Can you “imbed” agriculture in a community? Fifty years ago, that idea would have left people scratching their heads. Farms already were the bedrock of any non-urban community.  No one needed to “imbed” farms. They were just there.

But for many people today, farms represent a “viewscape”—something pretty to look at on the way to the mall.  As the number of farms continues to shrink, the landscape is in danger of being fragmented beyond recognition.

It doesn’t have to be that way. A handful of enlightened developers are including agriculture as a key community asset. According to Ed McMahon, a senior fellow with the Urban Land Institute, some 200 residential projects in development across America now have a farm at their core.

Vermont at the Forefront

I talked to Vermont-based David Scheuer recently about South Village, his project in South Burlington. Over the course of an hour, Scheuer, a new urbanist—and possibly the only developer with a degree in agriculture and a previous career raising organic beef—framed out how farming and housing can be complementary rather than mutually exclusive.

Typical suburbs “have abandoned the senses of civic engagement,” said Scheuer. “They look like they have been dropped from outer space.” Instead Scheuer said “we need to inculcate the sense that we’re attached to the land.” Farming as Scheuer describes it is “an activity and a promise.”

The notion of combining agriculture with development came from William Raap, the founder of Gardener’s Supply in Burlington. Raap wanted to create a different type of community on a 220-acre parcel of abandoned farmland.

Make Way for More Farms

Inspired by Raap and by the work of the late Cornell professor Tom Lyson, who coined the term “civic agriculture” Scheuer got set to work building out the framework for South Village following the principles of civic agriculture “locally based agriculture and food production are tightly linked to a community’s social and economic development.”

Farms provide a deep sense of community—a profound attachment that golf courses simply can’t match. To create room for farmland and hiking trails, however, means that individual lots are smaller, roads narrower and everything is clustered more closely together. For Scheuer “clustering creates opportunity.” As they say in Scheuer’s office, “it’s not how dense you make a community, it’s how you make it dense.” How dense, exactly? Of the 220 acres in South Village, 150 are reserved for open land and farming; 300 condos, townhomes and homes will rise on the remaining 70 acres.  Prices start at $260,000 for condominiums and $365,000 for homes. The community also includes two-and-a-half miles of walking trails.

The City of Burlington has been supportive of the South Village project. City planners recognize that the project is “one way of retaining land in agriculture. Land that is otherwise fast disappearing.”

Empty nesters looking at South Village want connection, communal space and less maintenance. This is the polar opposite of what many developers offer: the 2,800 square-foot home centered on a huge lot.

Farm as Activity and Commitment to Better Life

The commitment to farming goes well beyond printing up a slick brochure. While many of the houses are still being built, Scheuer’s Village Farm is already in full operation and its CSA shares (consumer prepaid shares in the farm’s output) are sold out. That’s quite an achievement for land that had lain fallow for more than 20 years.

For just $175, homeowners and neighbors alike purchase a half-share of a wide range of produce, including vegetables, flowers and berries. Every week from May to mid-October, the homeowners can walk to the farm to pick up their order.

The farm is a commitment to a healthy lifestyle and ongoing education.  This is expanded beyond the development itself by bringing children in from local schools, which fosters kids’ connection to the land and to farming. (One homeowner, fascinated with the issue of bee keeping and colony collapse, has signed up for a beekeeping course so he can both help farmers with pollination and teach his grandchildren about bees.)

A Permanent Commitment to the Farm

When it comes time to sell your home, the farm is part of any deal. For buyers at South Village, half of one percent of sales and resales will go to a non-profit organization for environmental remediation and for educational programs. That’s not a marketing bullet-point; it’s built right into the deed.

As Scheuer notes South Village should be on the “right side of the demographic equation”. One visitor wrote: “I am thrilled to see something like South Village exists in our modern society.” So are we.