Local Hero Awardee: Natural Roots

Since 2003, CISA has recognized farmers, institutions, businesses, and everyday community members whose work helps sustain local agriculture. Natural Roots was presented with a 2025 Local Hero Award at CISA’s annual meeting on April 9, 2025, with these remarks:

David Fisher has been farming at Natural Roots in Conway since 1998. Today, he runs the business with his partner Maggie Toran, Britt Terry who is the farm manager, and David’s children, Gabriel and Leora. But the story starts with David as a teenager, growing up in Westchester County, and spending his summers at a wilderness camp, and feeling a stark juxtaposition between the consumer-oriented, competitive, disconnected-from-nature “real world” and deep connection to the natural world and to a more communal way of life that he had seen at camp.  

He told me about a series of “aha” moments that mapped his path for him: discovering farming, and thinking that there might be a way to live in reciprocity with the natural world. Discovering horses as a farming partner, and seeing a way towards farming with less reliance on fossil fuels. And discovering the CSA model, and imagining a way to build connections between a farm and a community of supporters that goes beyond simple commerce. 

So this is what he built at Natural Roots. The farm had been fallow when he arrived, and the first task was rebuilding the “Indiana Jones style bridge” that spans the South River and connects the main farm field to the road side. Today, they farm that land with environmental considerations front and center: half of their land is planted with cover crop each year for soil health and fertility. A team of draft horses powers their equipment, and the farm has been a center for learning about horse-powered farming for farmers throughout the region. They grow food for hundreds of local families, who come to the farm every week, walk across a much more secure bridge, and connect with the land and the people who feed them. 

This is a beautiful story, and Natural Roots is really a beautiful place. But it doesn’t exist outside of the challenges that face all local farms – most visibly, climate change. In 2023, when so many farms in our region saw massive flooding as just one of a series of natural disasters, Natural Roots experienced near-total crop loss. Their main farm field runs along the South River, which flooded its banks 4 times in quick succession. David and the whole Natural Roots team emerged that year as the voice of how local farms are under threat as climate change brings more extreme weather to our region. 

2023 wasn’t only a year of loss, though. David told me that he went into that year kind of at capacity as a farmer, and that he would have thought a blow like the flooding would have just knocked him out completely. Instead, there was this huge upswell of community support: other farmers donating food so Natural Roots could continue to offer CSA shares, CSA members and so many other people donating to keep the farm afloat. It gave them not just the financial capacity to continue, but a message that said: we want you here, and we want you to keep going. It doesn’t remove the vulnerability of that farmland, or its proximity to the river, but it got them to a hope-restoring 2024 growing season. 

I’ve been thinking about David’s story, of how wanting to live in harmony with nature is what drove him towards this farm and this life. How unjust it feels that a farm that is founded on ecological principles could someday be forced out of production by climate change. And I want to share something David said to me that has been bouncing around my head since. We were talking about having a horse-powered farm, and how it has lots of benefits but it isn’t easier or less expensive than using tractors. David said, “I’ve written out all the pros and cons, and the pros are all real. From a strictly profit-driven perspective, it’s not totally rational. But for me, because of the huge scale existential crisis that humanity is in, which I’ve felt since I was a teenager, this is the avenue that I’ve found that is true for me. This is my prayer for earth and for humanity.” 

Natural Roots is not an example of how if you do everything right you’ll be protected against hardship. It’s not an example of how one person, or business, can solve global problems all on their own. But it stands as a source of inspiration for each of us: what is in my control? What can I make better? What do I have to offer to my patch of earth, and my community? For that, CISA is proud to present David Fisher and Natural Roots with a Local Hero award.