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By CARIN RUBENSTEIN (NYT) 2752
words
WESTCHESTER WEEKLY DESK
February 15, 2004, Sunday
NORTH SALEM -- WESTCHESTER County is known more for its
McMansions and corporate headquarters than for its fields
of corn and soybeans. Indeed, to talk about farmland in
Westchester over the past century is to talk about its disappearance
in the face of relentless development. And yet farmers still
farm in some parts of the county. Consider this:
Two high-spirited goats stood with dainty grace on hind
hooves one day not long ago to nibble energetically on a
leftover holiday wreath hanging from a barn window in Bedford,
as 40 free-range Araucana chickens fluffed their feathers
and scrabbled for feed on the frozen ground.
Emerald green baby spinach, feathery pea greens and lush
arugula flourished in a heated greenhouse on an eyeball-freezing
cold day in North Salem. Nearby, a mound of compost, filled
with animal manure and kitchen waste from a restaurant,
steamed in the biting air.
Wiccan, a prize show horse, was slowly and gently vacuumed
on the same day, part of an elaborate daily grooming offered
at the high-touch Heritage Farm in Katonah, a kind of Ritz-Carlton
Hotel that accommodates 65 private show horses.
Two weeks later, a newborn Simmenthal bull calf, still
slick, with an umbilical cord dangling from its wet belly,
took its first steps in a heated calving stall at Hudson
Pines Farm in Pocantico Hills.
Yet despite these bucolic scenes, farmland is disappearing
quickly. In 1950, for example, there were 664 farms comprising
nearly 50,000 acres in Westchester County. Today, that number
has dropped to 128 farms with not quite 12,000 acres, according
to the New York Agricultural Statistics Service.
But still, stubbornly, and improbably, Westchester is
a place where agricultural pursuits thrive. Many Westchester
farmers have the financial resources to run their so-called
trophy farms for the pure pleasure of it; others must farm
to earn a living.
In fact, the number of farms and farmland is actually higher
now, in 2004, than it has been since 1987, according to
state data.
Indeed, a small but passionate vanguard of politically
active Westchester farmers is lobbying the county legislature
to halt and even reverse the loss of local agriculture.
Enthusiastic cheerleaders for Westchester's farms, they
say they need to protect farming in Westchester before most
of the local farmland is lost forever.
Saving land for agricultural use, they say, preserves open
space at the lowest cost possible, protects the watershed,
provides a habitat for birds and wildlife, and offers local
agricultural education to residents, some of whom have never
touched a cow or picked a pumpkin off the vine.
Westchester County Executive Andrew J. Spano approved two
proposals in the last few years to protect farmland, including
the appointment of a farmland board and the formation of
an agricultural district certified by New York State.
''Farming is a deep part of the heritage of the county,
and to preserve open spaces we have to make sure it's part
of the political process,'' Mr. Spano said. ''It really
keeps a lot of our land out of development, which is really
what we need.''
The 11-member Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board
was set up in 1999 to oversee the preparation of a countywide
farmland protection plan, which will be presented to the
county legislature and the public in late spring.
In 2001, Westchester County also established an agricultural
district, a state-sponsored designation which protects members
with ''right to farm'' laws that supersede any local ordinances
that might conflict with farmers' needs (early-morning mowing,
say, or unpleasant odors from animals). Such a district
must total at least 500 acres of viable agricultural land,
although it doesn't have to be contiguous, according to
Diane Miller, an environmental planner at the County Department
of Planning.
That district now includes 128 farms, with the largest
proportion, about half, devoted to the horse business, and
nurseries and horticulture as the second most common farm
activity, Ms. Miller said.
About a dozen additional farms have applied to join this
year, she said, and there are probably more who have not
yet done so. Although there are no economic advantages to
being in the district, ''it helps being part of a community
and sharing information and having the power that belonging
to a group gives you,'' she said. Among the 325 agricultural
districts that have been designated in New York State, Westchester's
is among the smallest, although it is also one of the most
valuable.
While the average value of an acre of farmland in Westchester
was $8,300 in 1997, the value of farmland in Livingston
County, a major dairy area southwest of Rochester, was just
$1,091, according to the most recent Census of Agriculture.
That disparity has most certainly widened substantially
since then, according to StephenRopel, a state statistician
with the National Agricultural Statistics Service in Albany.
The Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board is a raucous
and cheerful group of Westchester farmers, some of them
working farmers who earn a living from their land, and others
more like landed gentry, whose substantial achievements
in the business world help to finance their hobby farms.
When the board met last month at Muscoot Farm in Somers,
they debated the ways in which they would be most able to
persuade the county legislature of the importance of local
farms.
