Fighting Food Insecurity in Loudoun One Acre at a Time

Fighting Food Insecurity in Loudoun One Acre at a Time

By Peyton Tochterman

Growing up in Frederick County, Virginia, surrounded by orchards and generational farms, Dana Melby fell in love with horticulture at an early age.

Dana Melby out on the farm near Gilberts Corner

A self-described “plant nerd,” Melby wasn’t born into a farming family and often wondered how people became farmers, and she was unsure if that life was a possibility.

Now, years later, after earning a Bachelors in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado and a Masters in International Agriculture at Oklahoma State, she’s the farm manager at The Community Farm at Roundabout Meadows. It’s an independent non-profit donor-supported organization located at Gilbert’s Corner, where she oversees the day-to-day operations.

Acquired by the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) in 2013 before it could be developed into “gas stations, strip malls, and housing developments,” The Community Farm has one purpose: to donate 100 percent of food grown to Loudon Hunger Relief.

Sitting on 142 acres with only one acre of production, their first growing season in 2019 yielded 5,000 pounds of produce. This past year, because of Covid and the need to support more families with food insecurity, the farm has generated 50,000 pounds of food on eight acres.

Despite Loudoun’s reputation as a wealthy community, a surprising number of children in the county — one in ten — live in households with limited access to healthy food. The consequences can be stark for these children, as their development, ability to learn and overall health are directly related to the quality of their diet.

PEC President Chris Miller said, “The notion that there are around 10,000 children in Loudoun facing a chronic lack of access to sufficient nutritious food is troubling, both as a parent and as someone who knows the bounty that Loudoun County has to offer.”

Melby is only interested in providing the highest quality and freshest fruits and vegetables, including potatoes, tomatoes, squash, and melons.

“We want our families that get our food to get the same fresh and local produce that you get when you go to the farmers market. We never send seconds.”

“And they deliver on that,” said Mary Peterson, a volunteer with the farm since its inception in 2018. She’s one of over 750 volunteers who donated over 1,600 hours of their time to the farm.

A Kentucky native who grew up on a farm and moved to Northern Virginia 30 years ago, Peterson said her work there is rewarding and inspiring.

“I have taken my three grandsons (she has ten grandchildren in all), and we have cut potatoes for seed potatoes, planted onions, harvested cabbage, cucumbers, squash, and peppers, and we wash and pack the food in bags for families of four. My family gets to help not just protect the land, but we get the opportunity to contribute thousands of pounds of food to the people who live with food insecurity in our community. The people at The Community Farm are good stewards of the land and good stewards of produce.”

This goodwill has not come without its hardships. Melby recalled when she joined PEC in 2018 and helped develop a long-term plan for the land.

“There were invasive species everywhere,” she said. “It took me an hour to walk a fence line. Now I can walk it in ten minutes….I got here, and there was a drilled well, but no power, a partial driveway, and the soil was not ready.”

Ever the optimist, Melby saw an overgrown blank canvas.

“I’m bullheaded, and farming takes blood, sweat, and tears,” she said. “So that’s what we gave. You don’t know the soil until you work with it. And so, we did.”

They built barns, bought tractors, got power run to the buildings, and built their volunteer base.

“The passion and interest from our community has been there,” she said. “We have volunteers living in a condo in Ashburn but grew up on a farm in Illinois, and they want to be out here to help preserve and work the land. They get it.”

Volunteers also come from local schools.

“Just the other day, we had thirty first-graders come to volunteer, and I asked them, ‘who wants to plant one hundred trees?’ Seconds later, they excitedly ran down the hill to where we were planting. Farming can be frustrating, but those kids’ enthusiasm makes it all worth it.

“If we inspire one kid to see that you can grow up and be a farmer and not necessarily have to own the land to succeed, then it’s just another win.”