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For Immediate Release
Contact: Karen Rauter (607) 865-7790
FARM PROFILE: Windswept Farm
During Phase II of the Watershed Agricultural Program, three
pilot farms were selected to demonstrate the potential of
the Whole Farm Plan as a watershed protection tool in the
East of Hudson Croton watershed. With the identification
of over 200 viable farm operations, Barbara Wilkens chaired
a special committee tasked to set up a farm-planning program
for farms and forest landowners in the Croton watershed.
Since that time, she has been a strong supporter of the
Watershed Agricultural Program expanding its efforts to
include farms in the Croton watershed. “It has been
a long uphill battle to get all parties involved to recognize
that agriculture exists, albeit in different forms, in the
East of Hudson Croton Watershed.”
As a Council Director, she’s watched the East of Hudson
Program grow to the point where now there is an East of
Hudson team: Program Manager Mike Saviola (WAC), George
Stang (NRCS) and technician Tom McFarland have worked with
local farmers to complete 10 Whole Farm Plans and construct
several agricultural best management practices—all
within one year since the program’s inception.
Farms in the Lower Hudson Valley were the first to supply
fresh dairy products, meats and vegetables to the greater
metropolitan New York area. While farming has lost ground
at a significant rate over the past century, it is still
very important, particularly in North Salem. In the 1950s,
one man grew a million ears of sweet corn for the New York
and Westchester markets. Another shipped 60 cans of milk
a day. Henry A. Wallace, a former Vice-President of the
United States, had 15,000 laying chickens on his “scientific”
farm that is still intact today in South Salem.
The town of North Salem still has about sixty-five working
farms today. This area, once dominated primarily by dairy
farms, produced some of the best Scottish Black Angus brood
stock 40 years ago. In fact, brood stock cattle were flown
out of North Salem after WWII to rebuild herds all across
the country.
While most dairy farmers were forced to retire or move their
operations upstate due to rising land values, taxes and
the closing of a bottling plant in town and in nearby Ridgefield
(Connecticut), many viable farm operations remain today.
This is an anomaly in an age where most towns in Westchester
have long since been developed as suburbs. The area remains
relatively rural and has many horse-boarding operations,
commercial orchards, several beef cattle operations and
a vineyard. Sweet corn and other fruits and vegetables are
also grown in this area, where what soil that has been conserved
as agricultural land is typically hayland and pastureland.
Fifty years ago this region was the “bread basket”
for New York City.
Off of Route 116 on Titicus Road just uphill from the Titicus
Reservoir, you’ll find Windswept Farm, owned by Eugene
& Lois Colley. Eugene and Lois, his wife of 50 years,
together with their four sons, have been farming their scenic
North Salem hillside for over 45 years. Both Gene and Lois
came from farming backgrounds. As a child, Gene spent summers
working the land at his family’s dairy farm in Chicopee,
Massachusetts. Lois spent summers at her family’s soybean
farm in Hartwick, NY. The boys milked Jerseys and sold milk,
eggs and calves before leaving home for college. Today the
herd consists of 31 adult Herefords and 15 calves that are
entirely grass fed.
Mr. Colley provides one of the two custom haying operations
in town. In addition to his acreage, the hay also comes
from about 200 additional acres on other farms. Some of
that farmland is under permanent easement held by the North
Salem Open Land Foundation. “About 30 years ago a real
estate developer came into town offering to buy large tracts
of farmland for residential development. The developer went
bankrupt and a group of farmers, including myself, were
able to raise enough money to buy the land with the intention
of keeping it in farming. We formed the Northern Salem Open
Land Foundation to protect it from development and keep
it open in perpetuity.”
Most of the practices to be implemented at the farm focus
on Gene's cow-calf operation. Practices such as animal fencing
will exclude livestock from access to waterways and new
watering facilities will be constructed to provide water
to each of the pastures. In addition to excluding animals
from active watercourses, this will also enable Gene to
rotationally graze his animals and eliminate the need for
the herd to travel long distances to the same single watering
location each day. Runoff from pastures and access roads
will also be controlled through a series of diversions,
lined waterways, and critical area plantings. This will
help to eliminate concentrated sources of sediment.
When asked about future plans for farming, Gene commented
that, “My sons and grandchildren share the love of
farm life and the land and hope to perpetuate the farm for
many generations to come. If the taxes don’t kill us,
we’ll keep it in farming forever.” Mr. Colley
added, “All eligible farms ought to look into the benefits
and the ideas put forth by WAC for the preservation of the
land and protection of the water. In the beginning, the
big thing was the unknown. The fact that someone is trying
to help the farmers in a cooperative or team effort with
no strings attached is really reassuring.” The thing
Mr. Colley likes the most about our new program East of
the Hudson is the cooperative team approach of the planners.
He thinks it’s very constructive and likes the mutual
benefit of preserving the land while protecting the quality
of drinking water for the good of all water users that ultimately
benefit from the end result of the program.
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