The Farm

Neversink Organic Farm is Certified by NOFA-NY Certified Organic, LLC.
and by Animal Welfare Approved

We are in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains on the floor of the Neversink River Valley. We are a small organic farm with 20 acres of mixed woods and pasture, with the Neversink River flowing through the middle. Here we strive towards sustainable human scale agriculture.

Our farm grew out of our passion for food, a healthy environment and our interest in animal welfare.

We produce vegetables, fruits, flowers, honey, eggs and pork. This wide variety helps to build the circle of sustainability on a small farm.

Practices

Organic

We feel the minimum requirement for sustainable farming is to grow our products organically. Thus, we follow strict organic growing practices throughout the farm. Organic farming is not just about avoiding petroleum based fertilizers or pesticides, but about completely removing synthetics and genetically modified organisms from your food.

Its great that more and more farms want to avoid synthetics in their growing practices but we feel that without certification both small and large food producers may avoid the significant costs, complexities and time involved in fully removing synthetics from their operation. Thus,we are firm believers that one should have third party verification to be able to represent their products as organic. Removing synthetics is not an easy task and thus the certification standards are justly complex. Organic certification is really cheap ($150 our first year) while practicing organic methods is not (thousands more than conventional). If we believe that it is not right for factory farms or corporations to call their products "un-certified organic", "practicing organic", "beyond organic" or "organically grown" without certification then it isn't right for small farmers, like ourselves, to do it. I am an organic farmer with in-depth knowledge of the National Organic Practices, and just knowing a farmer and visiting their farm, I would not be able to tell if their practices were organic. I just do not see how even the most well informed consumer could know. We believe that having our farm Certified by a non-profit third party, and supporting the organic standards, is the best way to move the entire food system towards Organic Agriculture.
       Further Reading - Beyond Organic?

Deep and Intensive

We then move beyond the minimum of certifying our farm as organic and practice intensive planting and growing techniques. Our beds are replanted constantly through the season from early April through late fall. Our hoop houses produce vegetables year round. We do this by maintaining extremely fertile soil. As a result we do not need to leave fields fallow or cover crop. We believe that farming this way creates healthy vegetables resistant to diseases and pests.

Human Scale

Human scale agriculture is farming by hand without the use of tractors. While we understand the necessity of heavy machinery to produce cheap food, we choose to not use 4 wheel tractors in our vegetable production. Instead only primary tillage is done with a small fuel efficient two wheel tiller. All planting, cultivation and harvesting is done manually though we use modern techniques and tools. We believe handcrafted produce to be of highest quality while using the least petroleum.

Animal Welfare

There are many words and phrases used to sell food produced from animals that attempt to give a pristine picture of the farm animal's life. Most of these words are meaningless and have the intent to manipulate the consumer. (e.g. hormone free, natural, cage free, free roaming, farm fresh, etc.) We choose to be audited by an independent third party Animal Welfare Approved, which has the highest humane animal standards according to the World Society for protection of animals. All of our animals are raised on pasture and receive the best life we can provide

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Integrated Systems

We believe the more diverse a farms products, the more sustainable it can be. We treat the entire farm as single unit with each piece feeding or being nourished by another. Diversifying our farm is not the most economical path to choose, since we need so much specialized equipment, but it provides a means for us to implement whole farm practices. It also makes farming for us much more enjoyable.

Honest Marketing

We believe customers should not be lied to or manipulated. We tell the truth about farming and our products when asked. We never market our products in a way to confuse customers with claims like "hormone free" on our chicken or pork, for example. It is illegal to give chickens or pigs hormones, and thus all are hormone free.

We also do not use words like natural, farm fresh, or make untested claims about nutrients in our food. We are certified where we can and then let the taste of our food stand on its own. Feel free to ask us anything about the food we grow.

Farm Tours available by reservation (May through October)

10$per person (35$Minimum per group) 30 Minutes

kids 5 & under free

(prior notice is required)