An agrihood is a neighborhood built around a working farm. The neighborhood could be residential only or mixed use.

We believe that we’ll end up with a better final design for the community if we get public input via a series of participatory design events.

Building is expected to begin in 2026. Add 6-12 months for the time it takes to build a house.

This won’t be a satisfying answer but the amount of units or residents in the community will be determined during the participatory design process. Factors will include: saving as much land for farming as possible, housing density permitted, etc.

A big goal of this program is to provide affordable housing and workforce housing. A big focus of the participatory design process will be figuring out innovative ways to make housing available to households of diverse income levels.

We cannot provide reliable range estimates at this time. There are too many unknowns right now. What’s clear is that we’ll do our best to provide a decent amount of affordable housing and we anticipate a lower sticker price on these units if we can make good on our plans for a sweat equity program.

That would be nice! This seems likely but is contingent upon the participatory design series and some pending zoning questions.

We don’t have a developer(s) selected. We expect to begin building relationships with developers during the participatory design series. If you know any good ones, feel free to get them in touch with us!

At this point, we anticipate most of the homes to be spec homes. But that’s provisional and will depend on what we learn during the participatory design series.

As with most things related to this project, it’ll depend on what transpires during the participatory design process, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet on there being rental units.

Unlike real estate-oriented agrihoods, ours is a serious food producing enterprise. The first goal is to return our Bennington organic farm to profitability. But more importantly, this agrihood will become a prototype for other small “close in” farms and gardens that are threatened by suburban development. These local agrihoods will be linked to more distant Omaha area regenerative and organic farms and gardens that supply farmer-owned retail brands for area food service and grocery markets. Our 78-acre Bennington farm has 50 acres in permanent pasture for beef cattle, plus space for an organic market research garden to develop and test fresh and frozen vegetable products for area food service and grocery markets. Facilities include an energy efficient four-season greenhouse, the original farmhouse, dairy barn, granary, and chicken house. To help offset property taxes, we will design a limited number of affordable “eco homes” for non-farm residents, our farm manager(s), and farmhands. We will also build a small community center. Events and educational programs will focus on building new farms and food businesses for the Omaha area plus regular community meetings with our farm and non-farm residents.