The Bascom family has been in Charlestown, New Hampshire since the 1940s. Along with Samuel Kaymen, Horace Bascom was an early follower of organics and natural foods in the 1960s.

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His farm was a classic, small, family dairy farm where Horace and Marion Bascom raised seven children. Their son, Dean, took over the farm following his father’s passing in the early 1980s and expanded the dairy to about 150 Jersey cows.

Seeing the writing on the wall for dairy farms to get bigger or get out in the 1990s, Dean gave up dairying and went to work as a soil conservationist with the Natural Resource Conservation Service. He sold most of the farm’s cropland and the family home to his cousin, Bruce Bascom. He kept 180 acres including 15 acres of grazing land and 165 of forest.

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Dean’s wife, Donna, came from a non-traditional background. Her father was a sociologist, teaching at a small liberal arts college. Her mother lived and worked in Boston.

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“My father grew up in a children’s home outside New York City,” she recalls. “He was sent to work on farms in upstate NY in the summer, an experience that was very formative for him.  He was a fan of Louis Bromfield and Thoreau, among others.  He was an angler, hunter, woodsman, and gardener; but his real passion was sailing the coast of Maine.”

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“My mom was a pretty much a free spirit but a super hard worker. That’s where I got my penchant for thinking outside the box and my workaholism.”

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“I was smitten by growing things and animals at an early age. I was always outside, climbing over fences to check out cows, and hanging out with loggers and their team of horses when the opportunity arose.“

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Donna’s path to farming began at the age of fifteen with a desire to have a greenhouse. That led to a Master’s degree in soil science. She worked with various organizations in organic and sustainable agriculture as an organic certified farm inspector, ag researcher, and writer. During the 1990s, she owned a 50-goat dairy/farmstead cheese farm in Arkansas.

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New England called her back in 2004; and in 2008, she took a job as a soil conservationist for NRCS New Hampshire. That’s where she met and married Dean.

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“We left NRCS and moved back to the farm in 2017,” Dean states, “We loved the mission, but we don’t miss the bureaucracy and politics.”

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“We now have around 200 acres, having purchased an abutting property in 2018. We have 1and a half acres in vegetables, 20 in pasture, 40 in a sugar bush, and 140 in woodlot.” 

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Dean is the farm’s primary shepherd. 

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“We raise Katahdin sheep for meat,” he explains “They’re a very hardy, American-developed, hair-type sheep known for being good mothers. Our lambs are born in early spring.  Some are sold at weaning and some are raised on pasture until they’re ready for “freezer camp” in the fall, when we sell them to our customers or to be processed in a USDA-inspected facility.”

“For vegetables,” Donna adds, “we produce a wide range: tomatoes, cukes, peppers, eggplant, lettuce, greens, turnips, carrots, potatoes, leeks, onions, scallions, beets, radishes, radicchio, daikon, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, summer and winter squashes, sweet potatoes and herbs.”

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“We distribute our produce at farmers markets and a CSA and wholesale to local processors, restaurants, farm stands, and local stores.”

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“My favorite farming activities are growing seedlings, transplanting them into a new fresh bed, and arranging produce in attractive ways.”

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Being a producer of local food for local people is very important to both Dean and Donna.

“Creating something from the ground and having a belief that many small farms are the answer to creating a sustainable food system is what keeps us farming,” Dean states. “Small scale doesn’t automatically translate into low production.”

“Organic farming is also very important to us. We believe that our food production systems need to be biologically sound and sustainably integrated with the environment and the surrounding immediate communities.”

“I see a future for small organic farms and businesses,” Donna exclaims, “but perhaps for all the wrong reasons. I believe our current food system is failing. In the current social and political environment, we’re going to witness climate, economic, and technological catastrophes. That’s why ‘Small Is Beautiful’ appears in our Bascom Farm logo.” 

“The biggest future challenge for these farms will be functioning in a capitalistic, growth-based, competitive false economy. Not every farm can have a great location on a busy highway or proximity to larger towns and cities, be blessed with a deep well of social capital, or have a marketing tech background. We as farmers need to be more cooperative, be serious about lifting all boats, and start thinking more inclusively and cooperatively. We’re often viewed as elitist, over-priced, and not based in reality by the majority of people in our communities.”

“Small farms are the answer for solving a huge portion of the climate crisis related to agriculture,” she says.  “It’s mythology and propaganda to say small farms can’t feed the world. Animal agriculture is not the problem -- it’s how meat and dairy are produced. Land area is not the problem in the northeast either if we would commit to policy that allows access to land. Nor is the cold climate -- we’ve long passed that hurdle with winter growing techniques. The bottleneck is found in lack of processing facilities and storage.” 

“Small farmers need to work together,” Donna asserts. “We need to change the competitive ‘what’s in it for my farm?’ narrative to evaluating cooperative marketing. The priority must be ‘how can we all support every one of us producing food.’  We must build cooperative marketing structures without giant hurdles and get involved with community-wide projects that involve all local producers We must provide services like recycling organic compostable wastes, contracting planned production and food processing to schools, food shelves and residents. We must get involved in vocational education for local young people and create worker training programs that will build a bank of solid, trained local labor.  The possibilities are endless.” 

“NOFA-NH membership benefits us by tracking events, supporting policy change, group/bulk purchasing program, education opportunities, and pursuing grant funds.”

Donna laughs when asked what is something that people would be surprised to learn about her. 

“Ha!.  I was inducted into the French Cheesemakers Guild in 1995….. and I’m a 5X American Cheese Society-winning goat cheese maker!  But my deepest secret is that I’m a super in-the-closet violin player, just waiting to burst out on the music scene.”