Virginia’s Certified Mentor Farmer Program – Ben Sedlins
As part of our Rural Business Strategy, the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development has partnered with Virginia Cooperative Extension-Loudoun and Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to create the Virginia Certified Farm Mentor Program. The idea behind the program is to have the experienced certified farmers provide assistance to beginning farmers in areas including field and crop planning, farm management, buying and selling livestock, organic production, and marketing. Recently, four Loudoun farmers graduated from the program, earning their mentor certifications. One of Loudoun’s first mentor farmers is Ben Sedlins.
Sedlins is the vineyard manager and viticulturist at Fabbioli Cellars. This position is no easy task, as Fabbioli’s operations encompass 14 acres of land, with 10 devoted to mature bearing grapes. Sedlins has been involved in Loudoun’s wine industry since shortly after graduating from Dickinson College in 2009, serving as a vineyard and cellar assistant at Purcellville’s Sunset Hills Vineyard, before moving on to Fabbioli in 2012.
Though the majority of his professional experience has been in Loudoun County, Sedlins’s love of agriculture stems from his undergraduate studies at Dickinson, where he worked on the college’s farm. Led by former Peace Corps volunteer Jenn Halpin, Dickinson Farm served as a place for students to learn practical farming skills and build a deeper connection to their food through interdisciplinary studies.
Upon graduation, Ben moved to New Zealand where he worked at several small-scale farming operations, including his first vineyard. It was here that he caught the “wine-growing bug,” as he calls it, and decided what his future career path would be. He returned to his native Loudoun County, and has been excelling in the industry ever since.
In Sedlins’s view, Virginia’s wine industry is at a crossroads. He says, “in order for it to succeed, we need to cultivate more people who know how to grow high-quality wine grapes, while enhancing both economic and environmental sustainability.” Sedlins continues, “If we find that balance, we will not only put Virginia on the map as an important wine region, but also, on a larger scale, we will keep our rural lands in production and be a key contributor to western Loudoun’s rural economy.” Sedlins sees the Farm Mentor Program as a key component of this goal, stating, “Becoming a mentor farmer is a way for me to contribute my small part in this effort.”