In Support of Clemmons Family Farm

At Shelburne Farms we see farm-based education as an important pathway to a sustainable future. Clemmons Family Farm in Charlotte, Vermont is a neighbor, friend, and peer farm-based, education nonprofit organization. We deeply respect their award-winning work of stewarding and sharing their farm over the past 60 years. Their farm, one of the 17 African American-owned farms in Vermont, is an incredible gift—a place to learn, celebrate, and gather.  

We are saddened to learn about the acts of discrimination by members of the Vermont State Police against the Clemmons Family Farm Director, the Clemmons family, and their farm, as found in a recent Vermont Human Rights Commission Report. We stand with Clemmons Family Farm—their family and nonprofit—and hope that out of this will come positive change as dedicated public officials, and all of us work to build just and safe communities together.

We invite you to learn more about the rare gem that is Clemmons Family Farm, and to support their three-fold mission of preserving the farm, empowering a growing network of Vermont Black artists and culture bearers, and building a loving multicultural community around African American/African diaspora history, arts, and culture. We recognize that the existence of their farm is a form of activism in the face of systemic racism and the fact that African American farmland ownership has declined by 93% over the past century. Visit clemmonsfamilyfarm.org for more information.  

To learn more about African American farming heritage and Black land dispossession in the United States: 

• Read Farming While Black by Leah Penniman
• Watch "Why are there So Few Black Farmers in America?"  with footage from the Clemmons Family Farm
• Read "Why is land justice a key component of food justice?" from the HEAL Food Alliance
• Read "The Great Land Robbery: The shameful story of how 1 million black families have been ripped from their farms" by Vann R. Newkirk II in The Atlantic

Learn about the Farm-based Education Network (FBEN), an international network of farms providing educational programs. FBEN is a project administered by Shelburne Farms.