An Innovative Farming Model for the Next Generation | Clara Coleman | TEDxDirigo

 

No stranger to what makes farming successful, Clara Coleman has a clear plan for a new collaborative farming model that responds to today’s particular challenges and embraces entrepreneurial diversification. She calls this the ARC Farming Projectโ€”Agrarian Resource Collaborative Farmingโ€”and she’s on the path to making it a reality. Clara is the daughter of renowned farming pioneer Eliot Coleman. She is a second-generation organic farmer, consultant, writer, and speaker on sustainable four-season farming. In 2008 Clara created Divide Creek Farm, an organic, intensively-managed, two-acre, four-season vegetable farm in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. She produced year-round vegetable crops under harsh winter conditions using unheated and minimally heated moveable high tunnels and greenhouses. Clara is now focused on building the ARC Farming Project, consulting, writing a book on four-season farming for the next generation, family farm grant projects with land trusts, and promoting the work of both Slow Tools and Farm Hack to further the collaboration between farmers, engineers, and makers of innovative tools. She participates in farming workshops and speaking engagements nationwide as a means to inspire and encourage the next generation of farmers. Clara lives in Portland, Maine, with her two sons.