When Ashley was 14, her family moved from a large city in Missouri to a rural town in Vermont. Ashley had no previous experience with farms or agriculture, but at the end of the school year in Vermont, she felt the land calling to her. She contacted farms listed in the yellow pages until she found a dairy farm that invited her to intern for the summer. She fell in love with farm life, and from then on, she knew some day she would own land and be a farmer.
Next came a biology degree in college, and working on a Colorado market-scale organic farm. She married and started a family, eventually welcoming five girls into the mix. The farm dream was put on hold for the next 12 years as she focused on raising their five daughters in Wyoming and supporting her husband as he received his masters and began his career. They moved to Bentonville, AR in 2021 so that her husband could attend a PhD program at the U of A. That’s when she learned about the CAFF Farm School.
Ashley attended the CAFF Farm School open house in the summer of 2022 and knew this was what she needed in order to be ready to start her own farm, but she still had a little one at home and didn’t have the time to commit to the program. She tucked away the idea for two more years, and in the fall of 2024, when her littlest entered pre-K, she immediately applied.
Her biggest knowledge gap in running a farm was the business portion. “I was worried about learning the accounting, record keeping, and all of the business skills necessary for a farm to succeed,” she says. “But now, because we go through the business skills step by step, I feel confident!” As expected, she also loves the fieldwork and farm production parts of farm school. She finds it energizing and calming. “At the end of the day, I feel good, just from working outside. It makes me a better mom. I’m more present with my kids.”
One part of the program that surprised her was how vital it was to work together. “I’m learning how much I need and enjoy working with others, which was unexpected. I always thought that I wanted to run a farm to be independent and disappear in nature. Now I realize you can’t tarp a big field, run large equipment, plant, or cultivate all on your own. You need your community.”
In May, Ashley became aware of federal loan opportunities for land available to those who have run their own farm or managed an existing farm for an entire season. She met a neighbor with a 100×60 ft fallow garden plot who was willing to let her farm it so that he didn’t have to mow. She knew it would be a lot of work, but decided to take the opportunity to start her farm. Welcome Home Farm was born, and she is currently running a small-scale fruit and vegetable CSA for 15 neighbors and selling extra produce to local markets. Every few weeks, her daughters put together a farmstand and sell produce in front of her house, making Welcome Home Farm a true family-run small business.
Her long-term goal for Welcome Home Farm is to grow 2+ acres of native berries. The name “Welcome Home” references not only the idea of eating locally as a community but also eating what natively grows in the Ozark region. “Since we moved here, I’ve been studying and planting lots of native foraging berries that most people haven’t even heard of, let alone eaten, even though they grow wild here. My home garden taught me how to grow ground cherries, juneberries, mulberries, muscadines, raspberries, blackberries, and passionfruit. These berries have been a hit in my CSA produce baskets. My dream is to grow them on a commercial scale close enough to town so that my community can come pick these native berries themselves and start to eat what our land has been offering us all this time.”
Ashley recommends the CAFF Farm School to anyone interested in farming who loves being outside and working the land. “CAFF fills in the gaps and helps you be prepared for jumping from gardener or plant-lover to farmer,” she says. “The CAFF instructors are dedicated to helping each student figure out exactly what they want and how to do it. Everyone leaves with a unique business and production plan. The CAFF program breaks down this big, scary, overwhelming idea of starting a farm, and makes it feel doable with so much support along the way.”
Ashley says she’s inspired by all of the students’ diverse and incredible visions for what they want to do with their farms. She points out that the only thing holding most of them back is land. “Each of us dreams of providing more food for Northwest Arkansas and enriching our communities by nourishing the people and land here. But we need access to land, and land is being bought up by developers and becoming increasingly too expensive to purchase as farmland. I think it’s important for our community to remember that if we want access to healthy, fresh food, we must make room for local farms.”
If you want to learn to farm and feed the region, CAFF accepts applications annually for the Farm School from July through September. Find out more and apply at UAFarmSchool.org.
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