Partners & Projects

Colrain Farm

We are working towards acquiring a beautiful 160 + acre farm in Colrain, MA (ten minutes from downtown Greenfield and Shelburne Falls). The farm includes a two-family farm house, several barns, a sugar house, a small art studio/greenhouse, and an in-ground pool. Much of the open land is in APR and most of the infrastructure is in need of some repairs. It is being sold for 1.4 million. The owners are under contract to sell it to VCLT–and are also willing to give us the next year to fundraise enough to buy it.

VCLT is partnering with Willow PREC, and along with other friends we are devoting ourselves to this effort, but we need more collaborators to bring our vision to fruition. Join us!

What is our long-term vision? Given that this land is so close to much of ours, we are excited about the unique opportunity to expand our contiguous community. Beyond that, our goals can be summarized into three main categories:

  1. Land Stewardship: Sustainable Agriculture

Sustainable Agriculture: Other than one large field, we don't have much farmland yet. After doing a survey of our membership, our board determined that acquiring more agricultural land should become an organizational priority. At this stage, we have not yet selected specific farms or farmers to cultivate the land, but have an open call published here. We especially encourage and will center farmers who have been systematically marginalized and/or dispossessed of land.

  1. Creating Community Space

We envision transforming the largest of the large barns into a space for educational programs and community events. We see it becoming a multi-purpose building which would benefit a wide range of people in our corner of the county. We’d love to renovate it for hosting not only events but also environmental education offerings for young people, such as Sapling School, which VCLT board member Gabriella della Croce already operates on VCLT land just through the woods.

  1. New Housing

We want to build clustered houses on the pieces of developable land with adequate frontage, with an emphasis on permanent affordability, ideally subsidizing some of those units. We would like to follow a model of collaboration similar to what we are already doing at Stone Farm Lane in Greenfield.

WHAT KINDS OF COLLABORATORS ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

Many kinds! (farmers, fundraisers, builders, community organizers and more!) We know that to succeed in this endeavor, we will need people with a wide range of skills and resources to contribute. Please contact us if you are interested in learning more and getting involved.