“To restore Virginia’s farmlands to their legendary beauty and bounty, we must first endeavor to restore to her the topsoils, the waters, and the pollinators which are hers.”
Regenerative Agriculture is a buzz phrase, these days.
Pun intended, yet the truth remains - there is a marked shift in the face of local agriculture nowadays. Virginians are increasingly shifting away from the foods produced by subsidized megafarms and imported producers, and back towards the days of old, when our food was produced by folks we knew, on land close to ours. They are returning to a time when cultivation was handled with responsibility - when you were held to account for not only what you produced, but also how you produced it. A time when your customers were neighbors that you knew firsthand. Today is a time when visionary growers are taking personal responsibility for the stewardship of their land, and redeeming it through regenerative farming operations. These smallholding operations are successfully transforming the face of local agriculture by offering wholesome products of higher quality, while also slowly restoring the fertility of the land - yet starting a new regenerative Micro-Farm is an incredibly difficult process. In the centralized Big Ag world of today, new and emerging Micro-Farmers stand to greatly benefit by the assistence of an established operation with professional tools and experience, and that assistence equips them to succeed instead of struggle as they begin their successful journeys.
Renova Sustainable Agriculture is an Urban Regenerative Micro-Farm operation.
Our primary aim is the restoration and enrichment of Virginia’s small-plot agricultural ecosystem. We accomplish this through a blend of science, service, and local land stewardship. Since 2011, our operation has been a family business dedicated to the art and culture of regenerative farming practices, especially focused towards serving urban and near-urban Micro-Farms across the northern Piedmont of Virginia. Our work focuses on two fronts: the local grower and the local ecosystem.
Our initial goal is the enabling of new and pre-existing urban regenerative Micro-Farmers, to build sustainable operations. We accomplish this by two means: primarily, we invest our professional experience and capacity to offer products and services to new Micro-Farm operations, which provides them with a secure baseline of operational stability throughout their hazardous startup time. We enable them to begin with a proper understanding of their land, their soil, and their pollinators. Secondly, we provide a sustainable network of Regenerative Micro-Farmers located across the northern Piedmont of Virginia. Through this “pro-bono” service, regenerative growers are enabled to advertize their operations to a regional network of informed, hungry consumers, and to strengthen the network of local food-chain producers.
Our second goal is the personal stewardship and redemption of our local lands, a mission we take extremely seriously. Renova Sustainable Agriculture invests great effort into “pro-bono” conservation projects to re-bolster our native pollinator and honeybee populations, as well as our local indigenous pollinator forages. We invest plantings of melliferrous trees and wetland trees on donor properties, in order to retain topsoils, redeem stormwater, and to support a rich pollinator population across the northern Piedmont.
Renova Sustainable Agriculture believes that this is a pivotal time for Virginia Micro-Farmers. This brave new face of Virginia agriculture will grow and prosper through our joint efforts to support farm networking, awareness-building and the supporting of regenerative agricultural efforts across the state.