All morning, a steady cold rain shrouds the north bank of the James River, inundating the 480 acres of rolling pasture around Brookview Farm. This late October downpour has stripped the locust and mulberry trees of much of their bright foliage, and the dirt drive separating the brick farmhouse from the surrounding fields has been churned to mud. But it cannot dampen the enthusiasm of owners Sandy and Rossie Fisher as they begin the morning’s long list of chores. This is the first rain the Fishers have seen in months, and they are delighted to have it.

“Look, the pasture’s already greening up,” declares Rossie. It hardly matters that this green is now visible in only the faintest shades. As the rain drums on the porch’s metal roof, she explains that the drought has been so severe here in Goochland County, just twenty-five miles west of Richmond, that the farm’s largest natural spring has run dry for the first time in memory. Her soft-spoken husband quietly adds that if the drought had gone on any longer, they would have been forced to sell off much of the herd. Clearly these are not easy times to be a farmer, an occupation that demands resilience and initiative on a daily basis along with the occasional stroke of luck.

Donning his oilskin jacket and trademark felt hat, Sandy leads the way through the slick grass to check on Brookview Farm’s various operations, which include 250 certified organic grass-fed cattle, 400 free-range chickens, and a farm store selling organic eggs by the dozen and beef by the pound. Just past the brick outbuildings housing the farm’s office and store, we stop at a massive former dairy barn built into the hillside. The upper level is full of huge circular bales of organic hay, while the lower half houses a fleet of tractors retrofitted to run on bio-diesel fuel. When you see a fourteen-foot-wide 1980 Eagle composting tractor that can run all day on soybean oil, you know you’re touring the future of Southern farming.

Leading the Way
Just a few months before, the Fishers were recipients of the American Farmland Trust’s 2007 Stewards of the Land award, which “recognizes farmers who lead by example on their own farms while actively working to promote land stewardship in their community.” This was the first AFT award given to a Virginia farm family, and it seemed especially appropriate that the honorees were farming less than fifty miles from Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson introduced many of American agriculture’s most important innovations. Often overlooked in the long list of his accomplishments is the fact that Jefferson was among the first to implement crop rotation, contour plowing, and the use of fertilizer at his farm at Monticello, all concepts now fundamental to modern farming. More important, the American yeoman farmer was central to Jefferson’s vision for the new republic, which considered the small farmer’s enlightened stewardship of the land integral to a successful democracy.

“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens,” declared Jefferson in a 1785 letter to John Jay. “They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.”

Two hundred years later, farmers in Virginia and across the country have found themselves on the front lines of critical issues ranging from suburban sprawl and watershed protection to alternative fuels. True to Jefferson’s vision, Sandy and Rossie Fisher carry on his tradition of innovation and enlightened stewardship in every facet of farming practice at Brookview Farm as well as in the surrounding community. And it all began with a wild idea: grass-fed beef.

When the Fishers bought the farm in 1981, they had just returned from Colombia, South America, where Sandy had served two years in the Peace Corps and worked another nine years on a cattle ranch ten hours southeast of Bogotá. Rossie had grown up on a cattle farm just down the road from Brookview, so when the opportunity arose to buy property nearby, they jumped at it. Drawing on their experience in South America, they started raising grass-fed cattle about twenty-five years before most Virginians knew there was a difference. Unlike American cattle, which are typically fed corn and soybeans, South American cattle are raised solely on grass, which provides a leaner beef with a higher percentage of protein. The Fishers were convinced that this diet also made the animals less prone to illness, thus eliminating the need for antibiotics. (The total vet bill for all 300 cattle and 400 chickens on the farm last year was less than $400.) The 250 cattle now at Brookview Farm are a sturdy mix of breeds such as Angus, Hereford, and Brahman. Because of their diet of hay and grass, they are smaller and thinner than typical grain-fed cattle, taking much longer to fatten. For years, the Fishers took their cattle to market and sold them with all the rest, gaining no additional compensation for the extra care they put into naturally raising their beef. Finally, in the mid-1990s, they started advertising that their beef was certified organic. Initially there was little demand for it. They opened the farm store shortly afterward, offering the beef for sale to the farm’s Saturday morning visitors. After more than a decade of educating customers, coupled with the growing popularity of organic foods, people now drove to Brookview Farm from Richmond and Washington, D.C., to buy grass-fed beef directly from the farm. Filet mignon sold for over $18 a pound, but the real profit came from $5-per-pound hamburger, which earned about $2,500 per cow.

