Welcome to West Branch Commons
an introduction to our story
There is a stretch of land in the Western Catskills where the West Branch of the Delaware River weaves through the valley like a ribbon. Generations of farmers have tended this land, and a new phase of collective stewardship is taking root - this is West Branch Commons.
This dream is a response to a staggering reality: according to the National Young Farmers’ 2022 Survey, land access is the top challenge that young farmers face today, and the cost of land is the number one reason why. With 51 acres of farmland lost every day in New York State to development, small-scale farmers are seeing their paths to viable livelihoods in agriculture shrink.
We need new models for farmland transfer.
Tom Hutson, fourth-generation Delaware County dairy farmer with no heirs, was willing to try something exciting: transforming his farm into a community land trust.
West Branch Commons will be a collectively-owned farm offering affordable long-term leases to historically underserved farmers. Through the community land trust (CLT) model, land is removed from speculative markets and kept affordable for farmers, ensuring that new generations, particularly QTBIPOC farmers and those historically excluded from land ownership, can steward and cultivate without the crushing burden of buying land outright.
WBC will host 4-8 farm enterprises, who will have shared use of key farm infrastructure while maintaining their own independent businesses. As farm lessees are ready to transition to their next chapter (retirement, moving to a new farm property, etc.), they are able to sell any physical improvements made to the land, like newly built barns, buildings, or equipment to the next farmer. Thus, they are able to build equity in their business while maintaining affordability for the next farmer.
Our History
In 2021, Tom started having serious conversations with neighbors about how to pass the farm on to the next generation. A group of community members and organizations including Catskills Agrarian Alliance, American Farmland Trust (AFT) the Watershed Agricultural Council, CADE, and local farmers, coalesced around the agrarian commons model. In 2023, AFT acquired the property, creating a window of opportunity for us, the newly formed West Branch Commons (WBC), to transition this land into a permanent community land trust. Our organizing team is deep in the process of creating this organization.
Community land trusts have a long history in affordable housing organizing, and agricultural commons are a historic norm across many cultures, from community livestock grazing to firewood harvesting in common woods. A return to an agricultural commons challenges the speculative land market, and allows us to make real strides towards the decommodification of land, with the ultimate outcome of preserving viable livelihoods in agriculture for the coming generations of marginalized farmers.
Who We Are: The First Farmers of the Commons
Already, WBC is home to four growers:
River Haven Farm – A small-scale beef cattle operation, run by Tom Hutson. He’s continuing the Hutson family’s legacy while offering intergenerational land wisdom and on the ground support to new lessees.
Iridescent Earth Collective – IEC is a Queer, Black & Latinx led farm duo from the Bronx, growing food for the Bronx in rural New York. The goal of this project is to engage QTBIPOC farmers from marginalized communities (and more broadly NYS) in collaborative planning of our communities’ future food system and finding grassroots ways to execute these plans. They believe that these vulnerable members of our community entering the field of agriculture should have agency and support from a community of folks that share similar life experiences and values. IEC is an anti-capitalist land stewardship farm project, centering the experiences of Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous and Persons of color in our work. In collaboration with our partners and friends we are establishing socio-political infrastructure founded on radical authenticity, grassroots community care and mutual aid work to benefit these vulnerable and representative members of our farming community.
Serra Vida Farm – A Queer and BIPOC-led farm committed to education, local food sovereignty, and providing cost-accessible, culturally relevant food through mutual aid, sliding-scale markets, and food sovereignty initiatives. Serra Vida bridges rural and urban food systems by distributing produce upstate and downstate, ensuring that historically marginalized communities—both in the Bronx and in Delaware County– have access to nourishing, high-quality food.
Burgin Family Farm - The Burgins have tended large parcels of the land for decades, cultivating familiar acres of hay, corn, and soy.
Together, these growers are proving what is possible when land is not just owned, but cared for. They are growing food not just for markets, but for communities– feeding families in both rural and urban spaces, bridging the divide between farmland and food insecurity.
The Work Ahead: And How You Can Be Part of It!
Right now, WBC has a monumental fundraising goal. To permanently secure this land and establish the Commons, we aim to raise $950,000 by December 2026. This will be done through a combination of grants, donations of all sizes, and loans – all powered by the collective will of those who believe that land should be a birthright, not a privilege.
WBC’s “Community Down Payment”
We are launching our grassroots campaign for our “community down payment.” Our goal is to raise a “down payment” of 20% of the total project cost through community fundraising over the next two years - $190,000. Your support will help us to organize and fund the other 80% ($760,000) through a mix of grants, foundation support, and bridge loans from community development financial institutions. Contributions to this fundraiser directly support the purchase of the land.
If you believe in a future where farmers can work the land without fear of displacement, where communities can reclaim their food systems, where land is held not as property, but as a shared inheritance– then we invite you to join us.
This Substack will be a place for updates, reflections, and calls to action. We will share about our process of creating our new 501(c)3 inspired by worker cooperative principles and the international movement of peasant farmers. It will hold the voices of farmers, the history of the land, and the dreams of what’s to come. We hope that it will serve as a record for other aspiring commons projects who might learn from our mistakes and victories. You are part of this, just by reading.
Let’s build something lasting. Let’s return to the Commons.
With deep gratitude,
The West Branch Commons Team