We Won An Award!

If we are bold in our thinking, courageous in accepting new ideas, and willing to work with instead of against our land, we shall find in conservation farming an avenue to the greatest food production the world has ever known… - Hugh Hammond Bennett

Lindsay Napolitano & Johann Rinkens, Fields Without Fences

Farming is a series of impossible expectations and limitless possibilities. To elicit the certainty of livelihood from the mercurial thing that freezes, rains, and suns to parchedness; the thing that blows, and blooms, and changes with the wind - is a paradox we pursue every season. Suffused in the practice is a question with an evolving answer: can we provide for the needs of our society, while still providing for the needs of the earth?

It was against the backdrop of the 20th century Dust Bowl crisis that Hugh Hammond Bennet, a USDA soil surveyor, became a fervent champion for a conservation minded approach to agriculture. Spurred by the widespread environmental degradation he observed on American farms, Bennett imagined a landscape where crop production was implemented in closer harmony with the natural world. Through his efforts, and the efforts of his contemporaries, the Soil Conservation Service - now known as the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) - was formed at the federal level to provide technical and financial assistance to farmers enacting ecological improvements and conservation farming on their land. Embedded within the creation of the organization was an acknowledgement that preserving the health and integrity of our shared landscape was a shared responsibility - one that stretched across field edges and human lifetimes.

Our work over the years has woven a small thread of that story. It is with equal parts pride and humility, we are pleased to share that we were recently awarded the 2023 Hugh Hammond Bennett Producer Award for Conservation Excellence in the Northeast. Last year, unbeknownst to us, someone from the New Jersey NRCS nominated us for the award, and we were selected by the National Conservation Planning Partnership (NCPP) as the winners for the Northeast region of the country. Winners were selected based on their commitment to conservation, civic engagement, pioneering new approaches to conservation planning and implementation, and advancing soil health on their own land, as well as within their communities.

We began our work at Fields Without Fences spurred by an interest in investigating the intersection of agricultural production and ecological restoration. This heartfelt curiosity has been a motivating feature of our work on our farms as well as our work with other farmers, stewards, organizations, and local government. In this way, this award is deeply meaningful for us.

Farming in harmony with nature is an evolving question with so many possible answers. Answers that come in the form of the cumulative efforts and expressions of human beings in relationship with their surroundings - shaping our world, doing their best in all their humanness.