Studio Hill Farm

Studio Hill is a 4th/5th-generation family farm in Vermont. In 2011, 3rd-generation managers Cally and Jesse found that after four decades of reductionist land management—as a dairy, as a horse ranch, as a hay farm—with heavy tillage and toxic chemicals left their farmland dead and desertifying.

Both Cally and Jesse worked off the farm to support the land and cover the economic losses from farming. It was the discovery of, and shift to, Holistic Management in 2013 that reversed the farm’s slide into degradation to a positive-feedback loop of health, production, and profitability.

Just ten years after the switch, the resilient ecological abundance at Studio Hill was able to support more life than ever—a growing family, more employees, more livestock, returning wildlife, and strong biological communities.