Stony Pond Farm is a 260 acre certified organic first-generation farm owned and operated by Tyler and Melanie Webb in Fairfield, Vermont. The farm currently is best described as a grass-based diversified organic dairy farm. Products sold include wholesale fluid milk shipped to CROPP/Organic Valley in addition to grass-fed and finished beef sold directly to consumers at the Burlington Farmers Market and wholesale to local stores and restaurants. In addition, Stony Pond produces a humanely pasture-raised milk-fed organic veal, and acts as an incubator space for young farmers who historically have used the farm’s resources to produce pastured chickens, ducks, eggs, goats for meat, pastured pork, and fermented vegetables and related products.

As returning VFF borrowers, Melanie and Tyler had successfully paid off their second VFF loan when they came up with another idea for expanding their farm enterprise through education and agritourism. Their latest $30,000 Business Builder Loan will allow them to renovate an existing tie stall barn into a commercial kitchen/processing space/multiuse event space aimed at strengthening the farm’s overall position through further diversification taking advantage of existing farm resources and seasonal labor capacity.

This vision originally stemmed from a desire to continue the successful trajectory of their farm-stay venture by further developing the farm as a destination experience for individuals looking to immerse themselves in Vermont’s rural landscape and farming heritage. The first step in this plan has been to develop a small farm scaled distillery using wild apples. However, it didn’t make financial sense to renovate the barn for that one purpose only.

That led to a larger vision to incorporate the distillation room off a larger more general-purpose room built around the floor plan of a commercial kitchen space. This space will be utilized by the farm for existing enterprises including prep for farmers’ markets and the production of value-added products for sale through all existing channels. This will also allow Stony Pond Farm to continue to develop the farm-Experience market, inviting folks to come immerse themselves in different experiences on the farm from harvesting apples and making cider, to tasting hard ciders and finished spirits. Touring the distillery and walking the orchards. Visiting the cows, sampling raw milk and learning to make farmer’s cheese. Touring the gardens, harvesting cabbage and learning to make kimchi and sauerkraut. Or tagging along on an ecology walk through the farm’s woods and pastures learning to identify various plants, animals, birds, mushrooms and during the fall hunting seasons, how to break down and package wild game.

Along those lines of various experiences lies the potential to integrate regional home school kids and their parents in farm-based food production and processing classes.

On top of this all there is an opportunity to move all the materials and equipment from an already crowded shop space into the other half of the barn freeing up a beautiful well-built and attractive building presently sitting on blocks to be moved and set up as an additional farm stay cabin to generate additional revenue.