History and Purpose of the Carver Farm

In the early 20th century, Ohio was home to almost 2,000 Black farmers who stewarded the land and fed their communities. At the same time, Black scientist and inventor George Washington Carver was pioneering and propagating regenerative agriculture through soil amendments, crop diversity, composting, and other methods.

What followed was a century of plummeting Black land ownership as discriminatory federal practices blocked Black farmers from resources and devastated Black farming settlements. Today, there are fewer than 300 Black Ohio farmers. But a new generation of BIPOC farmers are recovering their agricultural heritage and starting new agricultural ventures in service to food sovereignty, soil health, and community resilience.

The Agraria Center for Regenerative Practice is helping to revive the rich African American agricultural tradition in this country through several initiatives, including its BIPOC Farming Network, annual Black Farming conference, and BIPOC-focused Regenerative Farmer Fellowship training program.

To centralize and galvanize these efforts, we are launching the George Washington Carver Farm, an 18-acre site within the Agraria farm. In the spirit of Carver, the farm will serve as a place to experiment with and observe various regenerative agricultural practices, including silvopasture, terrace gardens, grazed chicken orchards, fiber and dye gardening, high tunnel production, sweet potato trials, no-dig raised beds, and more.

Agraria’s Carver Farm will also be a learning site for the Regenerative Farmer Fellowship, a 10-month in-depth farmer training program that includes business planning skills and site support. It will host opportunities for aspiring farmers to learn and grow together, with opportunities for incubation spaces and cooperative farming enterprise development.

As Carver inspired a groundswell of Black agrarians working in concert with the land, so Agraria hopes to spark a resurgence of BIPOC farmers working to regenerate our soil, feed our communities and empower our collective future. We hope you will join us in this mission.