The Sweet Land of Liberty Prairie
Merger of foundation and farm spawns education and land management missions
Joining Forces to Build a Better Food System
Before the Liberty Prairie farm and food education non-profit launched this year in Illinois’ Lake County, there was Liberty Prairie Foundation.
The Foundation was created in 1993 in sync with the initial development of Prairie Crossing, a pioneering, conservation-focused agri-community in Grayslake, an outer Chicago suburb near the state’s northeast corner. Over the next 25 years, the foundation had resources to play an important role in funding sustainable agriculture and land access activities, including an incubator in Prairie Crossing called the Farm Business Development Center (FBDC).
Jen and Jeff Miller — a married couple who started farming at FBDC as they transitioned from professional careers — first teamed with the owners of an adjacent farm and then, in 2016, started their own 40-acre Prairie Wind Family Farm on the Liberty Prairie holdings, growing it into one of the region’s most popular certified organic CSA farms. Jen also became the connector between the farm and the foundation, taking a day job and becoming its managing director.
But by the end of the past decade, revenues from the built-out Prairie Crossing community dried up and the foundation’s grant-making role ceased. In May 2022, Karen Wilkes — who calls herself “a serial education farm worker” — left her 13-year job at a non-profit teaching farm in California’s Silicon Valley to become Liberty Prairie’s executive director and make a plan to breathe new life into the organization.
Wilkes integrated the Millers into the planning process, and the result was a merger of the foundation and farm into Liberty Prairie NFP. The not-for-profit's current priorities are educating young people about farming in general and regenerative agriculture in particular, and working with other entities in Lake County to build a more localized and sustainable food system; a food entrepreneur development element is in its planning stages.
Jeff Miller laid the groundwork for the education program by becoming the farm extension teacher with the Grayslake school district. Liberty Prairie recently reached an agreement for a full partnership with the city’s two high schools, Grayslake North and Grayslake Central.
I traveled to Grayslake in early December to visit the shiny new Liberty Prairie Farm Store, located in the Prairie Crossing community, which replaced an honor system store that was in a barn on the Prairie Wind farm. [Read more about the store in Local Food Forum.] During an interview with all three principals, Karen described a recent program for Grayslake students held on the renamed Liberty Prairie Farm.
“We had 150 kids on the farm. So we had all the culinary students and engineering for sustainable future and geometry and construction. And they did cover cropping and they cleaned and they donated to a food bank, and they did some cooking preparation. And they also made some picnic tables, one of which is featured in front of the store.”
Jen added,
“We have a strategic, holistic land plan, and it includes managing not only the annuals but the perennials and the natural areas, and the marsh area, all the different areas of our farm. And now we can introduce kids to all those different areas. So it's not just about vegetable production, it's about how do we bring animals into permaculture? How do we manage hedgerows? How do we manage waterways? We can't just teach people to grow carrots, there needs to be a whole swath of education in terms of just managing land.”
While maintaining their farm business, the Millers are now playing an even larger role in land management. While there were some hard decisions made in the transition to Liberty Prairie NFP — including the termination of the Farm Business Development Center — the full, fertile 97-acre property can now be managed as a whole, instead of as a patchwork of individual sections.
“Coming together means now the farm isn't Prairie Wind over here and this group over there,” Jeff said. “It’s all kind of working alongside and saying and what's the best basis for trees? What's the best basis for vegetables? And what's the best basis for animals, or is it animals sort of all over the place? Now we can sort of look at the farm as a whole ecosystem, what are the soils and the slopes and all those things and figure out where things fit in, as opposed to having it broken apart.”
The Millers already have respect for the regenerative practices on their produce farm and their innovative approach to land stewardship. For instance, they work closely with Savannah Institute, a non-profit based in Spring Green, Wisconsin that promotes agroforestry (growing food in wooded areas), to create managed woodlots on the Liberty Prairie property.
“We have about six acres in food forest, roughly 400 trees, 400 shrubs,” Jen said. “Asparagus was the understory. So we'd like to expand that. I think there are quite a few fields of soil that could use that sort of time off from farming and use the stability of trees and shrubbery.”
Jen also noted that merging the farm into the non-profit reduces the family’s financial risk, something she and Jeff know a lot about. This past April, just as the outdoor growing and CSA seasons were getting under way, the farm was blasted by powerful straight-line winds that destroyed several of their vital hoop houses.
Fortunately, the typical generosity of the local food community came through and delivered more than $60,000 in a crowd-funding campaign that enabled the Millers to rebuild within a few months. But they now have greater security with the farm as part of the Liberty Prairie non-profit. “We can just strengthen ourselves by working together,” Jen said.
While the partners are building the reformulated organization a step at a time, they are also preparing for the future. Liberty Prairie has purchased a building near the Millers’ farm that is ultimately destined to be a community kitchen. “Our community is fortified by food that's grown, produced and sold here...,” Karen said. “Down the road, we want to have the most vibrant food shed we can, and so the more people that can participate in a certified kitchen and then could sell in a store, the more diverse our food system will be.”
And while the Liberty Prairie non-profit holds its 97 acres, it is part of the 5,700-acre Liberty Prairie Reserve managed by Openlands, another land conservation non-profit. “The question is, how can we also start supporting our lands so that we're building for the foodshed 20 to 30 years from now?...” Karen said. “How we can be looking at decades from now supporting this food system and creating areas for people, plants and animals to thrive together?”