The Black Family Land Trust is a North Carolina-based conservation organization that works to stem and reverse historical land loss among African American families and minority farmers, mostly in the Southeast U.S. We have made nine loans since 2017 to people involved in one or another of their programs, providing operating capital and/or bridge financing to small farmers awaiting USDA …
Nutwood Farm is a regenerative agroforestry farm cultivating a wide variety of edible perennial nuts – primarily hazelnuts and chestnuts but also including walnuts, pecans, butternuts, and heartnuts – for local distribution in Western Massachusetts. As the state’s first small-scale nut farm, it is “in the forefront of young innovative farms shaping the future of community-based, ecologically sound, regenerative food …
Natural Borders Farm is a grass-fed beef and lamb farm in central New York run by Elva Svendsen. Inspired by our work with Caretaker Farm in Western Massachusetts, she is seeking to permanently protect her land as an affordable working farm using Equity Trust’s model. Our loan refinanced her bank mortgage, freeing up some cash to invest in farm infrastructure …
Koinonia Farm, an intentional community founded in rural Georgia in the 1940s, was a pioneer in the property stewardship movement out of which Equity Trust itself eventually emerged, and it is still going strong more than seventy-five years later. Membersemphasize simple living, racial equality, nonviolent resistance, the sharing of resources, and cooperative work.
It became a flashpoint in the …
The Berkshire Co-op Market is a thriving forty-year-old consumer-owned grocery store in western Massachusetts. In 2018, we joined a coalition of community lenders led by Cooperative Fund of New England and including PVGrows, Common Capital, Franklin County CDC, Coastal Enterprises, Inc. to pool funds and finance the construction and outfitting of their new facility. Berkshire Co-op member-owners also provided …
Echo Farm is an organic farm with an unusual niche operating on former dairy land in Essex, New York now protected by a conservation easement held by the Open Space Institute. Doing business as Farmstead Catering, it bills itself as “a CSA for your wedding day,” offering farm-to-table catering for celebrations set in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. …
Kroka Expeditions is a wilderness education school in southern New Hampshire. The campus includes many acres of forest, stream, and hill, plus a three-acre organic farm where they grow a portion of their vegetables, berries, milk, and eggs. A loan from Equity Trust in 2016 enabled them to purchase and protect prime farmland nearby that was under threat of development, …
Simple Gifts Farm is a community-oriented organic vegetable and meat operation stewarding the North Amherst Community Farm (NACF) in Amherst, MA, with a long-term lease agreement that Equity Trust played an important part in helping to create. NACF brought in Jeremy Barker Plotkin and Dave Tepfer as farmers in 2006 and they run the farm as an ecological unit, integrating …
Dean Zapp, a third generation dairy farmer, and his wife Michele, wanted to protect the property where they operate Delapenta Farms — 83½ acres in Ancram, NY, in the central part of the Town of Taghkanic, in Columbia County — by adding conservation and affordability restrictions to their land, and to use proceeds from the sale of those restrictions to …
Artemis Farm, in New Lebanon, a rural community located in the northeast corner of Columbia County, New York, is home to Cynthia Creech’s Randall cattle and her genetic preservation work to restore this hardy, historic breed. Randalls are a rare breed of purebred cattle developed in southern Vermont in the early 1900s, descended from the indigenous landrace cattle common in …
A new loan made in 2015 not only enables an evolution in a property ownership arrangement originally designed in part by Equity Trust, but also represents an innovation in our lending practice that could become a model for future projects. With the participation of project supporters recruited by the borrowers, Tryon Life Community Farm and the Cedar Moon collective, we …
Full and By Farm (the name is a nautical term referring to steering into the wind) is a CSA operation farming agriculture-only conservation land purchased from the Eddy Foundation in northern New York. When farmers Sara Kurak and James Graves launched their farm, the land and infrastructure were suffering from years of neglect, but with big dreams and hard work …
The Reeves Home Place Farm, aka Whiskey Pigs Farm, is a 150-year-old seventh-generation family farm in the Little Sandy Mush region of North Carolina. They raise heritage cattle, pigs, and poultry on a beautiful and productive mountain pasture, supplementing the animals’ diet with whiskey mash from a local distiller. While they wait for an agricultural easement to be purchased …
The Food Project has been engaging young people in sustainable agriculture since 1991. Each year, 150 teenagers from Greater Boston and the North Shore of Massachusetts are engaged in meaningful work leading volunteers and growing food in Lincoln, Boston, Beverly, and Lynn. The produce from the farms is donated to hunger relief organizations, sold at farmers’ markets and through CSA …
Crimson & Clover Farm is the CSA vegetable operation chosen by Grow Food Northampton to lease the Northampton Community Farm that Equity Trust played an important part in helping to create. In 2013, Crimson & Clover received a loan to enable it to purchase a leasehold interest in the barns and other structures that belong to the farm. 
