About Us
Our Story
The real-life experiences and systemic challenges that Vilicus Farms (VF) encountered as a rural, first-generation, at-scale, regenerative organic farm gave rise to the Vilicus Institute (VI). In 2009 Anna and Doug Jones-Crabtree launched Vilicus Farms in the vast plains of North Central Montana, utilizing USDA beginning farmer programs and plenty of sweat equity. Growing from 1,280 acres, today VF stewards a diversified 12,000+ acre dryland organic crop farm with integrated grazing. As first-generation farmers with farm management, agronomy, and engineering degrees, Anna and Doug hold deeply their responsibility to foster life on the land, both below and above the soil, and in the surrounding community. They have demonstrated how to implement biodiversity on a grand scale, planting between 12-20 diverse crops annually, with 26% of their land base in native plant pollinator strips and conservation integrated within the crop fields, and they have brought animals back to the land by integrating grazing into the cropping system. They have hosted apprentices and incubated other businesses on their farm, investing in the next generation.
These efforts to prioritize outcomes for people and planet did not change the difficult profit margins, the need for off-farm income, or erase the debt associated with converting thousands of acres to organic during a historic drought. With no generational support, Anna and Doug funded the farm infrastructure and equipment inventory from scratch. They have had to be intensely creative at marketing and seek new approaches to filling the labor capacity necessary to run a farm at scale in a rural location. The economic challenges faced by VF are not unique and increasing climate variability has only increased the difficulty of farming in the Northern Great Plain region. VF is a unique model that can serve as a pilot from which learnings applicable to other farms rooted in biodiversity may be shared. The Vilicus Institute was established to magnify VF’s voice and exists to fundamentally reimagine the relationship between agriculture, ecology and economics to ensure that farms like VF can not only stay in business, but thrive for generations to come.
Reason for Being Statement
We exist because farmers need an economic system that rewards them for protecting the land, water, and air and supports their ability to steward the Northern Great Plains. We are the organization best positioned to reimagine the relationships that improve the economic well-being of farmers doing the work of ecological regeneration. That’s because the Vilicus Institute is rooted in the lived reality of farming in the Northern Great Plains.
Theory of Change
We believe systemic change to a more ecological-based agriculture can only happen with more people doing the work of farming in a system based on ecological reciprocity. Consequently, we believe that the only way to get more people doing this work is to make it possible for more people to have livelihoods rooted in the work of agriculture.
How We Work
- Pursue understanding of the economic structures that surround organic farmers and acknowledge the balance between economics and ecology that exists in farmer decision-making
- Engage the tools of systems thinking, empathic listening, and deep sensing to identify opportunities where farmers' deep connection to the natural world can inform and transform current economic systems to work differently
- Innovate and implement new models, foster meaningful relationships, and develop approaches that create synergy between ecological wisdom and economic viability and farmers are co-creating life systems
"Anybody can love the mountains, but it takes a soul to love the prairie."
Why Northern Great Plains
Montana's prairies house some of the largest remaining native grasslands in the United States, but they have been severely altered, resulting in the decline of critical species within the ecosystem.