About Our Farm
Grassland Farm is home to Pete Sisti and his wife Crystal Mario. In the early 1940s Pete's grandparents had a small dairy, milking around 15 cows. They also grew alfalfa and raised sheep here. After they retired, neighbors leased the open land to grows crops until the USDA offered inclusion in the Conservation Reserve Program in the 1980s. The farm sat idle for thirty three years, then became USDA certified to grow small grains in 2013.
Grassland grew organic bread wheat, barley, buckwheat, oats, rye and winter peas on 100 acres for over ten years under the name Greater Richmond Grains, Inc., providing nutritious grains to local artisanal bakeries and to mills for flour production. In 2024 Pete retired from grain farming.
Grassland has been placed in a perpetual conservation easement with the Virginia Dept of Forestry, ensuring it will always be forest and open space. Recently the farm acreage became the core of Rocky Ford AFD, and new designated Agricultural and Forestal District here in Powhatan County.
The crop fields are being sown with perennial ryegrass and clover, and native nectar-producing trees are being planted. Grassland will become a bee sanctuary, producing honey and offering a meeting center for education in organic agriculture and beekeeping.