December 4, 2024
The Journey Farmer Program is a year-long cohort for farmers navigating the first few years of running their own farm business in Vermont. The program is shaped by the farming interests and goals of the Journey Farmer participants, and enables new farmers to advance their farming skills and experiences while being a part of a cohort learning community of other beginning farmers and farmer mentors.
Program objectives include:
- Identifying farm, business, and quality of life goals over the next 3-5 years
- Creating an implementation plan to support Journey Farmers in meeting their goals
- Refining Journey Farmers' approach to business and financial planning
- Further developing marketing plans and systems for implementing plans
- Building relationships with a cohort of beginning farmers at similar stages of business development
We recently convened our 2024-25 Journey Farmer cohort and would love to introduce them to the NOFA-VT community!
Hazel Adams-Shango & Hazel D. Adams, The Flying Buffalo LLC, Montpelier
Hazel Adams-Shango serves as the Farm Production Manager for a small, African American Family Legacy Farm in Lamoille County, VT which specializes in producing naturally grown root vegetables, flowers, and medicinal herbs.
Melissa Rechner, Arden Flower Farm, Mendon
Melissa Rechner is the founder of Arden Flower Farm, a small family-run dahlia farm located in Mendon, VT. The farm utilizes sustainable growing methods and focuses on hybridizing and sales of tubers and cut flowers.
Kylie & Sam Rossier, Sunday Bell Farm, North Danville
Kylie got her first farm job at the age of 12 and has since engaged in a wide range of farming ventures from plants to animals, conventional to organic, community gardens to large CAFOs in the Midwest. Eventually, she found that pasture-based and soil-based farming provided the missing link of land stewardship that she had been seeking. In 2015 she got her first cows and the seed to building a regenerative, community-scale, direct-to-consumer, raw milk dairy was planted. Today she oversees all the day-to-day activities within the farm and business.
Amy Thornton, Mama Tree Farm, Worcester
Amy describes herself as a child of artists who began growing flowers and vegetables at age 3. Her heaven has always been farm fields and gardens. As a graduate of Harvard Graduate School of Design, Amy now uses her work as a farmer and value-added food producer to build connections across differences (in Central Vermont this is largely across class, age, and political affiliation), validate and ennoble knowledge production from non-academic manual labor, support those struggling with mental health challenges and recovery, and design and produce for the health of people and planet.
Jeremy & Lucia Tonachel-Read, Birdsong Farm, Stockbridge
Lucia and Jeremy live and farm on Birdsong Farm in Stockbridge, VT, They grow vegetables, raise laying hens, and graze cows and sheep high up in a hanging valley overlooking the peaks of the Green Mountains.
Kirsten Tyler & Elias Rosenblatt, Rocky Hill Farm, Westford
Kirsten moved to Vermont in 2016 as a graduate student at UVM studying plant ecology. She is a lifelong learner who is passionate about connecting ecological knowledge to growing food for the local community. She took the plunge and started Rocky Hill Farm in 2021 where she and her partner Elias raise pastured meat rabbits and grow certified organic produce using ecologically sensitive practices.
Dan & Elyse Wulfkuhle, Wood's Market Garden, Brandon
Dan farmed organic veggies for 15 years on both the East and West coasts before buying Wood's Market Garden in 2022. He and his wife Elyse have a deep love and appreciation for the natural world, good food, and environmental stewardship. They hope to continue the legacy Wood's Market Garden has established in serving the local and regional community, helping make fresh and organic plants and vegetables more widely accessible for all.
Laura Xiao, By Hand Farm, Newfane
Laura has been farming since 2018, first in California and Washington before moving back to Vermont. At some point, she fell in love with growing flowers and started By Hand Farm on leased land in 2022.
We hope you'll join team NOFA-VT in welcoming these Journey Farmers to the cohort! We look forward to seeing their farms grow and evolve as they continue doing the vital work of tending land and feeding their communities!