farming

Just Food VISTAs Wen Jay Ying and Matt Chan have launched a series of podcasts that will focus on the stories of the people in the local food movement, such as farmers, community garden members, and activists, and will feature policy updates and relevant news.

Their first episode, which can be heard here, features an interview with Farmer Fred Lee of Sang Lee Farms.

Sang Lee Farms is a second generation family farm that originally grew produce for the Asian markets in New York and along the east coast.  Over the last fifteen years, the farm has shifted its focus to retail, farmers' markets and CSA. In doing so it has added many new specialty vegetable and herb products, including heirloom tomatoes, multicolored carrots, asparagus, potatoes and garlic.

Listen to the story of Sang Lee Farms and hear about Fred Lee's journey from farming predominately to the wholesale market to eventually delivering fresh produce to CSAs in New York City.

by Ed Yowell, Slow Food NYC

Farming in the Northeast is different than it is in the rest of the country.  Northeast farms are small.  According to the USDA, the average farm size in the United States is 418 acres.  In the Northeast, it is about 105 acres, 194 in New York State.  By comparison, the average farm in California is 312 acres, with 5.5 percent over 1,000 acres.  In New York State, about 2.9 percent are more than 1,000 acres.  It’s not just size, 84 percent of farms in New York State are family owned compared to 79 percent in California.  Farming in our region is basically a family affair.

by Ed Yowell, Slow Food NYC

Farming in the Northeast, in some ways, looks more European than American.  Farms are small.  According to the USDA, the average farm size in the Northeast is about 105 acres, 194 in New York State, while the average farm size nationally is 418 acres.  By comparison, the average farm in California is 312 acres, with 5.5 percent over 1,000 acres.  In New York State, about 2.9 percent are more than 1,000 acres.  But the difference is not just size: 84 percent of farms in New York State are family owned, compared to 79 percent in California.  Farming in our region is basically a relatively small, family affair.

Farming is not a simple proposition. Besides hard work, it is science, art, luck and, to be successful, no small amount of shrewd entrepreneurship.  It is a profession that affords practitioners the ability to be far more independent in their chosen endeavors than many of us who labor in complicated social structures, like corporations and government.  If the great American personality trait is rugged individualism, then I think family farmers are where it is vested mostly these days. 

Farming seems like big business.  It added about $183 billion to the US economy during 2008, according to the USDA.  But is it?  According to the USDA, in terms of annual farm sales revenue, 75 percent of our New York State farms earn less than $49,000, 82.2 percent less than $99,000.  Only 18.8 percent of our New York State farms bring in more than $100,000 per year.  However, according to the American Farmland Trust, 125,000 of 2.2 million farms in the United States produced 75 percent of the value of US farm production in 2007.  In fact, farming overall is big business, but most farmers run small, family businesses. Nonetheless, where there is big business, there is big government.

by Leslie Boden The Glynwood Center, a Food Systems Network member in Cold Spring, NY, is working to build a thriving regional food system by reviving farming and revitalizing farm communities throughout the Northeast. Filmmaker and FSNYC member Sara Grady’s beautiful new film about Glynwood illustrates the challenges—high costs, low profits, land use development pressures, and inadequate infrastructure among them--that Hudson Valley farmers face, as well as the value that farms bring to their own communities, and the tremendous importance of those farms for an environmentally sustainable regional food system. Glynwood, it becomes clear, plays a critical and respected role in empowering communities to support farming and conserve farmland. Glynwood recently announced the 2009 recipients of its Harvest Awards, which honor farmers, organizations, and businesses from across the United States for innovation and leadership in sustainable agriculture and regional food systems. For more information about Glynwood and this year’s award recipients, click here. Glynwood Vision Statement: "Glynwood envisions a revival of farming and a revitalization of rural communities throughout the Northeast. We foresee harmonious working farmscapes supporting energetic local economies and vibrant communities. We anticipate that consumers throughout the region will have ready access to fresh, healthful food produced by local farmers who practice good land stewardship and environmentally sustainable agriculture. We intend to continue exerting thoughtful and energetic leadership in helping communities to realize this vision." For a higher quality viewing experience, visit Sara's website: http://www.saragrady.net/glynwood.php

Posted by Leslie Boden   The Glynwood Center, a Food Systems Network member in Cold Spring, NY, is working to build a thriving regional food system by reviving farming and revitalizing farm communities throughout the Northeast.  Filmmaker and FSNYC member Sara Grady’s beautiful new film about Glynwood illustrates the challenges—high costs, low profits, land use development pressures, and inadequate infrastructure among them--that Hudson Valley farmers face, as well as the value that farms bring to their own communities, and the tremendous importance of those farms for an environmentally sustainable regional food system.  Glynwood, it becomes clear, plays a critical and

While others ask how to build a more inclusive good food movement, Henry Harris has an answer: beets.

