How important is it for Saugerties to grow its own food?

Develop signature regional products

Sara Grady is vice-president of programming at Cold Spring’s Glynwood Institute, which runs a number of programs to support the regional food system, which, she said, “is really a series of relationships and interdependencies. One of the themes of our work is establishing the Hudson Valley as a region known for food and known for farming. Underlying all of our work is the notion that farms need to be viable, providing us with food, and farmers need to make a living. Fundamentally, it’s an economic activity.”

Glynwood will soon launch an apprentice farmer program, training young farmers on how to launch a farm business; to get mentorship, business planning assistance and access to low interest capital. Another project they’ve been working on is fostering signature products of the region that rely on the type of farming done here in the Hudson Valley. As this region is historically an apple-growing region, said Grady, their recent focus has been on encouraging producers of hard cider, once a staple beverage of the region, as a signature product of the area.

Growing your own

Diane and Skip Carlson own Greene Earth Farm in Palenville. “If you’re talking about transitions,” said Skip, “you have to think about how to get the community to think about growing food themselves, something people did in the ’40s and ’50s, when they had chickens in the back yard and were familiar with growing things, whereas today the extent of it seems to be container gardening. It would be nice to get the entire community thinking about growing food; maybe have contests – who grows the largest tomatoes. [Judith Spektor noted that the Farmers Market does have an annual “tomato taste-off” contest each summer with prizes.] “Saugerties could be known as a gardening community that supports local farms and realizes the value of growing your own food,” said Carlson.”Saugerties is known for the Garlic Festival, but how do you go from a weekend festival to a community that’s oriented toward growing food on their own?”

“I think it’s one person at a time,” said Nicci Cagan, director of From the Ground Up, an organization focused on farm-based education, providing school curricula for food and garden education. She pointed out that the Saugerties Garlic Festival was started by one woman [Pat Reppert of Shale Hill Farm and Herb Gardens in 1989]. “Look how one individual affected this whole region because she took what was in her garden and she started to work with it.”

Cagan said that when she created her first school garden, it was with one other mother at first, then the school principal, and then that became 40 other people. “It starts with ownership of a seed, then growing that seed into something that feeds us,” Cagan said. “Start with what you have.”

Education is key, as well, said Cagan. “We try to educate people where to get local produce and how to cook it, and getting people gardening again. The community garden teaches people how to garden, because everybody’s working together and you learn from each other, and that’s what has to come back. If everybody could get that mindset, educating people to eat the food that’s grown locally and educating people to grow food themselves, it increases the value of that food and increases [the farmer’s] business and gives us food sustainability.”