Grand Oak Farm – Dana Ensor and Family
Grand Oak Farm was established on over 1,000 acres by the Hale Family on a Revolutionary War grant. Owner, Dana Ensor (married to Bob Ensor), is the 8th generation to farm the remaining 100 acres.
“My grandson will be the 10th generation on this farm, which has been in our family since before Tennessee became a state,” says Dana.
If you are familiar with the ARC&D, then you are familiar with Dana. In 2025, we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Field School Beginning Farmer Training program. Dana has been there every step along the way, teaching, consulting, facilitating, and guiding with her quick intelligence, frank honesty, and insight.
“Over ten years, I think we have shaped the program to help who really can be a farmer. There is work, there is cost, and labor issues that make it hard. Starting around 2019, we came to emphasize the business side so you can evaluate what it takes to be successful. Another change is that early on it was mostly locals. This year 90% of people have recently come to northeast Tennessee and are new to getting to know living and farming in this area.”
[Photo above: Dana teaches how to use a walk behind tractor at a Women’s Circle field day in 2024.]
The past 10 years have also been a decade of changes for the farm.
Growing up, Dana remembers the beef cattle and the dairy operation, and how different members of her family managed different parts of the operation. It was an inspiration to her, and after college she served her whole professional career with the US Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, eventually being promoted to serve as the highest career official in the NRCS, Associate Chief for the Agency.
In 2013, she left Washington D.C. and returned home to Jonesborough. But this was anything but retiring.
She immediately jumped into both revitalizing the farm, and energizing the agricultural community.
On the community front, she helped Jonesborough Locally Grown, serving as President of the Board during the opening of Boone Street Market, a year round farm store nonprofit in downtown Jonesborough.
She also found synergy with Appalachian RC&D Council, who was at the beginning phases of starting a beginning farmer training program for Northeast Tennessee.
“Dana was the rocket fuel that made the Field School able to be launched,” says Emily Bidgood, who was Executive Director of the ARCD at that time. “Dana had the magic touch. She had the professional background, facilitation skills, vision, and connections in the area.”
Dana continues to be the facilitator and teacher at the Field School, supporting Field School director Rachel Slaughter.
American Farmland Trust hired Dana to develop a curriculum in Virginia and Pennsylvania for women and their conservation legacy. After five years, she loved the program so much that she partnered with ARC&D to bring it to Tennessee. She currently co-teaches this with Rachel Slaughter in counties across the region.
On the farm side, Grand Oak Farm has grown and sold a dazzling array of vegetables and flowers.
“In our first year back in production [2013], my farm manager and I planted more than 90 varieties of vegetables and flowers. The next year, we scaled back.” They sold to farmers markets and restaurants. They hired interns. They built infrastructure to support season extension and food safety, including a cooler, packing shed, washhouse, and hoop houses.
Today the produce is at the scale of feeding the family, some wholesale, and donating to food pantries. Things changed with COVID, and also as bodies respond to the realities of farm labor.
“At age 70, we are changing the work we do on the farm,” she says. “We are focused on incubation.”
An incubator farm particularly offers its land and infrastructure, and sometimes technical advice, to help beginning farmers get started. Over the past decade three farmers have used Grand Oak Farm. Currently a beginning farmers, is grazing sheep on the acreage.
“The phase now is keeping the farm in production, even if it’s not me doing it, so the land is utilized and in good shape for the next generation,” says Dana.
What’s also next is serving on the committee for the future Jonesborough Elementary School’s agricultural learning center. Still in the early stages, the proposal involves farm-to-school curriculum, and an educational center for all ages that produces food.
Her commitment to planting seeds for the future is evident in the number “1,500”. That’s how many oak seedlings the family has planted so far, ensuring there will be new oaks coming along after the 250-year old “Grand Oaks” of the farm give way to time.
