New PA organic farm to arise

A dream seven years in the making

By TOM KANE

DAMASCUS, PA — Greg Schwartz is an anomaly. He’s an organic farmer from New York who is opening an organic farm in Pennsylvania.

“It’s all one farm land within the same river valley,” he said.

After some years as an apprentice in organic farming, Schwartz says his time has come. He moved to Pennsylvania and, last January, purchased a 12-acre farm from former dairyman Art Rutledge off Route 371, a few miles from Callicoon, NY. He aims to have his farm open all year round.

Schwartz, a native of Framingham, MA, spent five years under the expert tutelage of long-time organic farmer John Gorzynski of Cochecton, NY, and spent a short stint with the inveterate organic farmers Wes and Amy Gillingham of Youngsville, NY.

Gorzynski, a well-known supplier of organic products at the Union Square Market in New York City, has been an organic farmer for around 32 years. He is one of the original members of the Union Square program.

“I’m going to establish a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program right away,” said Schwartz. In a CSA, a farmer takes on customers/volunteers/workers who share the challenges and, for a fee, reap some of the rewards, taking a percentage of the products of the farm.

Schwartz is no stranger to small business. “My parents owned a hardware store in Framingham and I worked in it growing up,” he said.

This experience is very valuable to what he is doing now.

“It isn’t enough to work hard and long hours in order to make it in farming,” he said. “You have to be a good business person. I don’t take it lightly. My background will be invaluable in making the farm work.”

Schwartz expects to make a decent living being an organic farmer. “Interest in organic food is growing exponentially,” he said. “You can’t spend a week without reading about organic foods or hearing about them on television. The organic farming movement is growing.”

Currently, organic products are being sold at numerous farmers’ markets in the area: Liberty, Bethel, Roscoe, Callicoon in New York and Honesdale and Hawley in Pennsylvania

“People want their food to be fresh and are becoming suspicious of food from other countries, especially after the scare about food from China,” said Schwartz. The average vegetable travels about 1500 miles to reach its present markets. Food labeling is now happening. The movement has an acronym: COOL (Country of Origin Labeling).

Schwartz’s dedication to organic farming takes multiple forms. He’s the interim executive director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA) and is applying to be the permanent exec.

Schwartz opposes the closing of the United States Agriculture Department’s National Farm Agency in Sullivan County that likely to happen in the near future.

“Many think that there’s a movement being unofficially supported by the UDSA that has as its motto: get big or get out,” he said. “This is a policy that favors the mega-farms against the small family farm. Farmers make up an insignificant portion of the nation’s population and of the electorate – just one percent.”

Schwartz said he is disappointed in many of the land-grant colleges which perform agricultural research.

“Where do the land grants colleges get their funding?” he asked. “One third comes from the state, one third comes from their own funding efforts and one third comes from the big agriculture companies. How can you have independent research when you have that? They’re not supportive of the small family farm. They’re against them.”

This statement was strongly opposed by Mark Stephenson, senior extension specialist from Cornell University, a land-grant college. “There is some truth in the statement, but the real truth is somewhere in between,” he said. “A lot of the new technological advances are things that small farms can afford, but we need to put them out there. We support the small farms by supporting them in their efforts to diversify and do things like make cheese, yogurt, ice cream, organic milk and other things that will give them a better price.”

Schwartz is hoping for change if the organic farm movement can attract more young people into farming. “This is what the NOFA educational programs are trying to do,” he said.