All, especially residents of North Hartland,
This message is to announce a kickoff and planning meeting for a new venture starting this year: the North Hartland Distributed Farm (NHDF). The aim is to bring together many members of the community who have land that is unused (or used as lawn) and coordinate food production that will rival that of a similarly sized farm, and have one person who takes on the bulk of the time and labor responsibilities for the farm. This initial planning meeting is Feb 9th 6:00-7:30 PM in the basement of the North Hartland Community Church. At this meeting we hope to communicate the plan for the farm and recruit initial members. This is being organized and ran by Curtis Atkisson (new resident at 35 Mill St) and Kelly Meacham. We hope to see you all there! See below for more details on NHDF.
Let's produce our own food on our own land!
Curtis Atkisson (Kelly Finn, my partner, and I share a FrontPorch account)
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The goal of this farm will be to produce enough hyper-local produce for members to decrease their fresh food purchases substantially -- possibly even removing them entirely. At the same time, the goal is to sell these goods, producing a profit for the members.
NHDF is a joint venture that uses your land to grow the produce, allowing us to take advantage of the economy of scale that comes from having a farm while removing the largest single upfront investment: land. You already have that land, waiting to be used. Each household can decide how much land they would like to make available, and it can be in plots as small as 1000 square feet (31'x31'). This land would be aggregated and planting according to a crop distribution agreed upon by the members and density and schedule best suited to produce the desired yield.
Even though we may have the land to garden, the primary barrier is time. We will alleviate this problem by putting the primary responsibilities for planning and executing the farm (e.g., starting seeds, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, etc.) on a single person. Doing this removes the major barrier to producing our own food on our own land. This person will be paid by the sales of the produce, not by the members. The primary contribution members will make is making your land available (and possibly donating time) for which you will receive a produce share that will be much larger than CSAs.
Curtis has began and will present an initial plan for crops and their distribution. Those who become members will be able to make suggestions to that plan, and we will change it to be the best fit for the members. The plan will then be implemented by Curtis. This will include the weekly distribution of produce shares as well as sales at market, producing revenue to pay for the labor and generating profit for farm members.
Dec 19, 2024
Services at Perkinsville Community ChurchDec 22, 2024, 4:30 to 6 PM
Story Time at the LibraryDec 25, 2024, 10 to 11 AM