''We're putting together a farmland protection plan for
Westchester County to raise everyone's awareness of the
connection between quality of life and farming,'' said Barbara
Wilkens, 72, the board's president.
The owner of Wilkens Fruit and Fir Farm, a 180-acre family
farm in Yorktown that has raised apples, pumpkins and Christmas
trees since 1916, Mrs. Wilkens and her family have consistently
refused to sell their land to developers – even though
they would have made more money doing so -- because ''it's
a real family operation and it provides a whole different
atmosphere for the people of Westchester,'' she said.
Annie Farrell, an organizer of Westchester's agricultural
district, said, ''The Hudson Valley was the bread basket
for the city, and we're bringing it back.'' With expertise
on everything from growing vegetables in hoop houses to
breeding cattle, Ms. Farrell is widely acknowledged by most
farm people as one of Westchester's most knowledgeable farmers.
Ms. Farrell, a Yorktown resident who earns her living as
a farming consultant, has also been called ''the Queen of
Mesclun,'' for her one-woman campaign to grow, harvest and
sell the once-unusual vegetable. Since she began championing
mesclun nearly 20 years ago, Ms. Farrell estimated that
she has grown and sold more than five tons of the stuff.
She also owns a 225-acre dairy farm in Bovina in the Catskills,
which her daughter and son-in-law manage for her.
Michael Dignelli, 45, a member of the board and co-owner
of the 40-acre Heritage Farm in Somers, is an advocate for
Westchester's horse business. Westchester's horse industry
ranks fourth in income in counties in New York State (after
Saratoga, Nassau and Dutchess Counties), with a value of
$121 million, according to figures provided by the Department
of Agriculture and Markets.
''The horse business is very big and very healthy because
of the intense connection people have with animals and with
the land,'' Mr. Dignelli said. His business, which he owns
with his brother, Andre, is quite successful, and although
he would not disclose annual revenues, the cost of boarding
a horse there is $2,550 a month, he said.
Another board member, Peter Kamenstein, 59, owns an Elmsford
company that manufactures housewares. But Three Ponds, his
70-acre farm in North Salem, is clearly his true love. He
raises Black Angus cattle as breeding stock there, and produces
up to 10,000 bales of hay each year, some of which he uses
for his own animals and sells the rest. He keeps his own
horses there, eight of them, and sponsors a 4-H Club, which
keeps one pig, one sheep, one goat and one cow on his property.
Mr. Kamenstein is adamant in his belief that his farm does
more good for the town of North Salem than any residential
development would. He even grew up on a dairy farm in Princeton,
N.J., he said.
''In addition to preserving open space, farmland is critical
for a developed area like Westchester,'' he said, citing
a study that shows that farms actually subsidize residential
housing by using fewer local services.
Another board member is Don Homer, 68, who described himself
as ''a Bostonian cowboy'' and is the general farm manager
of Hudson Pines Farm, the Rockefeller property in Pocantico
Hills. Along with three employees, Mr. Homer works 350 acres
there, raising 100 head of Simmental cattle as breeding
stock. So far this winter, 34 cows have calved, and another
33 are due any minute. Mr. Homer sold a heifer last month
in Denver for $44,000, and is planning a trip to Indiana
next month, a trip on which he said he plans to sell about
20 more head.
Mr. Homer said that he has sold cattle, semen and frozen
cow embryos in 14 countries, including to the former Soviet
Union, all from the Westchester farm. When Mr. Homer goes
to sales in, say, Texas, ''they're amazed that we're only
25 miles from the major New York airports,'' he said.
While the Rockefeller family farms flourish because of
the family's philanthropic devotion to local farming, other,
much smaller farmers, struggle to earn a living from farming.
Ellen Casale, 54, and Brian Spahr, 40, cultivate 2.5 acres
of their 5.5-acre plot in North Salem, on a certified organic
farm called Toad Haul, but both work other jobs to support
themselves. ''For us, this is not a job, it's a way of life,''
Ms. Casale said.
She and Mr. Spahr grow salad greens in raised beds, outside
and in greenhouses. This year, they harvested more than
two tons of salad greens, including arugula, mizuna and
tatsoi. ''Every leaf is a work of art,'' she said. ''Food
should be beautiful.''
Ms. Casale keeps a dozen chickens and rabbits on her farm
just for their nitrogen-rich manure, which she adds to the
compost that covers all the growing beds.
She will not sell her gorgeous and intensely flavorful
greens to restaurants in New York City, however. Instead,
she sells to the Flying Pig, Finch Tavern and other local
restaurants, as well as to local catering companies and
at the Mount Kisco farmers' market. She says she also has
25 private clients to whom she makes produce deliveries
at home.
