So, the basic idea is simple: instead of your development’s HOA fees hiring a contractor to maintain the pool, clubhouse, and tennis courts, your HOA fees pay for a professional farmer to work the earth in what is basically your own front yard – two solid acres of verdant garden growing nutrient-dense, organic produce. Welcome to the agrihood, how the Zeitgeist home-sweet-homes. In an age of environmental degradation and social disorientation, the agrihood concept strikes back with sustainability and community, manifesting the essential truth of a famous line of Strum und Drang era German poetry: ‘Where there is danger, also rises the Saving Power.’ (Gosh, what goes around comes around.)
Along with grounding the community – quite literally – around a working farm, an agrihood is all about cohousing. While the homes are privately owned with their own full baths and kitchens, stakeholders in an agrihood share a communal space with a full kitchen and dining area of its own, allowing neighbors to get together for regular meals and providing their kids with a safe place to play. To facilitate safety and social interaction even further, all parking is kept to the perimeter, making the agrihood an inviting and pedestrian-friendly place to be, a far cry from normal developments, clusters of homes linked by little more than strips of impermeable surfaces called roads.
Sounds good to us… and to John Patrick, a former auditor of the EPA while serving with the Office of Inspector General. John is the current co-founder of Burns Village & Farm, a 150-acre agrihood coming soon to Dickson, Tennessee. Sitting on an idyllic 150-acre family farm, this agrihood envisions a community of 28 to 35 homes centered around a 2 acre, professionally managed garden and 5 acres of unbroken woods.
The good reasons to undertake such an initiative begin with simple math. “We have over 60,000 family farms in Tennessee,” John observes, “but we’re losing about six family farms a day. That’s over 2,000 a year.” In Middle Tennessee, a big reason for that farm loss is population growth. “On average, 109 people a day move into the Nashville area,” John points out. “So, you have to have some development.” The question is ‘what kind’ of development. For John and a rapidly growing number of others, agrihoods are the answer. “They are the intersection of food and real estate,” John says. “It’s a great mix.” It’s also a great opportunity for young farmers who feel called to tillage the earth and sow seeds, but who cannot afford to pay development prices for their own land. Burns Village & Farm will create employment for such farmers with opportunities for growth built in. Not only will there be the 2-acre garden to farm, but the owners of the remaining acreage of the family farm are willing to lease plots for even more organic agriculture.
Agrihoods, in short, are most definitely part of the sustainable solution upon a planet of problems. “As the population grows and the climate changes,” John says, “it’s the right thing to do, a win-win. It saves farmland while providing for a healthier lifestyle and diet.”
Sounds great to us! We’re all about growing community around good food to eat. And, plus, who wouldn’t love to have the Zeitgeister as the neighbors?
For more information on Burns Village & Farm:
burnsvillagefarm.com
johnepatrick@gmail.com
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