For Edie Barker, protecting her farm for all time was more than an act of land conservation– it was a legacy honored and a promise fulfilled.

It’s morning at Barker’s Farm. The July warmth hangs in the air, but the smattering of clouds overhead offers relief from the sun’s full power. There is activity in the vegetable, fruit, and flower fields as workers begin harvesting the yields for the day. They are no doubt grateful for the shade in addition to the welcome drop in dewpoint, which, over the last few days, had been so oppressive, a walk outside was like strolling through fondue.

The weather doesn’t stop a farmer, though. There is work to be done at Barker’s and these are the prime farming days; ripened vegetables don’t care how many electrolytes you’re down. It is during the summer when the hard work of the spring reveals itself through armfuls of potatoes, tomatoes, beans, greens, squash, cukes, and much, much more.

Edie Barker, the farm’s owner, emerges from the farm stand, clad in a facemask and issuing directives to her workers. As soon as that OPEN flag unfurls, Edie and her crew work nonstop throughout the day to keep their shelves stocked and their customers satiated. And in a world turned sideways from a global pandemic, the already-imposing workload takes on a new dimension of germ prevention and PPE mandates.

But that’s what farmers do. They adapt.

A SEACOAST GEM

Barker’s Farm was established in 1917, adjacent to what is now Route 33. It’s genesis was as a farm to simply feed the Barker family, a self-sustaining parcel made up of a vegetable garden, some chickens, and a few cows. As the farm grew and passed to each successive Barker generation, the operation pivoted outward and it turned into a “truck farm,” which is exactly what it sounds like - trucks would be loaded up with a bounty of vegetables and driven to Portsmouth to populate the mom and pop grocery stores that dotted the townscape at the time.

In the early ‘60s, Grace and Warren Barker built the first farm stand, which supplemented the ongoing vegetable supply business. That farm stand would eventually evolve into a Seacoast fixture, nabbing passersby rubbernecking on the thoroughfare as well as devoted local patrons. Barker’s Farm Stand is more than a static storefront; it is a thriving hub, a meeting place where people connect and share in each other’s lives while grabbing a supply of tomatoes and maybe a fresh-cut sunflower.

“I feel fortunate that we can grow healthy food to support our community,” Edie says. “I find the stand is essentially a community center and we try to promote that. I have customers rejoice when the opening sign first goes up and at the end of the season we have people come in and you have to give them a handkerchief because they’re so sad we’re closed.”

“I feel fortunate that we can grow healthy food to support our community.”

For Barker’s Farm, the sweet spot is the May to October corridor, with the off-season consisting of prepping for the “marathon” as she calls it. However, with just a six-month window open to generate the revenue to keep the farm going, one can argue that this marathon is closer to a sprint. Or maybe an Olympic racewalk.

Such is the nature of living off of the land, and when Edie peers at the landscape of farming in New Hampshire and across the country she is struck by an inescapable truth: “You need the option of local farming and the connection to the land. Once the good farming land disappears, that’s it. You are now relying on food sources you have no connection to. Especially in the Seacoast. This land is a jewel. It is a gem.”

But for Edie, it’s even more than that: it’s a promise.

ROOTED TOGETHER

Edie and Gordon Barker met as students at the University of New Hampshire and Gordon took over the farm after he graduated. Edie had originally focused her talents on landscape design, but was immediately drawn into the world of independent family farming when she joined the Barker family business.

In 1985, the two built the current farm stand, brought their crops to local farmers markets, and supplied a handful of nearby grocery stores. Through the years the farm grew, and so did Edie and Gordon’s family. Their daughter Forrest experienced first-hand the unique life of a childhood on a farm (before getting the green light to go meet her friends at Stratham Hill Park she had to, for example, pick a bushel of beans).

“Our daily lives were all intertwined with making a living,” Edie says. “Farming isn’t just a job. It’s a lifestyle.”

Preserving that lifestyle became a focus of conversation between Edie and Gordon. Conservation was a passion of Gordon’s and the two had made a decision to place a conservation easement on Barker’s Farm, ensuring it would remain as open space for all time.

