Meet Adam Taylor
Adam Taylor grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia. His first interactions with agriculture were on his grandparents’ homestead and his uncle’s cow/calf farm. From there, Adam attended Emory & Henry University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental science with a focus on sustainable agriculture systems. While at Emory & Henry, Adam was able to intern with his professor Steven Hopp and wife Barbara Kingsolver, authors of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Working with them, Adam was immersed in a world of organic vegetables, animal rotations, and local food economies. He worked on their farm raising vegetables, pastured poultry, and wool sheep, as well as working with them as they created a local food restaurant and local artisan general store.
Following undergraduate studies, Adam served 2 years as a United State Peace Corps Volunteer in the Mkushi district of Central Province, Zambia. There he worked installing demonstration plots and leading workshops on conservation agriculture in an effort to increase food security and prevent deforestation. He worked with local community members and introduced sustainable agricultural practices for row crop production, incorporated agroforestry tree species into their production methods, established tree plantations, and led bio-intensive gardening workshops.
After Peace Corps, Adam earned a Master of Agriculture degree from Oklahoma State University. His studies there focused on agricultural outreach and education as well as ecological restoration. As part of his degree, he designed a beekeeping course for Guatemalan farmers and worked with them to establish a beekeeping cooperative on the ground in Cuilapa. Following graduate school, Adam worked in the non-profit sector in West Virginia designing agricultural programs for farmers selling direct to consumer and lobbying on the state level for policy changes to support small farmers.
Adam returned to Virginia in 2016 to become the farm manager for Virginia Tech’s Catawba Sustainability Center. He spent 9 years developing their 377-acre property to create research and demonstration opportunities around agroforestry and regenerative agriculture. He designed, implemented and maintained various agroforestry practices on the ground that included silvopasture, alley cropping, riparian buffers and the establishment of non-timber forest products such as medicinal plants and mushrooms. Adam put the “agro” in agroforestry by incorporating regenerative practices of no-till, multi species cover crops, and adaptive multi-paddock grazing into these tree systems. Most notably, Adam developed the Grassfed Beef Partnership that worked to purchase calves from regenerative farmers at a premium and then use adaptive grazing principles to grass finish those cattle, showing a correlation between management practices and quality grass finished beef.
In 2017, Adam, along with his wife Elizabeth, established Singing Spring Farm in Craig County Virginia. A highly diversified farm, they regeneratively raise dairy goats, pastured poultry (chickens, ducks, turkeys, and guineas), local genetic selected fruit trees (apples, pears, and peaches), as well as a large mix of seasonal fruits and vegetables. They market their products through a “full diet” CSA that includes a weekly box for customers containing dairy, eggs, meat, and seasonal fruits and vegetables. They also host farm-to-table dinners and have a tiny home Airbnb on the farm.
Your Partner in Regenerative Agriculture
May career has been devoted to working with farmers to find solutions to the challenges they face. I believe most of the problems we encounter in agriculture can be overcome with thoughtful nature-based solutions that start with creating healthy soils. Once we take the first step toward regenerating our soils, we are taking a step toward transforming the health of our plants, animals, and profits on our farms and ranches. Whether we are on 2 acres or 2,000, our legacy becomes tied to the land in the ways we steward it. I strive to steward resilient land-based ecosystems that work with nature to produce healthy soils, plants, animals, food, and communities, and I am passionate about helping others do the same.