Holly Ravine will become farmland once more as Springdale Farm, the last farm in Cherry Hill, leases the land
“This is more than just a lease,” Cherry Hill Mayor David Fleisher said. “The intention is to ensure we had a qualified agricultural steward to the site.”
Drive by Springdale Farm in Cherry Hill, and the guy bouncing around on a tractor is likely 28-year-old Clayton Jarvis, whose family has grown produce at the Springdale Road farm since 1949.
Jarvis, who every January maps out crop rotation on Springdale’s 85 acres, was elated on Tuesday about nine acres of land two miles south on the same road.
His family on Tuesday was awarded a bid by Cherry Hill Council to grow crops on part of the Holly Ravine Farm, which the township two years ago saved from development and purchased as open space, investing about $4 million so far in the property.
Jarvis said Springdale’s first satellite farming operation will be an exciting challenge. A cover crop will be planted first and then he will decide what produce he will grow there.
But, more important, he said, is the meaning behind turning Holly Ravine into farmland once again.
“For my entire life, and for decades before that, we’ve only been going in one direction and that’s less farmland,” said Jarvis, proprietor of the last farm in Cherry Hill.
Taking Holly Ravine back as farmland is big, Jarvis said.
Cherry Hill Mayor David Fleisher, who led the efforts to buy Holly Ravine, shared Jarvis’ view of the land.
“This is more than just a lease,” Fleisher said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “The intention is to ensure we had a qualified agricultural steward to the site.”
Holly Ravine Dairy Farm was founded by former Mayor John C. Gilmour Jr. in the 1920s. Gilmour in 1928 bought a milking cow and began dairy farming.
But Cherry Hill’s suburban boom took its toll.
“I held out as long as I could, but agriculture and suburban development just don’t mix,” Gilmour told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1987, the year he sold part of his property at the intersection of Springdale and Evesham Roads for a shopping center. Gilmour died in 1993.
Many children and parents remember the farm’s Cowtail Bar, the source of countless ice cream cones, and the Moo Zoo animal petting area, both of which shut down in 1987.
Springdale Farm will pay the town $1,000 a year for the five-year lease. The farm was the only bidder, although there was interest from others, Fleisher said.
Although the goal of the lease wasn’t to make money for the township, the $1,000 a year for about nine acres is in line with agricultural averages nationally, said Cosmas Diamantis, the township’s municipal attorney.
Springdale Farm will be farming part of the Holly Ravine land and the part not leased, primarily the woods and ravine, will be recreational space. The township will construct a parking lot where two farm homes were demolished in April.
The goals from the beginning have been to protect the site from development, honor Cherry Hill’s agricultural legacy, and give the public access to the area around the ravine, the mayor said.
Fleisher expects that most of the cost of repurposing the land will be funded with grants from Camden County and the state.
Jarvis, who has a degree in plant biology from Rutgers University, said Holly Ravine may not seem large compared with his acreage, but it will be strategically important.
“It’s not huge,” Jarvis said. “But, for example, for me, nine acres could be my entire tomato crop that year or half the sweet corn I need to grow.”
Crop rotation, which is essential, can be a puzzle in farm planning and the Holly Ravine acreage gives Jarvis another option for more sustainable crops.
Two obstacles face Jarvis at Holly Ravine. One is the deer population and the need to erect a fence. The other is irrigation, which may require a well on the property.
Jarvis farms with his older brother Alan at Springdale, which was founded by their grandfather and grandmother. Their father and mother, Tom and Mary Ann Jarvis, are retired but active in the Springdale Farm Market. Their uncle, John Ebert, also works on the farm, and their sister, Michala Jarvis, runs the market’s bakery.
“It’s a challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge for me,” he said of the new acreage.
Inquirer Cherry Hill
