Last Saturday I went to Fishkill Farms out in Hopewell Junction, NY. I recieved a warm welcome from the staff, first receiving a bit of history about the farm from their business manager Mark Doyle. The farm was started by Henry Morgenthau in 1914, a man who also participated in public service and government under the FDR administration. For a long time the farm mostly grew apples on their 150 acres of usable farmland, peaking in size in the 40s with the development of refrigerated transport. However, in 1965 Fishkill Farms turned towards a pick-your-own CSA model to adapt to the changing demand. Today they grow a variety of fruits and vegetables and sell produce at farmers markets in Brooklyn and local grocery stores in addition to CSA members. While only one third of their orchard is certified organic, the farm’s vegetables are grown completely organically and the farm prides itself on being an ecologically sustainable farm, taking the NOFA’s “Farmer’s Pledge” (National Organic Farmers Association) and continuously working to minimize the need for chemical sprays. Like many organic farmers they also emphasize the importance of maintaining healthy soil and a connection to the local community.

William McCaffery, Fishkill Farm’s Orchard Specialist, generously walked me about the farm property and explained some of the differences between fruit and vegetable farming. William grew up on a cranberry farm in Massachusetts and went to the Cornell school of Agriculture. He described fruit and vegetables as entirely different beasts. Veggies tend to go hand in hand with organic practices because they grow in the same way whether that’s on the farm or in nature. Fruit, on the other hand, is designed to be eaten by animals to spread seeds and pollen, and so naturally attracts insects and other non-human consumers. To grow fruit is inherently fighting against nature from the start, which makes organic fruit growing difficult. William pointed to the now flowering trees and said this stage of the season is critical, because it is when the orchard is most vulnerable. The current main threat is actually from fungi, and while research is going into a beneficial fungus that will block harmful fungi from growing on their trees it is still too experimental to risk a whole year’s yield. For now Fishkill Farms has to use fungus sprays, using nature as a template as much as possible by keeping to natural chemicals. The 80 acre orchard is made up of 56 acres of apples, 4 acres of pear, and 20 acres of stone fruits (fruits with a pit) and berries. William has been with Fishkill Farms since February after working at Red Jacket Orchard for two years, and plans on eventually starting his own orchard in the future.

I found the economic dynamics and politics of organic farming at Fishkill Farms particularly interesting because they started with conventional practices and began committing to organic farming later on. The way in which they grew seemed very important to them, but the farm still needs to profit and that informs their practice as well. William revealed how international the competition can be when he talked about a website called FAOSTAT. There you can find the statistics of everything from market price to production quantities of every type of agricultural commodity from every country in the world. He described how it’s advantageous to have “China-proof”crops, meaning crops that aren’t mass-produced and sold cheaply from overseas. This is especially important when a farm decides to try a new crop, because this will partly determine whether it will be profitable or not. I think it is very interesting that local farms aren’t only competing with industrial farms within the US, but on an international scale as well.

Last Friday we went to see our first vegetable farm. Hearty Roots, an organic CSA farm, approaches farming in a manner that feeds the soil rather than the plant, according to Ben Shute, one of the farm’s founders. We met Ben outside in a light afternoon drizzle as he told us their journey from a one-acre mobile production to an established seventy acre farm in just ten years. Unlike many farmers, Ben didn’t grow up on a farm but became interested in farming after getting a liberal arts degree at Amherst College. He worked part-time in Oregon for a time and ten years ago decided to start his own organic farm and work full-time. Aptly naming the farm Hearty Roots, Ben and his wife Lindsey chose to follow a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, model in an attempt to avoid financial exploitation from the bank or agricultural corporations, an issue many farmers struggle with. In the CSA model, members of the community invest in shares of the farm’s produce, paying a flat rate for a portion of whatever the farm can grow that year. This way, during bad years the farmer doesn’t lose capital because they are supported by the community, not a loan they have to pay back, and during good years the community benefits by getting more bang for their buck. Their first year Ben and Lindsey sold shares to friends and family and did everything themselves and by hand. Ben said it was the perfect time to get into CSA farming, as there was a lot of growing interest in the community. Hearty roots double in size every year, and currently they now grow for 200 families and employ ten people year-round.

Ben took us inside some of the greenhouses where they were growing sprouts for the planting season, where we were welcomed by fresh oxygenated air and shelter from the ensuing downpour. There Ben described the process of organic farming, saying, “running a sustainably diverse farm requires your mind to be in fifty places at once.” He said how in order to be successful organic farm you have to be in it for the long run. Most of the effort goes into making the soil healthy and sustainable, which takes time. Before Ben owned the land they currently grow on they were able to cheaply rent land from other farms, but the investment they put into the soil really started to pay off once they were able to grow on a permanent location. Over the course of a year, Hearty Roots grows around fifty kinds of vegetables, many of which do more than just get harvested. In the winter Ben plants barley and other cold-weather crops which continue to put nutrients into the fields during the non-growing season. In early spring he described a specific type of radish they plant that affects the soil in a way similar to plowing, reducing their labor. During the main growing season, Hearty Roots uses natural pesticides and plants particular flowering crops to attract predatory insects that eat the numerous pests that plague crops, rather than using unhealthy pesticides and chemicals. Ben told us that many of these practices are not traditional but have been recently discovered through scientific research. In this way Hearty Roots is using cutting-edge techniques in order to make organic farming a more feasible venture. They also raise chickens and are currently experimenting with raising pigs to help nourish the land they grow on. The pigs were also pretty adorable.

Ben is also the founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition, a movement for farmers to support each other via lobbies to change harmful policies as well as a forum to share information. Farmers, small and large scale alike, are generally taken advantage of, and the coalition works to change that. Ben also emphasized the importance of being close to one’s customers on the small farming scale. Being close to a population center like New York City has helped Hearty Roots build a more robust customer base, and the benefits go both ways. Ben has experienced that what people seem to want is a connection to their food—a story or some kind of meaning—and CSA farming can bring them that. We certainly felt the effort that Hearty Roots puts into connecting to people about the importance of quality organic produce, and that effort has certainly paid off.

To learn more about Hearty Roots, check out their website here!