Corner Farm village
Across the world, valuable farmland is rapidly being converted to other uses, especially housing. In the United States alone, an estimated average of 2,000 acres of farmland a day were lost or degraded from 2001-2016.
Prime farmland has unique soils that are excellent for growing the food we all need to survive. It’s also typically flat and well-drained, making it highly desirable for development. Yet, we can have houses without sprawling across the countryside and paving over these finite, irreplaceable resources. There are alternatives.
On a 10-acre property, Corner Farm Village demonstrates one alternative to business-as-usual by protecting valuable farmland, by nurturing a new generation of farmers to care for the land, and by providing climate-smart homes for the community.
We are working with the land’s assets and constraints on property located near Missoula, Montana.
Our goals are to:
- Strengthen the resilience of our local and regional food system.
- Partner with a community land trust, using the conservation tool for the first time to protect ag land in Montana.
- Permanently protect an eight-acre farm that has prime ag soils and provides healthy food for our community.
- Provide a young farmer with an affordable, long-term, ground lease.
- Enhance farm viability with a farm stand and café featuring local food.
- Cluster homes and farm-related buildings on the poorer quality land at the edge of the farm.
- Build 12 homes, organized as a housing cooperative.
- Design buildings for the 21st century with climate change and sustainability in mind.
- Care for the land without synthetic chemicals and promote ecological diversity.
- Conserve the riparian area and protect water resources.
- Provide natural flood control.
- Respect the path the Séliš-Ql̓ispé have always shown us in caring for the land and waters.
Learn more about Us
farmland
Corner Farm Village is working to permanently protect this agricultural and riparian land in the Orchard Homes area of Missoula.
Village
Corner Farm Village crafted a site design that will place buildings on two acres of poor soil, leaving the adjacent high-quality farmland and riparian area intact.
history
Corner Farm Village sits in the aboriginal territories of the Séliš-Ql̓ispé people, near the Clark Fork River and just upstream from its confluence with the Bitterroot River.
plan
Corner Farm Village was originally on two, five-acre parcels and part of “Dinsmore’s Orchard Homes” in Missoula County.
