My husband and I have been farming in the suburbs of Washington, DC for four years. The sprawl galloping towards us has been great for business. Families settling into new homes are eager for a taste of the countryside that lured them out here. Our CSA program has a growing wait list of folks eager to chomp on a “real” tomato and bring the kids out for a picnic in paradise. Unfortunately, much of the remaining paradise between tracts of new homes is disappearing, making way for housing developments with lofty names like “Hopewell’s Landing” and, ironically, “The Reserve at Jamison’s Farm.” Country roads are expanding ever wider with more turn lanes to more strip malls.

We are grateful for the support from our CSA members but the boost to our farm business is certainly offset by another reality: we are one of the last few intentionally open spaces in the area. As such, we have a problem. Farms are targets for future roads, power lines or something-other-than-farmland. Over the past 2 years, we have had two separate proposals plot a high-voltage power-line and a major highway, both following the same route through our farm.

We find ourselves in an uncomfortable position: “develop” our land or save our farm as is, and preserve blank space for future highways and power lines.

It’s strange, given the threats of diminishing oil, dwindling fresh water supplies, climate change, epidemic obesity and cancer, and national food distribution scares, that farmland still holds so little value for its potential to grow food, real food: the kind that nourishes, heals, and inspires.

Communities that place no intrinsic value on their farmland lose more than just a farm. Future generations lose the opportunity to live healthfully, native species lose their place in the ecosystem, and the whole area degrades into the emptiness of suburbia.

In response to the cancerous growth around us, we are focusing on staying small and building a strong, intimate community to help push us through the harm in our way. CSA members have helped us to navigate farm taxes, repair old buildings, harvest and plant. All of this makes for a suburban community that puts value and importance back into the small farm.