Industrial Revolution
“The flavor of the meat is unbelievable,” says Sandie Warwick, a Goochland resident and longtime patron of the farm store. But that isn’t the only reason their customers drive hours to the farm. The clientele, which Sandy jokingly describes as “one-third foreign, one-third ex-vegetarian, and one-third Northern,” come to Brookview to buy fresh food straight from the source of production and educate their kids at the same time. Children can pet the cows and go on hayrides.

“Brookview Farm is really a thriving agro-tourism business,” says Lisa Dearden, executive director of Goochland’s Center for Rural Culture. “People go there to experience rural culture.”

The Jeffersonian tradition of agricultural innovation can be found almost everywhere. There are small inventions such as the eighty-year-old Maytag washing machine in the corner of the farm store that was retooled as an egg washer. There are the larger creations like the portable open-floored cages made by Sandy from recycled plywood and chicken wire that allow his four hundred Rhode Island Red crossbred chickens to hunt for insects and grubs with protection from predators and inclement weather. The cages are complete with nesting boxes under hinged lids that allow easy access for egg collection, as well as steel skids and hitches so that they can quickly be moved each day to fresh pecking grounds. And of course there is the clever reuse of something for an unintended purpose—the old advertising banners that Sandy uses to tarp the chicken coops in freezing weather.

But it is the integration of the farm’s varied and potentially conflicting operations into a complementary whole that is most impressive. Like any farm, this was fine-tuned over time through trial and error. In addition to the chicken and cattle operations, the Fishers also have six acres of compost with which they fertilize the fields for their grass-loving cattle. A local municipality and the University of Richmond also pay the Fishers a small fee to dump their leaves and yard clippings on the property. Fifteen years ago, the Fishers realized that by locating the feeding stations in the same field, they could concentrate the cow manure nearest the compost pile. In addition to providing a windbreak for the cattle in winter, the ten-foot-tall ridges of compost naturally give off heat—up to 140 degrees—as they decay, both killing the weed seeds and bacteria as well as keeping the herd nice and toasty in a January gale.

The organization of the pastures is a study in efficiency. With the help of farm manager David Wright, the Fishers introduced rotational grazing, moving their cattle among three smaller pastures that are fed by a new gravity-powered water line running from the farm’s largest natural spring, while a fourth pasture is fed by a solar water pump. In addition, they enrolled twenty-three acres of former farmland along the farm’s streams and riverbank into the state’s Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, which provides farmers with incentives to create a fenced buffer preventing livestock from polluting the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The Fishers planted thousands of trees in the buffer to further enhance the protection of the watershed. With the creation of these smaller, more intensively grazed pastures with gravity-fed watering stations in addition to the newly fenced buffers, the cattle now have a fresh source of water in every pasture that they can’t foul.

“They can’t get their little ankles wet anymore,” says Rossie, laughing.

The latest step in Brookview Farm’s evolution occurred shortly after the October dousing, but it was a big one: taking the entire farm solar. The south-facing roof of the 185-foot-long hay barn was upfitted with over 2,500 square feet of photovoltaic panels to supply 240 volts of AC power to the farm through rain or shine.

“We’re hoping to run the farm off of these new solar panels,” says Rossie, who also says they’ve seen a significant decrease in their power bills since it became operational in the spring of 2008. “The panels weren’t cheap, and some people told us we won’t get our money out of it for twenty years. We just think it’s important to do.”

Paying It Forward
But the Fishers have never been satisfied by merely providing an example for others to follow. Their stewardship extends to the surrounding community of Goochland County. Deciding that they needed to protect the rural culture of the county from Richmond’s suburban sprawl, they founded the Center for Rural Culture in 2004, with the mission of helping to support the rural economy through sustainable farming practice as well as providing education to the local community on an array of land and water conservation issues. The following year, the CRC began the Goochland County Farmer’s Market, a grower’s only market that provides a venue for all area growers to connect with the same crowds that have been visiting Brookview Farm since the farm store opened over a decade ago. Brookview was one of the principal sponsors of the farmer’s market, and for many visitors, the reason they were first drawn to the tiny town of Goochland.

“They are an inspiration to the community because of their sustainable farming practice and the conservation easements they’ve placed on their land,” says Lisa Dearden, the CRC’s executive director. “They’ve shown the way to maintain sustainable rural culture by example.”

You can bet a two-dollar bill that Jefferson would be pleased to know that the tradition of enlightened stewardship is alive and well in the state of Virginia.