Our Program:  Economics 

We are forming a new type of supply chain - one that is reciprocal and supportive of organic agricultural production - to more evenly distribute risk for our farmers across economic cycles.

VI works with farms, including VF, that are managing and tending to their land and communities in a way that our current economic system does not account for. We are taking what we have learned from our VF’s on-farm pilot program aimed at increasing direct payments for land stewardship and working with partners to reimagine what and how stewardship payments would achieve true economic transformation.

• Rewarding Living Farms: Expanding Community Supported Stewardship Agriculture
• Form a “Paying Living Farms for Stewardship” steering committee

VI is exploring how to adapt the same types of investment and business planning resources that other non-farming sectors routinely implement and integrate into the farm business, particularly the first generation.

• Bake succession into the farm business structures.
• A Capital Stack for First Generation Ag Enterprises: Investigate the first generation farm business capital stack alongside Healing Soils Foundation and other partners.
• Visually Representing Farm Economics: Unveil the gap between income and expenses for a farm business.
• New Models for Farm Business Transition: Baking In Succession Planning from the Start [Rodale, IQVF, VF].
• Montana Agrarian Commons Formulating Financially Resilient Farming Careers.
• Stacking Enterprises (Quivira project - completed).
• Making Visible the Invisible - Elevating Farmer Voices.
• Basic Income for Farmers.