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Exploring the Small Farm Dream Still Ripening: CVCC Biography CVNP Partnership Special Events Supporters & |
The Countryside Initiative The Countryside Initiative is a joint venture of Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP) and Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Conservancy (CVCC). The Conservancy is a non-profit organization created in 1999 to conceptualize and help implement a management program for the picturesque but deteriorating old farms still surviving within the boundaries of CVNP. Named the Countryside Initiative, that program involves rehabilitation and revitalization of some 20-25 farms over a period of 10-15 years. CVNP, itself, was established in 1974 by act of Congress. Its purpose, as defined in the park’s enabling legislation is “preserving and protecting for public use and enjoyment the historic, scenic, natural, and recreational values of the Cuyahoga River and adjacent lands of the Cuyahoga Valley, and for the purpose of providing for the maintenance of needed recreational open space necessary to the urban environment.” From the outset, park managers have understood those “values” to include the Valley’s rapidly disappearing “rural landscape” and “rural character.” Yet preserving and protecting those particular values in a park setting has turned out to be a truly complex and elusive goal. Farming in a national park (or any other park) is a most unconventional idea in America. Americans tend to perceive parks as places to visit, not places to live. And few parks in America (unlike parks in many parts of the world) are lived in, worked in, or farmed in. Hence relatively few management strategies and policies have previously been developed by the National Park Service for dealing with things agricultural. The Countryside Initiative has taken on the task of developing model policies for managing “rural landscapes” at CVNP, and elsewhere. The Cuyahoga Valley’s rural landscape and character have largely disappeared because the primary activity which created and maintained it – farming – has largely disappeared. Yet here and there old farms have survived in the park which could be rehabilitated and revitalized. Remnants of some 85 farms were evaluated at the beginning of the Countryside Initiative, and 20-25 remain possibilities for being rehabilitated and returned to active farming. The Initiative embraces the activity of farming as the fullest and most meaningful expression of the Valley’s rural heritage and character: Real farmers on real farms in real working landscape. These modern farms were and will remain small in scale, ranging from 10 acres or less to 100 acres or more. They will feature crops and livestock similar to their 19 th and 20 th century predecessors: fruits, vegetables, flowers, herbs, poultry, pigs, sheep, goats, and cattle. But current farmers will grow them for 21 st century tastes and markets. And they will blend the best traditional farming practices with the best modern sustainable production methods. The result, we believe, will eventually achieve the elusive hope of the CVNP’s founders – that the Valley’s rural landscape and character might continue to be an important part of its present and future. Equally important, perhaps, the Countryside Initiative will give CVNP (and the National Park Service itself) an effective voice and venue for encouraging environmentally responsible use of agricultural lands (the most extensive form of land use by humans on Planet Earth). The Initiative, we hope, will play a significant role in fostering a modern land ethic. The fullest description of how the Countryside Initiative actually works, including the process of making farms available to the public for long-term leasing, is described in a document titled Countryside Initiative Request for Proposals (RFP). The first RFP was issued in 2001, a second in 2005. Questions?
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Countryside
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2179 Everett Road Peninsula OH 44264 | 330-657-2542 | info@cvcountryside.org |