But then, in 2009, Gordon died from a heart attack and Edie’s life was turned upside down.

“We were shocked,” she says. “Gordon was in great health. In fact, he had been training for a bike race at the time.”

Awash in grief, Edie leaned on her “farm family,” her tight-knit group of friends and employees, as well as people from the community.

“They stepped up and supported me and supported the farm,” she says.

Her biggest supporter, however, was her daughter. At first, Forrest hadn’t committed to carrying on the farmer’s life and Edie steered clear of pressuring her. Any decision of that magnitude had to be made organically, so to speak.

As a junior in high school, Forrest did a semester away at The Mountain School in Vermont, a working farm. It was there where she rekindled a love of agriculture and realized how much she loved her own farm. She approached her mother and told her she wanted to be the next generation up to run Barker’s Farm.

“The first thing I asked her was ‘Are you sure?’” Edie says, laughing. “I did not influence her at all. Farming is a hard way to make a living. She had to want to do it.”

She wanted to do it.

So, together, mother and daughter carried on the legacy. Together, they brainstorm and argue and analyze and experiment and learn from one another (Forrest introduced her mother to the exciting world of Excel spreadsheets!). No matter the tone of the banter on a given day, they are both unified in a common charge: Barker’s Farm must go on.

And that meant there was still unfinished business.

A PROMISE KEPT

Forrest and Edie decided to follow through on the conservation conversation Edie and Gordon had begun years ago. The Barkers engaged with SELT to pursue the process of conserving all 88 acres of their property, which includes the farm as well as woodlands abutting Stratham Hill Park and a trail system.

“SELT is awesome,” Edie says. “They were really easy to work with and we knew that they shared the values of keeping farmland open.”

In July 2019, SELT purchased two conservation easements to conserve the Barker property. The easements included funding from the US Natural Resources Conservation Service, the town of Stratham, the New Hampshire Land and Community Heritage and Investment Program (LCHIP), private donations, and Edie’s generous sale price (which provided the most value of all funders). Edie and Forrest, committed to the future of this farm, generously sold the easements for far less than their appraised value.

Following the establishment of the easements, SELT’s stewardship department took over the relationship, ensuring the property is used as the easement allows (farming by the Barkers, trail management by the town of Stratham) and the public abides by the details of the easement. This is a relationship that recognizes the conveyance of the easement is just the beginning of the land’s protection.

SELT staff will routinely visit the property - as they do for all SELT properties - to evaluate the lands and ensure the natural resources aren’t degrading. In the case of the Barker’s Farm, the goal is to protect the farmland soils as well as work with the Barkers if they were looking to execute some activities permitted by the easement (e.g., harvest timber or additional farm structures). Similarly, SELT partners with the town of Stratham as needed for support in the management of the trails, perhaps if there were erosion concerns or similar maintenance issues.

Essentially, just because the easement is signed, SELT’s work is not done; these relationships are, after all, forever.

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It’s late morning and the clouds have scattered, splashing the farm in bright sunshine. The workers have moved to another tract, filling the baskets with the next round of harvest that will be washed, prepared, and sold to a grateful community.

A tractor rumbles off in the distance. Nearby, a small group of chickens zip around in their coop.

Edie sits at a picnic table under the shade of an apple tree. She is recounting the story of the day when she and Forrest sat down to sign the conservation easement paperwork. It is a memory that will linger, and not just because it was a shared experience with her daughter.

Their signatures carried the weight of every generation that preceded them, the sum total of the hands-in-the-dirt work that propelled a small turn-of-the-century family farm into a New Hampshire icon that will now be protected forever.

But for Edie it’s even more personal; it’s the final fulfillment of a promise she had made with her husband over a decade ago, a covenant that she completed with her daughter by her side. So she looks back at that moment and remembers the final Ts crossed and Is dotted, and in that moment she knew the Barker family tree, whose roots run deep in the tilled soil of a story that spans generations, would continue to grow.