easement years ago, so we didn’t have that avenue to bring in funds to purchase the land. The other challenge we had, is that the land itself was already being used by the farm, so it wasn’t as compelling of a story to the local community as it would have been if the land was in peril due to incoming development, or other potentials for loss.”
A Unique CSA Model
Though there were unique challenges to face when raising funds for this important parcel of land, Ian was motivated. Drawing inspiration from the unique CSA model used by the farm, they sought to engage directly with the farm’s CSA community to purchase the land. Ian remarked, “This made a lot of sense; this community was built by the contributions of the farm for almost 30 years. It would be a community land acquisition, done by the very people the farm supported through their food.”
In 2011, Ian began attending the farm’s CSA meetings. The CSA model at Temple-Wilton was, and remains today, a little different than those found on other similar farms. While the whole-diet CSA is a common model, the contributions of the CSA members and the benefits of membership at Temple-Wilton are a little different. Over the winter, the farmers develop a budget for the total cost of the farm for the upcoming season. This includes seed, feed, farmers' salaries—all necessary operating costs to get through the year.
This budget is brought with line items for each aspect of the farm to the CSA community. The farmers explain the year’s budget to the members, and based on the total number of members, an average per person CSA share cost is decided upon for the year. Some members may have more to share toward the budget and some less, and this is okay as long as the total budget is raised. The benefit is an abundance of food available year-round. There is no set box of foodstuffs or limits on what can be taken by the community; members take what they need, when they need it.
Drew notes, “The economics of the farm and how the CSA is run is very different from other farms. Their intention was to separate food from money. They referred to everyone who was involved, whether you were a paying community member or were actively growing on the farm, as a farmer.”
The growth of the CSA over time has had its ups and downs. In the formative years, there were seasons when the farm struggled to make their budget and had to have meetings to raise enough for the season’s operating needs. Fortunately, the continuous years of production and community support have made the farm very well established today, so much so that they have a wait list. When a CSA member leaves, there is someone ready to take their place. In more recent years, the farmers have been able to consistently raise what they need for the annual budget and even contribute to some capital improvements.
Community-Owned Land
The unique CSA model the farm established made it easy for the farmers and the Russell Foundation to frame the land purchase project to the community members. Ian explains, “The farm had been feeding the community for so long that there had been kids, or even in some cases grandkids, that grew up into adulthood and either remained in the community or remained connected from afar. We framed the project to their entire network, which included former community members, and asked for donations for the project but also for investment money. The idea was that, together as a community, we needed to raise the capital to buy this farm and then the land would be owned by a community-centered nonprofit with a 99-year lease to the farm.”
When Ian and the farm engaged the CSA members, past and current, they were able to raise 600 K in two months from a combination of very small donations and larger donations. “There was such an outpouring of support to make this possible, and that really struck me. I thought, here’s this pioneering CSA farm, who helped to popularize modern community-supported agriculture in the United States, and they struggled for 27 years without land security. If that’s their story, there’s hundreds of thousands of farms struggling in the same way.”
Through the CSA community, the needed funds were raised to buy the farmstead parcel. The debt for the farmstead was given from community members, allowing for a low- or even no-interest repayment structure with flexible terms. Through the raised funds, the farm was also able to fix the septic system and vacant house and it became an apartment upstairs and the home of Hilltop Cafe downstairs. The rent paid by the two tenants living in the apartment upstairs and the cafe downstairs covered the debt service for the farmstead purchase, and it was no longer a burden on the farm operation.
Protected Farmland Fosters Community Development
The community purchase of the Four Corners Farm property has brought the farm and the Temple-Wilton community a lot of security. It has provided a foundation for further development and the farm’s positive impacts imparted to the landscape and people continue to grow. Once the land was secured into the 99-year lease, they began capital improvements, added another apartment, more intern housing, solar panels, built a cheese cave, and started a creamery enterprise, among other things. Having Hilltop Cafe and the on-farm store brings in people who are not members of the CSA currently, but are attracted by the value of food and community. It is a hub that inspires and nourishes many in the region.
Ian elaborates, “Now that Temple-Wilton Farm has secured these parcels of land, more community activity is happening. There are U-pick berries, biodynamic prep-making workshops, and the cafe is so busy that there is a line every morning. The farm being secured has created a space for the farm to thrive, unburdened, but also for the community to truly flourish together on the land.”
After securing the farmstead property, Ian continued to work with the farm to gain more land for operations. By 2014, all of the land parcels used by the farm wrapped around a hilltop. On top of the hill was the High Mowing Waldorf School on one side and a family farm that had been in the same family for eight generations.
