A Place in the Sun: Last Saturday, more than 300 supporters and well-wishers attended the grand opening of Shalom Farms' new Midlothian plot, which doubles the organization's agricultural capacity and broadens its reach. (Photo by Tisha Lyn Photography courtesy Shalom Farms)
Since its start in 2008, Shalom Farms has really made its mark on Richmond, growing and distributing hundreds of thousands of servings of healthy food to the region, and educating through agricultural programs. But the organization needed some space to expand its reach, and this past weekend it opened a new farm in Midlothian.
“A couple years ago we realized we were maxing out the space we had at our old site. We were also 45 minutes to an hour away from many folks in Richmond,” says Dominic Barrett, executive director of Shalom Farms. “So we began looking for sites that were closer, more productive and had the ability for us to have some infrastructure on them.”
After locating the new Powhatan County farm site, which is closer to the city and twice as large as the project's previous farm in Goochland County, the team began preparations for a spring 2017 opening while maintaining the old space. Even before its grand opening, which was roughly 13 months in the making, the Midlothian farm received more volunteers and visitors in April and May than the old farm had during those same months in previous years — all without an increase in outreach and recruitment.
“This new site will allow us to do a few things: It's twice as close to the city and the communities we serve, it's got twice as much land; eventually we hope it will allow us to triple our production,” says Barrett. “Our ultimate goal is to be able to grow 1 million servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a year on the new site.”
The 15-acre property currently allocates 8 acres for agriculture and 6 acres for production. Plans are in place to increase production steadily over time as the number of volunteers grows.
That's not all Shalom Farms has up its sleeve. Next month marks the return of its "Grown to Go" mobile market program, wherein it pops up with healthy food weekly near public housing communities and other locations. There's also an urban development farm planned for a 2018 opening in North Side: the realization of a long-term goal of opening a farm closer to the city, now possible thanks to a partnership with Union Presbyterian Seminary, which helped the farm sign a 10-year lease on a 5-acre plot.
“For a long time we have realized that we'd like to have an urban farm to complement what we do on our rural site, but we only wanted to do it if we could do large-scale agriculture, to duplicate what we think we do well — which is growing large volumes of produce with large numbers of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds,” says Barrett. “We didn't want to do it if we were just going to be duplicating what's already being done really well by other organizations in town.”
Shalom Farms' new growing center is located at 2676 Venita Road in Midlothian, just off Route 288 and Huguenot Trail. More information about Shalom Farms, its programs and volunteer opportunities can be found on the farm's website.