As a primary organizer of the Food Security Roundtable, Henry has recently worked with Mothers on the Move of the South Bronx to bring a ton of fresh organic vegetables, including over three hundred pounds of beets, straight from farmers in Vermont to communities where such quality produce can be difficult to find.

And now he is turning his energy to another innovative collaboration, working with staff and volunteers from Just Food and other organizations to build a diverse delegation from New York to attend the Growing Food and Justice Initiative (GFJI) conference in Milwaukee at the end of October.

The Growing Food and Justice Initiative came about through the work of Growing Power, Will Allen’s national non-profit. As the successes of Allen and his organization are being lauded by everyone from Bill Clinton to the Macarthur Foundation, this year’s conference will focus on building cross-cultural understanding for systems change.

Food Systems Network NYC will be holding a panel to celebrate the tomato and explore the tomato blight crisis and the impact on local farming. Farmers who grow tomatoes will talk about their tomato crops or losses due to late blight. A local agriculture expert and others will also contribute their views at this forum, the Network’s first evening program.  It will take place Thursday, September  24, 2009 at the Ethical Culture Society, 53 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, in the Library, from 6:30 to 8 p.m.  There will even be a few local tomatoes to sample, if available.     Suggested donation: $7. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Please let us know you are coming, as seating is limited. 

RSVP: 646-233-3058 or kristin@foodsystemsnyc.org.  

Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of lending a hand as a volunteer at Rooftop Farms in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The name says it all: it is a 6000 square foot urban vegetable farm on the roof of an industrial building, growing rows inter-cropped with lettuces, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, kale and much more, which they sell directly to restaurants and at a farm stand inside the building every Sunday from 9am – 4pm.

Annie Novak and Ben Flanner are the farming minds behind the project. Both are passionate about how food gets to our table (Novak works with farmer Kira Kenney of Evolutionary Organics at the Greenmarket, and works as the Children’s Gardening Program Coordinator at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Flanner is new to farming but seems to get a kick out of hawking produce). Chris and Lisa Goode of Goode Green, a green roofing company, found the roof and funded Rooftop Farms as a test. With this project, the team hopes to determine what is possible in terms of scale for growing on rooftops in the city.

Posted by Lexi Van de Walle, lightheartedlocavore.com

The summer of 2009 is turning out to be the summer of seasonally cool temperatures with a bumper crop of rain, hail, and now blight.  These conditions have not been good for fruit and vegetable farmers in the New York area and especially in Long Island’s Suffolk County where summer weather is more typically hot and dry -- perfect for the potatoes and grapes and other bounty that the region is known for.   

Over a period of several weeks in July, New York officials have flexed their political muscle and repeatedly asked United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary, Thomas Vilsack, to declare 17 New York counties agriculture disaster areas. With particular focus on Western New York’s early summer freeze and Long Island’s rain, officials toured farms in the Hamptons and Long Island’s North Fork several times over a two-week period.  

Agriculture is a $3.5 billion industry in New York and Suffolk County is the largest agricultural county in the state contributing over 5% of New York’s receipts, primarily due to the high value of the country’s wine grapes.  

On Sunday, July 12th, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand toured several farms. According to an article in the East Hampton Star regarding her visit to Babinski Farm in Wainscott, “The rain this year was a killer,” said Bill Babinski, the young farmer who has taken over the family operation, to the Senator. Shortly after her “field” visit, both US Senators from New York, Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, requested the USDA to provide relief to New York farmers with a low interest loan program.  

Posted by Lexi Van de Walle

New York State is leading the way in improving access to fresh, locally grown and nutritionally dense fruits and vegetables for low-income mothers and their children. Beginning July 1st, New York is the first of hopefully many states to allow pregnant women and mothers who are enrolled in the Women’s Infants and Children’s Supplemental Nutrition (WIC) program to use their monthly checks at farmers’ markets to buy eligible fruits and vegetables.

Until last month, when Governor David Patterson announced the addition of farmers’ markets as an approved outlet for WIC mothers to add to their shopping routine, a WIC participant living in New York could only buy locally grown produce if either their supermarket sold locally grown fruits and vegetables or she received one of the $24 Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program coupons good from June-November from their local New York WIC agency.