Sylvanaqua Farms

Sylvanaqua Farms in Westmoreland County, Va. was founded by Chris Newman in 2013. Chris got into small-scale regenerative ranching after a health scare drove him out of tech consulting and led him to a career working in Indigenous foodways. Small-scale regenerative ranching was a challenge. 

“It took about five years to understand that regenerative agriculture and the farm-to-table movement suffer from two critical problems. First, the economics of small-scale farming are prohibitively tilted toward people who enjoy a.) an inheritance, b.) a substantial outside income, and/or c.) make most of their money teaching about farming,” Chris explains. “Second, the movement's market share lags far behind its ability to capture the imagination of the public. Unfortunately, farm-to-table and regenerative agriculture have mostly settled on attributing this discrepancy to a lack of virtue on the part of consumers, dividing the world into ‘those who care and those who don't’ while ignoring the economic realities of everyday people.”

Sylvanaqua Farms became determined to find a better way to farm regeneratively and pursue goals to change the food system to better meet the needs and realities of everyday people.

Enter Blackbird Farms, an integrated network of farms, food businesses, and auxiliary enterprises purpose-built to lower the cost and expand the reach of regeneratively produced food. Sylvanaqua Farms is a founding member of Blackbird with Chris serving as the business development director.  

Blackbird sells eggs, chicken, beef, and pork that are all raised on pasture. The company also creates frictionless pathways for first-generation farmers and other food operators to embark on viable careers in regenerative agriculture.

In addition to Chris, the Blackbird team includes Blackbird Farms plant/facilities director Mason Lough, founder of GrowMore Farm and Blackbird’s farm development director Dan Sweet, founder of The Bearded Kitchen and Blackbird’s food manufacturing director Brian Graff, and Blackbird Farms director of operations Shamara Carter.