''Our mission is to stay as local as possible,'' she said.
''Buying organic is important, but buying local organic
is the best thing you can do. The community we live in must
benefit first.''
By contrast, the Westchester agricultural district features
many gentleman farmers. Shirley and George Bianco, for example,
live in Bedford on the 30-acre Maple Grove Farm, which was
a 500-acre farm in 1740, Mrs. Bianco said. They keep five
rare Belted Galloway cows, four sheep, two rambunctious
goats, a pig, 40 Araucana chickens, 20 quail and 8 horses,
and have sold 700 cartons of half-dozen eggs, and two breeding
bulls in the last year.
A retired currency trader, Mrs. Bianco, 45, is passionate
about her love of the land and of learning to farm properly.
''Our goal is to supply humanely raised animals for food,''
she said. Mr. Bianco, 48, a vice president at Merrill Lynch,
is vice chairman of the Westchester Land Trust, who has
practiced what he preaches by placing a legal restriction
on his own property to prevent it from being subdivided,
he said.
''On this scale, I'm not going to quit my day job,'' he
said about his farm, ''but we want to keep the farm as productive
land.''
A patrician farmer with perhaps the deepest roots in Westchester
County, Jim Wood, 76, lives in Bedford on Braewold, a 40-acre
farm that has been in his family for seven generations.
President of the Bedford Farmers Club, Mr. Wood's ancestor
was among the founding members in 1852. Although Mr. Wood
no longer works his farm, he raised dairy and beef cattle
when his two daughters were growing up, to pass on his love
of farming.
''I was an investment banker to support my farming,'' Mr.
Wood said. ''One kept me sane while the other kept me solvent.''
Mr. Wood did such a good job instilling a farming passion
in his daughters that one is now ranching in Montana, and
the other moved to New Zealand, where she and her husband
bought a 7,000-acre sheep station.
''Instead of preserving history, which we were doing in
Westchester, we are now involved with cutting-edge advances
in New Zealand agriculture,'' Mr. Wood's daughter, Emily
Crofoot, said in an e-mail message.
Ms. Farrell, who left last week to visit Ms. Crofoot's
farm in New Zealand, plans to search for new blood lines
for Westchester cattle, ''collecting genetics,'' as she
puts it. ''Most women bring back jewelry, but I bring back
semen,'' she said. ''When you reach in my freezer, be careful
what you grab.''
A Warm Berth for Newest Foals
GRANITE SPRINGS - It's a little-known fact, but dozens
of 100-pound babies will be born in Westchester this winter.
Of course, their mothers weigh in at around half a ton,
and the infants aren't human, but still, they are soft and
deliciously smelly.
Some of these whopping newborns will be born at Stonewall
Farm, the 760-acre thoroughbred horse farm owned by Barry
Schwartz, chairman of the New York Racing Association and
a former owner of Calvin Klein Inc.
The first foal of the 26 that are due in 2004 arrived on
a glacial evening in mid-January, almost two weeks past
the mare's due date. But Jennifer M. Gurney, the farm manager
and de facto midwife, was not worried. ''It has to do with
the cold,'' she said. ''It's their natural instinct that
it's not the safest time to have a baby.''
In her nine years at the farm, Mrs. Gurney has witnessed
at least 200 foalings, she said.
In this clean but chilly brood barn, a fancy maternity
ward for valuable horses, two kerosene heaters glowed and
18 mothers-to-be lolled in their stalls on that cold evening,
enjoying the good life of a pregnant former racehorse.
The first to give birth was Lynclar, a dark bay who won
nearly half a million dollars in her racing days. Now on
her fourth foaling, she was calm and attentive to her new
filly, a soft, damp and shivering creature born at 5:50
p.m. on Jan. 25.
The still-steaming foal struggled to stand on her own spindly
legs, in a foaling stall with rubber matting and a thick
layer of protective straw.
As Lynclar nickered to her newborn, several pregnant mares
whinnied back, in sympathy, or support, perhaps. ''They're
the fan club, they're always whinnying after a baby is born,''
Mrs. Gurney said.
The young filly was wrapped in a blanket after she stood,
as her mother looked on.
Most foalings at Stonewall are a family affair for Mrs.
Gurney. Besides her, there are her husband, Cameron, a tennis
pro at Sleepy Hollow Country Club, and their 5-year-old
daughter, Ava, who gave the new foal its temporary name,
Minnie. Even their dog, Olivia, attended the birth.
Although Mr. Gurney has also seen hundreds of foalings,
he is not jaded. ''It's always amazing every time,'' he
said. ''It never gets routine.''
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