Corner Farm Village, LLC (CFV) was on two, five-acre parcels and part of “Dinsmore’s Orchard Homes” in Missoula County. CFV has reconfigured the parcels into an eight-acre lot (the farm) and a two+-acre lot (the village), and recorded a boundary line relocation.

The Farm: CFV hopes to sell the eight-acres to Trust Montana, a nonprofit Community Land Trust, which will provide long-term stewardship. In addition to a major donation from the landowner, Trust Montana will seek funds from the Open Space program, philanthropists, businesses, and the wider community. You can help by donating here or by speaking up for farms as an Open Space priority.

If successful, the land will also have a new deed that restricts its use to agriculture and buildings ancillary to the ag business; that prohibits further subdivision of land; and that allows for production of renewable energy. If Open Space Bond funds are used, the land will receive an “open space” designation under state code, which is extremely difficult to remove without a referendum.

The community’s benefits are many, including saving prime agricultural soils, excellent irrigation water, the riparian area created by an old oxbow of the Clark Fork River, and natural flood control. Local food production and the land’s vegetation not only helps reduce our community’s climate impact, but also promotes resilience in the face of climate change and future disruptions of the dominant food system, such as global pandemics.