An underused hilltop farm in Charlotte will soon become a hub for agricultural research.

The University of Vermont on Thursday signed a 30-year lease with the owners of Nordic Farm, an iconic 583-acre former dairy whose red-roofed barn is visible from nearby Route 7.

The $1.9 million deal subleases the property to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, whose scientists will study food crops and grazing livestock on 400 acres of the conserved farmland. The USDA will also pay the farm’s owners, Benjamin Dobson and Kaspar Meier, $33,000 a year to use the property.



The agreement will put to use a high-profile property that entrepreneurs have tried for years to revitalize.
Dobson, who has decades of experience in organic agriculture, said partnering with UVM was “an obvious choice.”

“We’re very aligned with research that’s going to go on here,” he said at a press conference on Thursday. “Both Kaspar and I share a philosophy that whether you own the land or rent it, if you’re working on it, you’re stewarding it.”

Dobson and Meier bought the farm in July, about 18 months after the unexpected death of its previous steward, Will Raap, the founder of Gardener’s Supply and the Intervale Center. Raap, who renamed the land Earthkeep Farmcommon, had envisioned building a collective of sustainable agriculture businesses to serve as a model for other defunct Vermont dairy farms. UVM approached Dobson and Meier shortly after they purchased the property this summer.

The USDA plans to raise beef cattle and study the differences between those fed grass and those fed grain. Scientists will also research how various plants, including corn and native grasses, grow on the land. Officials hope the research will eventually help improve the region's food systems.

UVM and the USDA are also exploring longer-term research projects at the farm that would compare various production models.

“These are meant to be 30-year or more experiments,” said Christian Peters, leader of the USDA’s Food Systems Research Unit based at UVM. “The long-term lease agreements that we'll have here today at Nordic Farm gives us the freedom to think long term, to look long down the road.”
Richard Cate, UVM’s vice president for finance and administration, said it’s possible that undergraduate students could someday perform research at the farm.

Dobson said he and Meier plan to start their own farms at Nordic. The duo worked together on various biodynamic agriculture products, most recently in New York’s Hudson Valley. Dobson also cofounded a firm that studies the climate impacts of organic farming.

Dobson said he thinks research is a good long-term plan for Nordic Farm, which has been eyed for years as a site for innovation. Previous business plans there included a malted grain facility and cannabis grow operation, though neither got off the ground.

“We have a decade past of people really promoting big things that were happening here, and many of them ended unfortunately,” Dobson said. “We’re going to be careful, conservative and really excited about our new partnership.”