Inaugural seeds planted at new Henrico County community farm groundbreaking in Varina

Pea seeds dropped in a row Monday cultivated the start of a community farm in Varina.

The 1,052-acre Runnymeade property, located on the eastern side of Willis Church Road about 2 miles north of New Market Road and 1.6 miles south of Darbytown Road/Charles City Road, will take on new life as a partnership between Henrico County and the nonprofit Happily Natural Day to create a community farm.

County officials believe the initiative will be a way for aspiring and experienced farmers to forge a path in agriculture and will help address hunger and food insecurity across the county.

“In many ways, the growth and prosperity that Henrico County enjoys today can be traced to the farms and fields of Varina that have sustained our community for centuries,” Varina District Supervisor Tyrone Nelson said at the farm’s opening event Monday. “We are proud to honor and continue this outstanding legacy. Our community farm will be a place where Varina’s small farmers and others can nurture their entrepreneurial spirit. By working with the land, they will be able to grow wealth for themselves and their families – just as generations of local farmers have done before them.”

There are about 7,900 acres being farmed currently in Henrico County (as of the last Census of Agriculture), which is a 35% decrease from 2012 and a 20% decrease from 2017. 

The Happily Natural Day nonprofit began as a festival in 2003 at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia and has expanded its mission to promote urban agriculture through the operation of community gardens, farms and similar initiatives throughout Central Virginia. At the Varina community farm, the nonprofit hopes to attract a mix of experienced and aspiring farmers, including some with no generational ties to farming.

Nelson said the Runnymeade agricultural development sprouted out of a compromise that bourgeoned out of the contested Arcadia development, a proposed 253.7-acre community to be built at Pocahontas Parkway and Route 5, across from the Varina Area Library.

In 2023, the Henrico Citizen reported people opposed to the development called the location unfit for a large residential community that could approach 1,000 homes in total. In March 2024, Richmond BizSense reported the developer East West paid $4 million for the Arcadia project site.

The board of supervisors authorized an initial two-year agreement to create and operate the new cooperative farm on the county’s Runnymeade property, providing the site with access to water and other infrastructure like electricity, and is paying Happily Natural Day $50,000 annually to administer the program and provide support to farmers.

The land will be divided into smaller plots dedicated to education programs, farming instruction, hands on learning, and sustainable agricultural practices. Henrico residents will have priority for participation.

The community farm will encompass 10 acres during its pilot phase and could expand to 20 acres and potentially more, depending on community interest. Farmers will be able to apply to use plots as small as a quarter- or half-acre, beginning in late fall. Details are at runnymeadefarm.com.

Food access and security

Once it is operating at capacity year-round, the farm’s annual yield could total as much as 500,000 pounds of produce – a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains and flowers, according to Duron Chavis, executive director of Happily Natural Day.

“This is a grand opportunity for the expansion of food access and security for residents of the Henrico community, but also for Central Virginia as a whole,” Chavis said at the groundbreaking event. “We're greatly inspired by the innovation and dedication of Henrico County and their use of land as a tool for community change in this moment across the country.”

“We see citizens that are concerned about where their food is going to come from. Rising grocery prices and threats to our social safety net have created a crisis for many Americans. At this moment, we are seeing how municipal governments can belie the concerns of citizens. Through collaboration. Communities across the country have dedicated themselves to creating solutions that utilize rural and urban agriculture as tools to increase food security, and this space, hopefully will be an inspiration to other municipal governments on how they can utilize land as a tool for increasing food access.”

Chavis said Henrico County’s support is vital because it will allow farmers to focus on tending to their plots and other core aspects of their business, not on securing land and raising capital.

 “The county is literally widening the runway for folks to enter the vocation at a most critical time,” said Chavis.

As part of its mission to help address food insecurity in Henrico, a portion of the produce will go to the Henrico Community Food Bank, supplementing what the nonprofit grows through its community garden.

Happily Natural Day also will commit $25,000 from its budget specifically to purchase produce from farmers from the Runnymede effort to give them support, directing the produce into distribution for local charities.

A homegrown Varina idea

“Varina residents were the ones who planted the idea for a community garden that local farmers could access,” Nelson said at the groundbreaking. “As a county, we are excited to see this seed take root and grow – and perhaps eventually expand to more sites across Henrico. A thriving community farm aligns with many of our county’s priorities and values, including support for small businesses and entrepreneurship, nutrition and healthy living, and the preservation of open space and working lands.”

During the ceremony Nelson recognized Virginia Commonwealth University political science student and Varina native Sincere Slade-Reading who, as an intern, developed the idea of a community farm based on research of other farming co-ops.

“I've always valued agriculture, and growing up so close to the city and seeing how fast things are developing concerns me,” said Slade-Reading, who comes from a family steeped in agriculture. “I'm very interested in conserving agriculture. Food insecurity has always been a concern for me.”

Slade-Reading, whose family has at times sought out food bank support and has family relying on SNAP benefits, felt the timing of the community farm groundbreaking was prescient.

“It's just ironic how the timeline lines up where there's so many residents, not just in Henrico, but all over the country who are in need of food,” Slade-Reading said. “To be launching a project like this, addressing food insecurity and providing people with skills to create their own food, I just think it's awesome. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have worked on this project.”

Chavis said the program would start this winter with approximately 20 farmers.

Monchelle Hicks Whitaker, a backyard gardener, attended the event eager to learn more about how she could grow hemp on a plot.

Participants will receive support with small tools and equipment, consultation and mentorship. For aspiring farmers that are new to the field, Happily Natural Day has an agricultural training program.

As he looked at the expanse of farmland, Chavis said it made him think about the threats to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the challenges of our food system with the tariffs from the current administration and the rise of grocery prices.

“I feel like this space grants us a form of relief locally, where community members will be able to increase their own access to healthy food and practice culturally relevant strategies for growing food,” Chavis said. “I'm also hopeful that this is a catalyst for other municipal governments, that they’ll be like, ‘How can we utilize our surplus land to increase access to healthy food, and work with local farmers to grow food locally, to encourage or make room for farming as a vocation, but removing those barriers of land access from folks?'”

Dina Weinstein is the Citizen’s community vitality reporter and a Report for America corps member, covering housing, health and transportation. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.