Business Focus

Adam Farris, Christine Bourque and family

A small, diversified family farm in the Champlain Islands, Blue Heron Farm raises certified organic veggies, chickens, lamb, pork, eggs, and wool, available through their CSA and local farmers market.

Loan Summary

Adam Farris and Christine Bourque faced a choice, either expand the land of their diversified, organic family farm or scale down and farm more intensively. They chose the latter and took out a $10,000 Business Builder Loan to help them transition to a more efficient, no-till permanent raised bed system.

The Backstory

Blue Heron had been following the traditional strategy for small farm growth, including purchasing a bigger tractor, buying more implements and expanding their acreage. After 10 years, however, they took a step back and reassessed what was truly sustainable for them.

Some soul searching and number crunching led the couple to realize that they didn’t want to increase the acreage they already had but would prefer to get more out of the land they were currently farming. Thus, began their move to no-till permanent raised beds, where they can increase production and efficiency by growing more intensively.

Understanding that they needed different equipment to make their plan work, Adam and Christine approached the Vermont Farm Fund for a Business Builder loan to purchase a walk-behind tractor and flail mower to build and maintain additional new beds.

Banks wouldn’t have understood our transition plan, like the VFF does. They can appreciate all the details of diversified farming, innovation and seasonal cash flow.

The Bottom Line

Well on their way to building 100 raised beds on their property, Blue Heron Farm is already seeing benefits from the new approach. Since maintaining their bed crops is a lot more efficient, the couple can use their saved time to manage other aspects of their farm, as well as spend more quality time with their growing family.

We really appreciate that the VFF is there for farms like us. Farms come in all shapes and sizes. The VFF gets that.

Drainage had always been an issue for the farm on their compacted clay soil. Here too, the beds are more efficient, since they’ll dry out a whole lot faster. Adam and Christine were able to ready their spring beds this past fall with manure and other amendments so they’ll be ready to go come the thaw. They figure they’ll be able to seed their beds about a month earlier than in previous years.