Rise Up Farms

"Reclamation" is one of the magic words that orients us. Our ground rests on about 8 acres on Pine Creek, just a few hundred meters from its confluence with the St. Joseph River. The farm was originally established in the 1870s and until recently operated as a functioning dairy.

“We” are a group of folks from the Elkhart area who started Rise Up with the goal of helping to strengthen t

he local ecology and food economy and to be a regional pooling place for knowledge and skills related to community resiliency, sustainable building, and creative artistry. Our organic vegetable farm is a component of a larger “permaculture garden” we are developing. Permaculture is an interdisciplinary design system, formally originating in Australia, that focuses upon emulating the relationships of natural ecologies—attempting to integrate the human-built and human-cultivated with the wild and natural. We are harvesting rainwater from the roofs of our structures, raising our own bees for pollination and honey production, and utilizing companion plantings and perennial crop guilding to create a site that produces the most for the least amount of net energy throughput. We are thus creating a landscape that is beautiful in its interconnectedness...and edible, as well.