Surrounded by the history of the valley's early farmers, modern families carry on agricultural traditions, while also introducing their own specialized practices. In order to preserve the valley's pastoral landscape and protect both natural and cultural resources, the National Park Service developed a program called the Countryside Initiative. This program invites farmers to lease land and farm in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The Countryside Initiative program balances the needs of the land and farmer, who must follow strict guidelines for sustainable farm management.
The Countryside Initiative program began in 1999 to rehabilitate approximately 20 picturesque old farms that operated in the valley from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. As agriculture disappeared from the valley in the 20th century, these farms fell into disrepair. Through the Countryside Initiative program, the National Park Service celebrates farming and healthy land practices that help both the farmers and land.
While farming in a national park is an unconventional idea in America, that is not the case elsewhere in the world. In Great Britain, for example, over 90% of national park land is privately owned. Not only is it considered natural and normal to live within the park boundaries, farming is considered the only practical way to maintain the openness, beauty, and diversity of the countryside.
Farming in a National Park
Alan Halko, from the former Spring Hill Farm and Market, describes the unusual challenges of farming on National Park Service land.
It's been some adventures with the National Park. You know, I had to have an archeological study before I could put fence posts in the ground. Of course, I didn't know that. I just—I—I thought I was just gonna build this fence, and I couldn't. I had to wait, you know. And of course the archeologists are traveling archeologists who go from national park to national park, and they were already here and gone, so I had to wait 'til the next year to start my fence. Which...
But there's been some adventures like that. I found buried concrete. There were greenhouses on the property at one time, and they tore down all these greenhouses. And the contract with the park paid them to haul all the concrete away, and they buried all the concrete. So when I got here and put a plow in the ground, I just started hittin' concrete, concrete. And the national park ended up comin' in with a giant bulldozer with, you know, three-foot ripper teeth on the back, and a coupla bobcats, and they had to run through the field. And they collected a mountain—I don't know how many truckloads of concrete were buried in the field that I was supposed to be growing on. So... It's been an adventure, I'll say that. And I've enjoyed most of it. ~laughs~
Sustainability and the Small Farm
Daniel Greenfield, from the Greenfield Berry Farm, talks about what it takes to be a sustainable farmer.
On its face, sustainable as an ecological form of farming, I think, all of these farms that are going on now have very high expectations of them, and it's expected of them to grow using practices that are environmentally sound. We submit proposals every year to the National Park Service so they will know what we're doing. I mean, there's other aspects of sustainable we could be talking about. Are these farms going to be economically sustainable? Will we be able to make enough money to stay in business for years? I think that's the one with the biggest question mark. It's hard to be a small-scale farmer and make money. I think we have a certain advantage here in that we're in a great location. We're in a national park, so we can be destination farms. We're halfway between Cleveland and Akron, so we're very accessible to large communities, and there's a lot of promise there.