Resource Category: Case Study

Farming at Hilltop Urban Farm comes with intense wind pressures. To design an effective windbreak system, Pasa connected the farm with Paul Hanes Patterson, who designed a multi-layered windbreak system that works with the site’s topography and constraints.

Over the past 10 years, Swallowtail Forest Farm has transformed into a thriving, diversified orchard, with chestnut trees as an economic engine positioned to significantly shift the financials of this marginal ground. They have also become a training ground for the next generation of tree crop farmers in Pennsylvania and a model for what’s possible.

Pittsburgher Highland Farm in western Pennsylvania is implementing a silvopasture and riparian buffer project with mentorship through Pasa Sustainable Agriculture’s Agroforestry Training Program. The farm will plant hundreds of trees and shrubs to shade livestock, improve pasture health, stabilize streambanks, and protect water quality while creating a demonstration site for agroforestry practices.

Monteverde’s Produce is a fourth-generation produce distributor who has been partnering with schools for over 50 years and has learned a great deal about best practices for connecting farms to school buyers.

Although it was challenging to start People’s Farm during the pandemic, the experience demonstrated the vital role that local food systems play in supporting the health and wellbeing of the Ligonier community during times of crisis.

In rural Northwestern Pennsylvania, three independent markets, each with a similar mission to provide their community with local food, have been working together since 2022 to aggregate and distribute locally grown and made products among their markets.

This agroforestry case study highlights a nonprofit farm that worked with Pasa to design an alley cropping site plan that would address natural resource concerns on their land.

This agroforestry case study highlights an urban farm that worked with Pasa and Interlace Commons to design an alley cropping site plan that would maximize space in their existing orchard.

This agroforestry case study highlights a draft-horse powered diversified vegetable farm that worked with Pasa and Interlace Commons to design an alley cropping site plan that would accommodate its unique goals.

Starting or growing a creamery enterprise can be a promising strategy for realizing financial viability in a challenging market. It’s also a big investment and can hold significant risk.

A vegetable farmer grapples with improving soil health on her persistently wet fields.

We explore how a row crop farm could utilize cover crops to remediate the damaging effects wet weather has had on its soil aggregate stability.

A farmer considers how he can improve efficiency—and therefore profit—on his third-generation pastured livestock farm.

Can soil health influence the nutritional value of produce?

Farmers collaborate to troubleshoot stagnant organic matter levels.

Excessive phosphorus has negative consequences for crop yields and the environment.