“This isn’t a hostile corporate takeover. This is a really, really good thing for the Hudson Valley and this region. This is a really good thing for farming in the Hudson Valley,” she said.
People in New Paltz overwhelmingly support land conservation measures. They like artisanal foods, sustainable agriculture and farm-to-table cuisine. They’re used to seeing OSI and groups like Glynwood as the good guys. However, New Paltz Town Board member Kitty Brown warned them that they were treading on somewhat-sacred ground by interfering with Brook Farm.
“We as a small town consider Brook Farm one of our great personal success stories. It’s been here for 10 years. In addition to farming, farmer Dan painted the farmhouse, insulated it,” Brown said. “On a very local level, it’s a very integral part of our community growing to embrace small farming.”
“Farmer Dan” Guenther, as he is often known locally, and his successor Creek Iverson both helped build Brook Farm into an institution. They got the unengaged active and caring about where their food came from. They got them out helping in the fields.
David Brownstein, of Wild Earth, also begged Glynwood to reconsider their plan and work with Brook Farm.
“Since Creek and Lisa arrived in January — it’s just a few months ago, really — they’ve made an incredible impact,” Brownstein said. “We learned really quickly that they’re not farming vegetables. They’re farming community. They’re farming people. And they’re bringing people together in a very powerful way.”
Guenther also appealed to the property’s new overseers. He recalled rebuilding the farmhouse and working to build a soil base from what had been almost worthless dirt. He recalled taking students and professors from SUNY New Paltz out to see crops growing in the fields.
“This is history that can’t be just undone. I feel this sadness,” Guenther said. “This is the kind of process — the secrecy — where the groups with the big money come in and dictate to the groups that don’t have the money. I think it’s going to be a really, really hard sell to get anything to happen from what these people are asking you tonight.”
Glynwood’s hope and OSI’s dream
It’s likely neither Glynwood nor OSI really understood how forceful the pushback from neighbors and Brook Farm CSA members would be. Frith and others were visibly taken aback by the intensity of some questions.
However, they laid out their plans. The Hudson Valley Farm Business Incubator would take on students — both beginning farmers and more experienced ones — training them with hands-on lessons in the fields and lectures on site. Younger farmers just getting started would train for three years, mentoring with local experts in sustainable farming and livestock husbandry.
Students would get help with business management and marketing — the kind of skills most farmers end up learning the hard way.
Eventually, when they graduate, Glynwood would try to hook them up with farmland of their own — which would be bought by OSI for use by the program.
“We’re very excited about this project,” said Dave Llewellyn, the director of farmer training for Glynwood. “It’ll be a nationally important hub in the training of the next generation of farmers.”
They estimate that the farm academy would help to create 15 new, sustainable farm businesses in the next five years.
Besides their relationship to OSI, Glynwood will also have an indirect relationship with the Mohonk Preserve — which will one day become their immediate neighbor. Mohonk Preserve is contracted to buy the remaining 534 acres from OSI — about three-fifths of the original 2011 land purchase. The Preserve would keep land that would include Humpo Marsh, the Testimonial Gatehouse and Klienekill Farm.
Currently, Mohonk Preserve manages the 857 acres of land for OSI. Glenn Hoagland, the Preserve’s executive director, said he envisioned good things to come from the Glynwood farm incubator program.
“They’re going to become an important partner with us in the Mohonk Preserve foothills,” Hoagland said.
Glynwood was set to announce more details about the incubator project soon.
Call me KA-RAY-ZEE but why not BOTH? A farmer training project would also benefit this community farm.
The community farm can sub-lease the 20 Acres from the new operator? Or the OSI can say…Glenwood gets 303 Acres and Community Farm gets 20 Acres…everyone today seems to put their obnoxious stake in the ground and is unwilling to C O M P R O M I S E. W O R K T O G E T H E R.
Uh, progress? Well said Silly!
OSI will tell you that Brook Farm has been largely insolvent but the truest reason why Glynwood and BFP cannot coexist is that Glynnwood wants the specific 20 acre plot of land that BFP is on. They want the fertile soil that brook farm has worked to produce for over ten years, and they also want its central landmark location with an already built farm house. For Glynwood, it will be the perfect spot to host expensive destination weddings and white glove parties. It will be sad if Glynwood makes the property gated in such a way. Open access to Brook Farm’s Property and its engagement with and fostering of the local and college community with group farming, concerts, dances and potlucks (all free) has been a real treat for citizens of New Paltz. Glynwood and OSI please consider what you are taking away from the community. An incubator program may prove to be a good asset to the Hudson Valley in terms of producing educated farmers, but by removing Creek and BFP you are taking away something of huge (and nowadays rare) community value. The community will not forget this.