West Branch Commons organizing team; photo by walter@walterhergt.com
We don’t share often enough with others how much they inspire us. Yet, for the Equity Trust Loan Fund team it’s sometimes difficult to hold back effusive appreciation for the farmers and visionaries creating the West Branch Commons.
West Branch Commons (WBC) is a newly formed community land trust incubated by Catskills Agrarian Alliance (CAA). CAA is a collaborative of over 50 farms that aggregates and delivers food across eleven New York Counties through a CSA, mutual aid food distribution, and farm to school partnerships. WBC aims to build on the Catskills Agrarian Alliance’s mission of farmer-led food sovereignty by redefining how large-scale swaths of farmland may be repurposed to support the land access needs of our next generation of BIPOC, women, queer, and trans farmers.
The Project
“At first I was a little confused as to what this opportunity would be, but … we have all these plants we want to grow, and all these people who need food [who] we want to feed… I believe in this project and I want to see it come to fruition.” – Sea Matías, farmer, Serra Vida Farm
Intertwining the dreams of transitioning elder farmers and the needs of beginning BIPOC growers leads the West Branch Commons’ project to feel a bit like those mornings when the sun warms your face, while the moon is still high on the horizon before you – a liminal experience that combines appreciation for the night before and excitement for what the day will bring.
In many cases, farmers and land stewards tend to be the first to name the impacts that affordable farmland loss will have for not only food production but for entire local ecosystems – and take action. The Catskills Agrarian Alliance is an essential part of a large network of farmers and land justice allies currently aware of and resisting the extractive development encroaching on upstate New York. When one of CAA’s neighbors, a local dairy farmer named Tom Hutson, came to this realization in the nineties, he placed an easement on his family’s fourth-generation, 287-acre dairy and cattle farm located on traditional Haudenosaunee lands alongside the Delaware River with the Watershed Agricultural Council. Tom later faced the heartbreak of selling his beloved dairy herd in 2019, and in the early 2020s hoped he could find a buyer who would share his deep reverence for this land – and somehow be able to afford it. Along with his farm’s long-term transition came thinking of Tom’s own retirement from land that had shaped him as much as he had tended it through his entire life. A difficult goodbye would be in store.
Nearby, the younger generation of farmers at CAA’s Star Route Farm were working together to grow mutual aid-servicing farms and build bold new food distribution networks for New Yorkers, while thinking about the future of land access for the next generation of growers in a state with soaring per-acre prices. Alongside equitable, inclusive community food systems, these farmers and their land access allies were nurturing an alternative to the traditional transactional method of farmland transition between individual owners that Tom had been entertaining. The land-use model being developed included an innovative legal framework that would apply community land trust tools to the urgent needs of elder and beginning farmers in their local network, complementing the needs of both. This new model would require time, effort, trust, multiple partners, and funding, but could result in experienced farmers finding that they could transition in place on their beloved farms while mentoring new and beginning farmers on accessible and affordable land. Rather than another dairy, could Tom’s River Haven Farm serve as this alternative, community-based, decommodified model that had been envisioned?
Tom wasn’t sure at first, but conversations continued, seasons shifted, and stars finally aligned in 2021 when Sea Matías, Kitty Williams, and Jessica Tobon, NYC Bronx-based growers came to a gathering of Catskills farmers and land access advocates centering this potential project. When they were introduced to Tom, their mutual love of soil and community established an immediate friendship and pathway for the shared-ownership vision that the farmers in the CAA community had carefully crafted. Tom could see a possible future where his dairy farm could convert to many types of farm enterprises and offer land access to not just one, but to many new, beginning, and nontraditional farmers – farmers like his new friends.
“Why did I pick what I did with the farm…and this group of kids? Because they want the same thing.” – Tom Hutson, farmer, River Haven Farm
West Branch Commons emerged as relationships deepened. Tom sold River Haven Farm to American Farmland Trust (AFT) in April 2023 and now leases the farm from AFT as an anchor-lessee alongside Kitty and Jessica’s Iridescent Earth Collective, Burgin Farm, and Sea Matías’s farm, Serra Vida. Over the intervening years Sea and the other members of West Branch Commons have worked with and beside Tom and land access partners to develop a mutually beneficial transition plan that allows Tom to stay on his beloved land and support this next generation of beginning farmers while they build independent businesses onsite. These many farmers have worked together to establish shared infrastructure with hopes to eventually support up to ten individual farm businesses on the site in anticipation of WBC’s purchase of the land.
Alongside the complex work of establishing their CLT, relocating businesses, and the intense day-to-day work as farmers themselves, the Catskills Agrarian Alliance and West Branch Commons teams are raising the $950,000 required to purchase the land from American Farmland Trust, cover administrative expenses, and finance shared infrastructure costs to make the site accessible and affordable for new and beginning farm businesses.
Equity Trust’s Connection
This is where we come in. Equity Trust is grateful to have been suggested as a values-aligned community lender that West Branch Commons members Francis Yu, Rhiannon Wright, and Tianna Kennedy should meet with in 2025. By joining their fundraising early on to “pollinate” the interest of other potential investors and donors, our $200,000 low-interest loan commitment has dropped the fundraising ceiling for the project.
As many readers know, our loan fund is made possible by the willingness of individual lenders in our community to entrust their money with us in the spirit of making meaningful change. We feel we can speak on behalf of the Equity Trust Fund lenders in sharing our excitement to be part of an intergenerational, imaginative, inclusive, and inspiring project for long-term, equitable farmland access.
Our Equity Trust team is now a proud star in what West Branch Commons has termed their “constellation of support.” Only $175,000 remains for WBC to reach the fundraising milestone of purchasing the farm!
We encourage you to learn more from the voices of these farmers, and support West Branch Commons through exploring the resources below.
Click here to support West Branch Commons to reach their “Community Down Payment” Goal!
Click here to subscribe to the West Branch Commons Substack Newsletter.
Recommended Listening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85iHtn6SWhk
Recommended Watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0YkC15W49M
Info Sources:
https://nyfarmlandfinder.org/stories/bridging-gap-bring-new-generation-land