Nalla Farm: Loan Helps Wilmot Farmer Grow Climate-Smart Farm
A loan from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund will help the determined new owner of a small but mighty commercial farm in Wilmot become more resilient. Two new high tunnels will extend farmer Andal Sundaramurthy’s growing season and better control growing conditions, increasing production of her veggies, fruits, and herbs, as well as profitability.
Making it Work on Her Own
Andal Sundaramurthy is always looking up to the sky. For the last five years, she’s leased land in Wilmot to establish a vegetable farm. So keeping an eye on the weather is second nature.
Nalla Farm is a dream that’s been years in the making. Andal’s been working in farms and local food since 2002, including owning or managing more than a few farms with other business partners.
“I just love being outside, and I don't feel like there are many opportunities to spend most of your life outside,” she said. “I felt like farming was just something I kept coming back to.”
But it’s her first time going solo.
“It’s hard enough to run a business, let alone have a business that's reliant on your partnership working out,” Andal said. “I finally said, ‘I'm just going to start a farm on my own, and then, if I fail, I'll know it was because of me and not because of the partnership falling apart.’
“I really want to see if I can run a farm and make it work.”
Finding Solutions for Climate Challenges
Andal found the Wilmot property in 2017, then spent three years writing and negotiating a 10-year lease-to-own agreement (through the Keene-based nonprofit Land for Good) and another couple years working part-time to get the farm’s soil and infrastructure ready.
In 2022, she opened her business to the public, starting a membership-based produce subscription (a.k.a. Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA), creating a farmstand on her property along 4A that is open May through September, and selling to customers at the Wilmot Farmer’s Market. She grows veggies, fruits, cut flowers, and bedding plants.
The upside: Andal discovered that the farmstand did much better than expected and the town’s 1,400+ residents love her lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, and cucumbers, to name a few.
“I’ve been blown away by the response,” she said. “I'm the only farm in this town that's doing this commercially.”
The downside: it’s hard to offer a CSA when you don’t have much land because members expect a large variety of produce. So, she’s refocusing on what works and how to make it better on her “postage-stamp of a farm.”
Over the last four years, Andal has received grants through the Natural Resources Conservation Service EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program) to purchase two high tunnels (also known as hoop houses). They will help her both extend the growing season by two months and work around challenges like May 2023’s late spring frost. She also received a microloan from the Farm Service Agency for an additional, smaller high tunnel.
“There are hardly any normal summers anymore,” she said, adding that high tunnels and greenhouses can help control the temperature and conditions for seedlings and crops.
Andal was on track to add two more high tunnels over the next few years, as well as heaters, as she followed her business plan.
But when the best high tunnel builder in New England announced that they were ceasing manufacturing, Andal was suddenly in a bind. The company’s equipment was the least expensive and the best quality in the region. She didn’t have the funds to buy more high tunnels outright and the federal government had frozen U.S. Dept. of Agriculture grants. Lending options for farmers are limited — crop yields, extreme weather, and many other uncertainties make it a “risky” business for many traditional banks.
Scaling Up
Then something happened that felt magical, she said. She installed a new mailbox at the farm and changed her business’ address when — lo and behold — a letter arrived from the Community Loan Fund about help for farmers like her. Andal learned about our sustainable food and farms program, which aims to help more local businesses scale up and strengthen the regional food chain.
Several weeks later, Andal was inside her greenhouse, but she wasn’t planting or weeding — she was signing a loan. Thanks to impact investors, donors, and the You Have Our Trust fund, the Community Loan Fund provided Andal with a climate-smart agriculture loan with a low, fixed-interest, rate to purchase two high tunnels.
She said she felt honored to receive the loan, which is accompanied by long-term coaching and support.
“I'm definitely investing my life into this,” Andal said. “My silly motto is: If I work hard, it might work out, and if I don't work hard, it definitely won't work out.”
By the Numbers
Nalla Farm in Wilmot, New Hampshire, received a loan from our sustainable food and farms program, which aims to help more local businesses scale up and strengthen the regional food chain.
3
Number of acres at Nalla Farm.
106
Average number of acres of a farm in N.H.
380,000
The number of acres of New Hampshire's best agricultural soils make up only 6.6%, of the state.**
13%
Percentage of Nalla Farm’s income that comes from cherry tomatoes (the top crop).
60%
N.H. farmers who have a primary occupation other than farming*
54%
N.H. farmers who are over 55 years old (the average age is 59). Only 18% are under 44 years old, like Andal.*
*According to the 2024 Census of Agriculture
** According to UNH Extension