Ian was able to work with the school to buy this family farm that abutted their grounds and lease that land to Temple-Wilton Community Farm. This added 300 acres of farm and forest land that was already positioned among their other acquired parcels. Many of the farm’s contributing CSA members’ children attend the High Mowing Waldorf School and this further deepening of the community structure continues to bring the farm strength.
Loss and Succession
Even as the successes of this blossoming community initiative continue to stack up today, the realities of the human experience cannot be escaped. During the fundraising project for the 68-acre farmstead parcel at the heart of the farm, founding member Trauger Groh passed away just a month before the goal was reached. This loss to the farm organism and community was large and was a difficult reminder of how important it will be for the farm to find capable successors. Ian remembers, “Losing Trauger was a reminder that there is a need to secure passionate farmers on land and it is as essential as securing the land itself. Lincoln expressed to me that he was so impressed we had cleared this massive hurdle in purchasing the land, but he never could have imagined how tough the human transition would be.”
Finding aligned successors has been a challenge the community has attempted to face for years. Many apprentices have gone on to be full-time employees with the potential of becoming the next generation of farmers, but all have left for one reason or another. Ian believes that this has much to do with the personal dynamics between the exiting farm generation and the new farmers coming in. Drew agrees, “The search for successors for Temple-Wilton Farm was a challenge they had already begun to face during my time working there. I worked under a manager on the animal husbandry side of the farm that was being explored as a possible successor. The interpersonal relationship and communication challenges were strong here. The difficult questions of ‘what does this place look like in the future?’ and ‘what vision for the farm is necessary for it to survive the changing world?’ were weighing on everyone.”
The best-case scenario for all productive farms is the continuation of stewardship facilitated by a well-thought-out, intentioned, and community-supported transition from one generation to the next.
Beyond the need for ideological shifts and flexibility, transitioning the farm to new stewards has practical challenges as well. The farm has done well to add intern housing which supports its operations, but it does not have additional housing for incoming farmers and their families. The founding farmers do not live on the farmland they’ve grown on for the last 30-plus years. An incoming farmer interested in taking over operations may not have the wealth necessary to buy a nearby home in southern New Hampshire based on the modern, inflated real estate prices today.
Farming as a Living Work of Art
And so it goes, even this community-owned, protected farm faces the challenges inherent in farmland transition to pass on the torch, a necessary step in preserving the integrity of the farmland, legacy, and community. As time has gone on, Lincoln Geiger and Anthony Graham have made attempts at moving on but find themselves still very much involved in the inner workings of their beloved farm well into their elder years. Ian notes, “There are no younger or mid-career farmers that are able to come to the farm and stay, carrying forward the work. Lincoln developed a small school called the Wild Rose Farm, but still does milking a lot of the time. Anthony has tried to retire from growing the vegetables, but still ends up doing labor on the farm. They both still carry many of the primary farm burdens including fixing equipment.”
These are the modern realities of farming. There are few relationships we experience in this earthly realm more wrought with the need for complete dedication and commitment than a life made through agriculture. The Temple-Wilton Community Farm has become a prosperous and beautiful sanctuary for a flourishing community in New Hampshire, but the necessary level of involvement will never lessen or waiver. The future of the farm rests in the powerful potential held within the collaborative nature of a robustly supportive community. Drew feels that because the land is protected from becoming lost to the commercial real estate market, the community will have the space necessary to see these transitions through.
Drew explains, “The big takeaway from that experience for me was how powerful collective energy can be. Community-held land and cooperative economics were new concepts for me. They instantly felt important and also like they required a lot of dedication to be done well. I am grateful that the land at Temple-Wilton is held in trusts and owned by the community. It means that it is secured and it is protected enough that a new path can be forged when the time is right.”
Farms are living works of art. They require fresh paint every day. While farmland transition is the newest challenge for the Temple-Wilton Community Farm, it will be faced by a fully invested community committed to the farm’s success. The reality of the working farm is that there exists no finish line for the land or farmers. The best-case scenario for all productive farms is the continuation of stewardship facilitated by a well-thought-out, intentioned, and community-supported transition from one generation to the next.
“Such an approach to farming calls for a dramatic change. But then, if we are to keep our air and water pure, if we are to preserve the remaining farms, and if we are to create a culture which pulls communities together instead of fragmenting them, dramatic change is necessary.” – Trauger Groh and Steven McFadden, Farms of Tomorrow Revisited
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