Through the support of the Town Creek Foundation in Easton, The idea of creating a support structure for small-scale farmers on the Eastern Shore has now come into being. Last year, the Foundation provided a two-year grant to Future Harvests CASA (Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture) to hire a Delmarva representative with the primary task of developing training and outreach programs to encourage a new generation of sustainable farming taking place on the mid-shore
Last February, Aleya Fraser was selected for this important position. While Aleya had been training in college to ultimately become a physician, she saw another future for herself after working on a small farm in Baltimore and seeing first hand the positive social, economic, and environmental impact that these small enterprises can have on their communities.
The move to the Mid-Shore to work on the Delmarva not only allowed her to work with new and aspiring young farmers in the area, which now is close to one hundred in number, Aleya is also walking the walk and has found a small plot of land near Preston to be part of this movement.
Last week, the Spy drove over to Preston to chat with Aleya about her program and the need to develop small-scale farming on the Eastern Shore.
This video is approximately five minutes in length
Judy Gifford says
Thanks, Dave, for highlighting the good work of Aleya and Future Harvest ! A hidden treasure. Future Harvest holds its annual conference in January which is a great place for folks interested in small scale agriculture to learn and network.