Annual Update: Business & Admin
Some of the Bellair crew at the VABF conference (left to right) Michelle, Amanda, Nat, Hali, Mackenzie, Tina, & Clayton.
We're so proud to have completed another season with almost the same crew we've had since early 2023! Improving our worker retention (through culture, opportunity, and compensation) has been a continuous goal, and it's great to have 100% retention for the second season in a row for our FT staff. We WILL be hiring one more full-timer this year, but it's an expansion, not a replacement. Every time I think about our team, I'm washed over with gratitude.
We took some of the team to the Virginia Biological Farming Conference and we felt a bit like a "big fish in a small pond" compared to some of the other growers. It made us realize the magnitude of what we're doing! We are shuffling some roles and responsibilities this year to loosen up pinch points, provide redundancy of training and share the load. I'm excited to see how our stellar team handles things this year!
Bellair field crew last April, photo by Daniel James, HERD Ventures. Left to right: Ricardo, Ezequiel, Tracy, Hali, Michelle, Nat, Clayton, Jorge Luis, Tony, Uriel.
It was my first year wearing the "bookkeeper" hat, and after a couple months of pain (I hate not being immediately good at something), it has been a very useful tool! I feel much "closer" to the money situation, but of course it's still always a challenge! At this point in the year, I'm doing analysis on each of our different enterprises (laying hens vs broiler chickens vs Bellair Kitchen vs produce). Splitting everything out is critical to find out where we need to make improvements or consider cutting enterprises. So far it looks like all enterprises are staying but we'll keep watching the numbers.
I was able to secure two sources of grant funding this year. The first is a $50,000 Department of Labor grant awarded to farmers participating in the H2A program who go "above and beyond" in terms of what they offer their employees for benefits. Since we offer overtime and paid sick leave, we qualified for this grant. The funds will be used towards wages. The second grant is related to production, and I'll talk about it in our production update.
A big admin hurdle this year was getting our kitchen inspected. It was a much longer process than intended and it delayed the "hard launch" of Bellair Kitchen, our latest project! Now we have our permit in hand and you can expect to see a larger selection of Bellair Kitchen products in the Barn Store and on preorder. More on that in our production update as well!
2024 Season By the Numbers
Staff and Markets
Total staff who worked in 2024, including part-time/seasonal: 32
Full-time, year-round staff: 8
% of full time staff returning in 2025: 100%!!
# of off-farm markets attended: 171
# of open Barn Store Days: 105
Livestock
# of laying hens: 800
# of hogs processed: 75
# of beef cattle processed: 20
# of meat chickens processed: 2250
# of crop acres grazed by cattle: 15
# of crop acres grazed by laying hens: 5
Veggies
# of households served with the veggie CSA: 608
% of the Charlottesville population eating our veggies: ~2.9%
# of acres cropped in veggies: 24 acres = approx 500 x 350' beds
# of acres cover cropped: 30 acres
Partners and Colleagues
# of partner farms: 11
# of wholesale accts: 12
# of Bellair "alumni" currently farming in the Cville area: 3
Donation Partners
# of donation partner organizations: 5
Retail value of food donated through our partner orgs, Buy-a-Bushel, and mutual aid shares: $39,848.00!!! < we received about half of this amount as income through our members and partner orgs and we "matched" the other half!
Conservation
# of acres of non-grazed surface water buffer: 13
# of acres of open area on reduced mowing for conservation/agricultural dual use: >93
# of acres burned with prescribed fire: 0 ☹️ (maybe we’ll have a chance to burn this year)