Meet Modern Farmer’s Guest Instagrammer: River Oak Farm

For husband-and-wife farmers Adam Aucoin and Cassy Kelly, their choice to farm sustainably is constantly reaffirmed by the sights and sounds that surround them on their 75-acre spread. The couple’s Lowesville, Virginia, farm is located along the banks of the Piney River in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just three miles from the entrance to the George Washington National Forest.

“It makes it very easy for us to keep the earth and the impact our farming has on our ecological landscape in mind in all that we do,” Kelly tells Modern Farmer in an email.

These first-generation farmers raise grass-fed beef cattle, forage-fed pigs and pasture-raised turkeys and chickens (for slaughter and eggs) at the farm they started in 2013. But their agricultural experience stretches back to their teens, working on various farms.

Kelly’s first job was working at a vegetable and flower CSA in Virginia and Aucoin has worked in the agricultural field from Montana to Louisiana for the last decade. Originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2009, Aucoin, with Kelly’s help, started a pasture-raised poultry business on borrowed land in his home state. They sold their products at the Crescent City Farmer’s Market in New Orleans, but the dream of owning their own farm led the couple to Virginia, where Kelly is originally from.

The couple is helping breathe new life into a piece of property that has mostly lain fallow for several decades, but where corn and tobacco once grew. The farm dates back to the 1840s. The Virginia Blue Ridge Railway, a small, steam-powered train line, used to make its way across the farm, hauling agricultural products down from the mountains. Aucoin and Kelly are among a new generation of small farmers whose focus is on the welfare of the land, their animals and the consumer.

“As we started to get educated about the current food system, we realized that it was lacking integrity,” Kelly says. “We saw a viable business opportunity in a field of agriculture that was challenging the large industrial model.”

While Aucoin handles the daily farm duties, Kelly helps out when she’s not at her day job in nearby Charlottesville at RelayFoods, an online grocery business focused on organic and sustainable foods. The couple also employs three part-time workers.

The couple’s mission is to sustain their local community with the best food they can produce. Their goal is made a little easier thanks to the “incredible sense of community” to be found in Nelson County.

“I believe for such a rural county, we have one of the most robust farmers markets in the country,” says Kelly. “If more people purchased locally then more and more farms like ours could crop up and we wouldn’t need factory farms. Everyone could eat with peace of mind, knowing where their food came from and who grew it. That type of food economy is what inspires us and keeps us doing what we do.”