Create a relationship, buy directly
Use your favorite search engine to learn about the below food resources if they’re not linked. Many of the farms offer products online. Before visiting a farm, it is best to call ahead.
FARMER’S MARKETS
Amenia Farmer’s Market, Amenia
City of Hudson Farmer’s Market, Hudson
Copake-Hillsdale Farmer’s Market, Hillsdale
Philmont Farmer’s Market, Philmont
Chatham Farmer and Maker’s Market
Family farms & CSA
Arch Bridge Farm, Ghent
Common Hands Farm, Hudson
Cool Whisper Farm in Hillsdale
Copper Star Alpaca Farm, Millerton
Cowberry Crossing Farm, Claverack
Darlin’ Doe Farm, Germantown
Dirty Dog Farm, Germantown
Double Decker Farm, Hillsdale
Edible Sunshine, Philmont
Empire Farm, Copake
Field Apothecary & Herb Farm, Germantown
Flowering Heart, Philmont
Grazin’ Angus Acres in Ghent
Grimaldi in Ghent
Hawk Dance Farm, Hillsdale
Herondale Farm, Ancramdale
Hearty Roots Community Farm, Germantown
Katchkie Farm, Kinderhook
Kinderhook Farm in Valatie
Letterbox Farm Collective, Hudson
Lineage Farm, Hudson
Little Seed in Chatham
Marshmeadow Farm, Germantown
MX Morningstar Farm, Hudson
Pigasso Farms in Copake
Red Fern Farm, Clermont
Rocky Fresh, Hudson
Retrograss in Ghent
Roxbury Farm, Kinderhook
Samascott Orchards, Kinderhook
Schober Farm in Ghent (call (518 392 3748) or find at local farmers markets including New Lebanon and Chatham’s)
Smokey Hollow Farm, Ghent
Starling Yards, Red Hook
Ten Barn Farm, Ghent
Threshold Farm, Philmont
Turtle Tree Seed, Copake
VIDA Farm, Ghent
Woven Star in Ghent
Yundwell in New Lebanon
Support stores that buy from local farmers
reasons to
Thankfully, our food system is starting to come full circle.
Since World War II, Americans have increasingly relied on Big Ag and the food-processing industry for their food. There have been giant strides in productivity and automation. Consumers have more food choices than ever before. But with that, food has moved farther away from its sources—the land, the barn, the pasture, the lake and river. It has gained all sorts of lab-tweaked ingredients to assure good “mouth feel,” the right sweetness, pleasing color, quantities of manufactured vitamins and minerals, and long shelf life.
There was a backlash, starting with the natural-food, back-to-nature movement in the 1960s, but locally raised food for local kitchens didn’t keep pace until recently—often was not even grown except as a farm-stand sideline.
Fortunately, positive food trends are underway. Small farmers have returned to the fields and are growing more fresh foods every year. Consumers are responding, rewarding farmers at green markets in cities and towns and clamoring for more. Restaurants are adding farm-to-table menu items. New restaurants tend to be predominantly locally and fresh-sourced. Even supermarkets have started to feature local fruits and produce. And subscribing to CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm shares is becoming standard practice for many local households, which gives farmers income they can plan on.
This area of New York has been farm country since the 18th century. Its excellent growing conditions and soils have produced many generations of successful farmers. With the fading of the local dairy industry in the last quarter century, farmers and landowners have tried everything from Belted Galloway cattle to exotic salad greens. Much of the machinery-farmed land continues in production, growing field corn, hay, grains, and cover crops. But the move toward small-scale sustainable agriculture is taking hold In this area.
The future offers solid promise in this direction, especially at the scale of family farms and of local farming groups that pool resources, share distributors to towns and cities and support local farmers’ markets. The Amish might have something to teach in this regard, as might other models. A meld of age-old community-farming practices, 21st century aids and tools, and government encouragement seems a viable small-farm strategy.
What’s needed is sustainable farming practices, which start with treating the soil as a renewable resource but not with chemical fertilizers: with organic matter and tilth, crop rotation to minimize insects and disease, and cover crops mixed in to restore minerals. Some historic small farms have been practicing sustainability without knowing the term; others, encouraged by county ag advisors, are making the transition without difficulty. After all, it is agribusiness that’s addicted to the spiral of monoculture—fertilizer—insecticides—government price support—consequence-free pollution. We need a huge shift in perspective, starting with a change in allocation of state and federal money from agribusiness stock appreciation to healthy food and food security for all. A good starting point, suggested Ricardo Salvador of the Union of Concerned Scientists and food authority Mark Bittman, would be to change the name of the $145 billion department that oversees all this, Agriculture, to the Department of Food and Well-being.
Consumers and the planet have much to thank today’s sustainable farmers for, but there is much more to do to bring our farming full circle, regenerative and wholesome again.