The Lockhart Family Farm is a small family farm in Caroline County, Virginia, dedicated to a triple bottom line of social and environmental returns along with profitability. In addition to heirloom vegetables, flowers, fruits, value-added products such as soaps and preserves, it raises heritage pigs and turkeys on a CSA-like model. 
Just Food is a non-profit organization that works to make fresh, locally grown food accessible to all New Yorkers by connecting communities and local farms with resources, support and one another. Since 1995, Just Food has promoted the creation and spread of sustainable food programs, including CSAs, community-run farmers’ markets, community gardens, and farm-to-food pantry programs. Just Food serves thousands …
Whippoorwill Farm, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm serving some 400 families on Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts. Whippoorwill grows organic produce and flowers for its members, for local restaurants, and for sale at farmers markets. Equity Trust provided a cash flow loan to help the farm manage as it adjusts marketing strategies to changes in the island economy and …
Jeff and Annie Main have been developing their organic farm, Good Humus Produce, on 20 acres in Capay, CA, since 1976. When they arrived on the property northwest of Sacramento in Yolo County, there was a single olive tree. The Mains built a beautiful house, a barn, greenhouses, and other infrastructure and their plantings include hedgerows of native trees …
Pie Ranch, a non-profit in San Mateo County, California, combines farming and education to “inspire and connect rural and urban people to know the source of their food, and work together to bring greater health to the food system from seed to table.” Equity Trust’s land acquisition loan, one of our largest in recent years, supports the purchase and permanent protection of their farmland. Pie Ranch’s diverse production of fruits, vegetables, …
Windborne Farm operates a CSA in Ft. Jones, California that provides grain, beans, edible seeds, and cheese to 100 families. The crops are cultivated with a team of Fjord draft horses using biodynamic methods. Our loan financed start-up costs at a time when few people thought it would be possible to market grain using the CSA model. To our great …
Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT) in Providence, Rhode Island, provides access to land, education and other resources so people in Greater Providence can grow food in environmentally sustainable ways and create community food systems where locally produced, affordable, and healthy food is available to all. SCLT manages a wide range of urban agriculture programs including youth and adult agricultural education, …
Real Pickles, a small Western Massachusetts business producing organic raw pickled products, received a loan from the Equity Trust Fund in 2009 to help finance a the purchase and renovation of an energy efficient processing facility. The purchase is enabling Real Pickles to expand its business and continue contributing to the local food movement. 
Riverland Farm is a certified organic vegetable farm in Sunderland, Massachusetts growing for CSA member families, local grocery stores, and local producers of value-added products. Equity Trust’s first Riverland-associated loan was used by the property owners to renovate their tobacco barn to create farm office space and a vegetable washing, packing, and storage facility, enabling them to wash and store …
Jubilee House Community (JHC) is a non-sectarian faith based community that has that has been working in Nicaragua since 1994 through their nonprofit Center for Development in Central America. JHC has helped organize 1,600 small farmers into a cooperative business to market their organic crops, strengthening existing agricultural cooperatives and developing new ones. 
