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Harrison Willets, 22 “I work for the grass-fed livestock organizer at Stone Barns, Craig Haney. I came here because I wanted an introduction to many things. I didn't have much farming background, though my dad has an heirloom apple and pear orchard in North Carolina and I worked there. I went to culinary school but decided I didn't really want to be a cook. I still wanted to be involved in the food industry so I found this outlet. Here I basically help take care of the animals - sheep, pigs, turkeys, chickens, egg-laying chickens. We just started a goose program—we're going to try and breed them for meat and egg production. We tried making goose foie gras this year without force-feeding the geese. The theory was that they would seasonally self-gorge, since it's their instinct to fatten up before migration, before the winter. It was a good experiment but it didn't exactly work out. I enjoyed raising the turkeys. They're pretty easy going, not like chickens. They do a really good job foraging through the fields and spreading manure at the same time.” Sarah Garraway-Elisabeth, 41 “I started out in horticulture in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden as an intern in 1999. I just wanted to get into plants, I didn't want to work in an office. I was at the gift shop but when this internship came up I went for it. Then I worked in penthouses and private gardens in the city for a season. I was at the Parks Department for five years but was much more interested in sustainability. The Parks Department used a lot of pesticides and I had an interest in using compost—now my favorite thing in the world [laughs]. I was so impressed with the compost pile here—total recycling. I'm the greenhouse manager. It's a half-acre space, we grow year round, and we sell to (Blue Hill at Stone Barns) as well as other restaurants. We grow up to eight different families, lettuce, carrots, spinach, chard, and the mustard family. And we rotate crops so that when one family comes out another replaces it.”
Often armed with not much more than unwieldy liberal arts degrees, the mass exodus of 20-somethings from urban areas to farms outside of the city was a much reported story last year; the underlying idea being that growing vegetables from seed to harvest might be more appealing than hitting up the mediabistro classifieds every two minutes during temp job downtime.
A lot of these new farmers, like a lot of old school farmers, believe that smaller farms produce better food, and that by avoiding industrial farming methods, strong farms improve the health of communities and their residents. Calling the young farmers “the new members of the rural class,” the New York Times name-checked Green Acres in an article in Sunday's paper again. Last week, the USDA released its Census of Agriculture report: It turns out that while the ranks of farmers from smaller farms have increased substantially since 2002, the census found that “more often than not, their work in the fields is subsidized by an off-the-farm job.”
Last December, the Young Farmers Conference was held at Stone Barns Center in Pocantico Hills. Stone Barns is the home to an outpost of Manhattan's Blue Hill; at both restaurant locations, chef Dan Barber works with vegetables and meat produced on the property (the place may also be more familiar to Top Chef viewers, as it was featured on an episode a few weeks back). Conference presentations included traditional work songs sung by farmers in the field, and raising poultry from hatchlings (taught by Stone Barns livestock manager Craig Haney). Click on the images to read the stories of the young farmers we met there trying to make a go of it.
(all photos by Tejal Rao)
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New York magazine published a story last year about a Brooklyn family who built a vegetable garden in their backyard and raised some livestock as well. Fascinating read.
This is so cool, but why don't they sing soul or r&b songs? Why not some good ol fashioned Queen sing-a-longs? Why does it have to be so "farm/hippy". I mean the cool thing would be to tend to the land like the Native Americans while listening to James Brown!
OOO's da trubl I seens. Get DOWN! BOOGIE UP! OUCH! I FEEL GOOD. Pappas got a brand new arrest record. OUCH! Like Sugar and Spice. Ouch! Come on, come on.
Nobody gave my grandparents who were basically serfs in the old country forty acres and a mule. They worked for whatever they got.
Lots of people grow small gardens in their backyard.
I find it relaxing and nice to bring my own food to the table, usually Romaine lettuce, grape tomatoes, and herbs. Easy to do and does not need much space.
I tried growing an avocado tree in my apartment and all I got were some crappy leaves and shit. I was like, WTF?