Grounding Vision of Resilience at Agraria
Photograph by Dennie Eagleson
Originally posted on ysnews.com
Written by Megan Bachman
A gulp of barn swallows dove in between rows of buckwheat and bloody butcher corn on a recent 90-degree afternoon at Agraria. On an adjacent field, a heat mirage shimmered as young soybeans poked up through the dry soil.
To local horticulturist and aspiring farmer Bob Moore, the Agraria center for regenerative agriculture is a place of opportunity and uncertainty.
On land he leases from Community Solutions, which owns the 128-acre farm on Dayton-Yellow Springs Road, Moore is experimenting with varieties of grain that could transform the local food economy — if they can thrive.
Gesturing toward the surrounding fields of conventionally-grown corn and soy, Moore observed the reality of agriculture today and posed the question he hopes to answer at Agraria.
We don’t eat what’s grown here. All of the grain on all of this farmland is shipped away from us,” he said, adding that most of it goes to feed animals and — as ethanol — cars.
“But is there a way we could value-add grain and then get the local farmers to grow that grain?”