A living laboratory.
A place to build.

What DRT means

The Demonstration, Research and Training environment brings T&T Organics’ agricultural work into a setting for observation, practical learning and enterprise development. T&T and the separate nonprofit Economic Development Greater East (EDGE) collaborate around the living-laboratory model.

The existing environment includes an apiary, high tunnels and a hydropanel installation, alongside the farm’s production and demonstration work. These are tools for examining ideas in a real setting—not substitutes for evidence or promises of results.

Our model

01 / Demonstrate

Make a practice visible. Show how an approach works in the context of a farm, its landscape and its available resources.

02 / Research

Ask useful questions, document observations and connect community experience with appropriate academic and technical expertise.

03 / Train

Give people a practical route from understanding to capability through guided, hands-on learning.

04 / Build enterprises

Connect skills to the requirements of a business: production, costs, infrastructure, quality and customers.

05 / Build communities

Work toward an agricultural economy in which knowledge, opportunity and value can circulate locally.

An invitation to academia

We welcome conversations with universities, Extension professionals and researchers interested in mountain agriculture, agroforestry, food systems, entrepreneurship and workforce development. A useful collaboration begins with community-defined questions, a clear work plan and findings that return value to the people and place involved.

Potential projects may examine production approaches, enterprise feasibility, training outcomes or regional food-system connections. Specific research agreements, student placements and program availability must be arranged directly; this invitation does not imply an existing institutional agreement.