Agrarian Trust

Date Funded: July, 2022

Foodshed Capital joined Agrarian Trust and the Central Virginia Agrarian Commons, Virginia Cooperative Extension, the Catawba Sustainability Center at Virginia Tech, the Petersburg Healthy Opportunities Project, the Petersburg League of Urban Growers, and Sankofa Community Orchard to pool resources to purchase a 5.12-acre urban farm just outside Richmond, Virginia. The Commons model provides farmers with critical land security through a 99-year lease while ensuring the land can never be bought or sold again and will remain protected for regeneratively managed food production.

Located in a designated food desert with high rates of poverty and food insecurity—and across the street from an elementary school where over 91% of students are economically disadvantaged—the site is home to the Petersburg Oasis CommUNITY Farm, which provides direct food access and youth education programs.

Urban farmers and project leaders Tyrone Cherry III and Duron Chavis grow food for their own neighborhoods while teaching others to do the same. They also raise awareness about the importance of Black-led spaces, including gardens that cultivate both food and the next generation of farmers. Together, they launched this “oasis” as a living contrast to the food insecurity surrounding it. The land also hosts a farm incubator and tool-sharing space for beginning BIPOC farmers, including another Foodshed Capital borrower, Healing Hope Urban Gardens.

A 0% interest loan from Foodshed Capital was essential to meeting the land purchase closing timeline ahead of seasonal fundraising opportunities.