Financing Our Foodshed
March 2019
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Spring has officially arrived and Virginia is beginning to bloom in all its splendor. Our local farmers are hard at work planting crops and getting their livestock out in the fields to graze. Both of those activities are a common site at Bellair, a historic property south of Charlottesville. It's home to
Bellair Farm
, a certified organic vegetable CSA, and to
Twenty Paces Sheep Dairy and Creamery
. The latter is recipient of our latest 0% Slow Money loan. We are excited to work with the young and energetic four-member team at Twenty Paces. You can read more about them below.
Things continue to accelerate for our organization and we expect lots of exciting announcements as this year continues to unfold. Thank you again to all our supporters, and if you have not yet done so, please...
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Become A Nurture Capitalist Today!
This is a grassroots effort! We hope as many people as possible will support our mission.
Any size charitable contribution
you can make to our SOIL revolving loan fund goes a long way toward helping us help the local foodshed with its financial needs. Our demand for loans continues to grow every day. Please help us to meet the needs of our local farmers in any way you can. Thank you.
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Twenty Paces
Twenty Paces
is a farmstead sheep dairy and creamery located in Albemarle County between Charlottesville and Scottsville. The farm produces fresh ricotta along with four raw milk Pecorino-style aged cheeses. The business is owned and operated by Kyle Kilduff, Tom Pyne, Melanie Pyne, and Bridge Cox, who combine extensive backgrounds in dairying and cheese making.
Utilizing management intensive grazing methods, their grass-fed sheep herd has grown each year since they officially launched in 2015. They raise East Friesian sheep, a German breed well-known for its high producing milk yield per ewe. Twenty Paces cheeses are featured in retail shops, restaurants, and several distributors in Virginia and up and down the east coast along with Chicago and California. There are less than 50 sheep cheese producers in the U.S., which makes Twenty Paces a real treasure to the Virginia foodshed. With the help of their 0% Slow Money loan, the farmers will be purchasing additional ewe lambs to help them increase production and grow revenue more quickly. The loan is expected to help them purchase about 18 ewe lambs, which will supplement the on-farm breeding they do every season. We'll keep you posted on the farm's progress on our
website,
Facebook page,
and
Instagram account
.
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Kyle Kilduff, Bridge Cox, Tom Pyne, and Melanie Pyne from Twenty Paces
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Always Accepting Farmer Loan Applications!
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The mission of Slow Money Central Virginia is to support the financial needs of farmers and food entrepreneurs in our region. Our inaugural program called
SOIL (Slow Opportunities for Investing Locally)
is a 0% revolving loan program. We accept applications on a rolling basis. We can’t stress enough that no request is too small, as we want to be a friendly source of capital to help farm businesses grow in a way that’s best for them.
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Investing for the Common Good
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Slow Money Central Virginia Co-Founder Hunter Hopcroft will be serving on a panel at the Investing for the Common Good Forum on April 25th from 7pm-8:30pm. The forum is conducted by
Common Good RVA
, a network of Richmonders who are inspired to use their daily work to seek the common good of their city. Keynoting the event will be Matt Illian, executive director of the
Virginia Impact Investing Forum
.
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Sign Up for Peer-to-Peer Opportunities
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In the past several months we have presented a few opportunities for peer-to-peer loans in the local foodshed.
We use this strategy for those loan requests that are too large for our current SOIL fund reserves, or for requests from off-farm food businesses. Due to the growing number of these opportunities we are seeing, and expect to see in the future, we are trying to better systematize our approach. If you are interested in being contacted about peer-to-peer lending opportunities as they arise, please fill out the
Lender Information Form
on our website so we can curate the opportunities according to your interest.
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The Green New Deal In Virginia
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Most of you have likely heard by now of the Green New Deal. Our interest in it at Slow Money is twofold: 1) We believe severe climate change demands real action as soon as possible; and 2) That action must include sensible agricultural policies.
We cannot avert climate chaos if we don’t support a rapid transition from large-scale, chemical-intensive food production toward healthier, diversified, organic, and ecologically regenerative agriculture. This transition also requires resilient, fair, local, and regional food systems that ensure good jobs and healthy food for all. To learn more about the Green New Deal, please attend the Real Local RVA meeting on April 1 to hear local food advocate
Anthony Flaccavento
speak.
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Other Events & Opportunities
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Virginia Urban Agriculture Summit
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April 23-25
Virginia Beach
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The Virginia Urban Agriculture Summit brings together more than 100 urban farmers, gardeners, foodies, ag-tivists, policy makers and government leaders for three days of networking and learning about one of agriculture’s fastest growing sectors.
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