May 27, 2025

We are so pleased to welcome 10 farms across North Carolina on a year-long journey to expand resilient soil health and community wealth.

Meet the cohort members and learn more about them:

• Ed Hunt, Hunt Farms
• Jeff and Lisa Bender, Bender Farms
• Georie Bryant, Symbodied/ODU Project
• Afraka Yates, Old Dirty 30 Farm
• Amy Fielder, Springhouse Farm 
• Wood Turner and family, Miss Grace Farms
• William Barber III, Free Union Farm
• Kendrick Ransome, Golden Organic Farm
• adé oni, dièdiè textile farm and micromill
• Tyrone and Edna Williams, Fourtee Acres Farm 

Over the course of the year, cohort members will:

• Articulate their farms’ financial and ecological goals;
• Begin to expand and implement regenerative practices on their farms, flexibly defined based on operations and objectives, thanks to new access to capital, technical assistance, or regional markets;
• Create new connections to regional food, forestry, and fiber stakeholders, community organizations, and value-chain partners; and
• Foster connections to capital partners and funders to support on-farm or value-chain initiatives.

For many cohort members, we have worked with them and place-based partners to better understand regional needs and build trust-based networks. We are excited to convene the first official Soil Wealth Areas cohort to continue facilitating local food, fiber, and forestry networks, in addition to advancing our feasibility research on regenerative special financing districts. 

Subscribe to our newsletter to follow the cohort’s journey and receive the latest updates.

If you are a capital provider seeking investment resources and ways to enter the regenerative space, contact lab@croataninstitute.org and explore our Lab for Impact Finance.