North Amherst Community Farm Inc

Donate today through Giving Tuesday and help North Amherst Community Farm be a home for sustainable farming for every generation to come.

And most immediately, as explained below, help us put two good but run-down barns into good condition! Your collective $5000 and our volunteer labor can do that!

In 2005, our neighbors rallied to save 35 acres of prime farmland  from development. The Dziekanowski farm  - stretching from N. Pleasant St. to Pine Street – was slated for house lots unless the community came up with funds to buy it. Now, eleven years later, we have raised nearly $1.3 million to permanently keep the land in agriculture and debt-free.

The farm is leased to Simple Gifts Farm (SGF), which operates an organic CSA, producing produce, meat, and eggs for hundreds of local families.   It is beautiful open space in the heart of our community with paths open for all to wander, enjoy the scenery and observe a hard working farm creating healthy organic food through the changing seasons.

You can help today by donating $10, $25, $100, or more! Help us reach our $5000 target for this Giving Tuesday.

NACF will be a community owned resource for generations to come, managed by farmers with long term affordable leases, and committed to sustainable practices.

Simple Gifts Farm on NACF land

Simple Gifts Farm, our first lessee, has improved the farm greatly by constructing a well and irrigation system, refurbishing the CSA barn, installing PV panels and solar hot water heating for their greenhouses, and building soil fertility through their small scale livestock program. Their current project is building an on-site farm stand to make their produce and meat available every day.

Simple Gifts doesn’t just grow vegetables and pork chops, it also grows young farmers. An Apprenticeship Program that was put in place at the beginning involves five young interns annually who live in the farmhouse on the property, learn to farm organically under the tutelage of farmers Jeremy and David, and then may go on to start farms of their own in the area.

The community's crucial support

Community support from generous contributors like you was crucial in enabling NACF to retire the mortgage debt on the farm this year without selling off the invaluable farmhouse, preserving this precious farmland in the heart of North Amherst now and into the future. Thank you!

We have on-going work on maintenance of farm buildings and development of infrastructure for community facilities. If you look through our photo gallery, you'll see two very "picturesque" barns that clearly need repairs -- the "Middle barn" and the "Pine St. barn".  Repairing and stabilizing these two barns is at the top of our current to-do list, and we need your help. Your donations on this Giving Tuesday will provide materials to leverage the sweat equity of a series of farm community volunteer workdays starting in the spring of 2017. (And if you'd like to volunteer, let us know!) Every cent of donation counts!