A new farm is starting in Rockland County, which for 50 years has seen one-time furrows grow mostly houses. Besides fruits and vegetables, the effort seeks to produce a new feeling of community and help initiate a revival of agriculture.
The initiative by the nonprofit Rockland Farm Alliance, will restore 5 acres of the fallow 25-acre Cropsey Farm in New City into a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm producing enough food for 160 to 180 families. The farm will also host school children to let them experience educational visits to a working farm.
A lease-signing ceremony occurred June 29 at the Cropsey Community Farm, South Little Tor Road in New City, with various volunteers and county officials in attendance, including County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef, Chairwoman Harriet Cornell of the Rockland County Legislature and members of the Clarkstown Town Board.
Rockland once had hundreds of farms, but nearly all were developed into suburban housing since the Tappan Zee Bridge opened in 1955 and people moved into the county. Now, only one farm remains operational in Rockland, according to the county executive”™s office.
The Rockland Farm Alliance (RFA) which formed in 2007, is a volunteer organization that works to help restore an agricultural presence in the county.
But basic economics work against farms in Rockland County, said Heshi Gorewitz, the unpaid executive director of the 400-member  RFA.
“Farming in Rockland County, as is true throughout suburban America, did not make it financially over that last 50 years,” said Gorewitz. “So if we believe local food production is important, for food security, for freshness, taste and nutrition, we have to realize that is not going to happen in the old way.”
Instead, he said, Rockland must embrace the CSA model, “Which means that the community has to be involved from the beginning of any local food production,” said Gorewitz.
Under the CSAÂ model, a portion of the harvest, or shares, are sold to members in advance of the growing season, with funds from the sale of the shares to be used by the farmers to grow crops. Each week, shareholders will receive an array of organic vegetables in exchange for their support. The RFA will also hold fundraisers to help pay for the cost of fencing and irrigation equipment at the Cropsey Farm and to help finance other initiatives. Conversely, investors maycome to know the heartbreak that accompanies a violent hail storm.
The RFA in Rockland is seeking to use small parcels of publicly owned lands, such as the former Cropsey Farm, or going forward, perhaps a small parcel at the Rockland Psychiatric Center, to allow community members to organize a modest agricultural initiative under the CSA model.
Meanwhile the RFA will work on the Cropsey Farm property. The first project will be sowing an acre of pumpkins, according to R. Allen Beers, coordinator of the county Division of Environmental Resources. A nature trail and restoration of a barn for public events are on deck.
“Long a county landmark, the Cropsey Farm will now be known as one of two working farms in Rockland, where children can come and learn and experience our rich history of agriculture and farming,” Vanderhoef said, referencing the county”™s other productive farm, the Orchards of Conklin in Pomona. He said the new Cropsey Farm under the RFA will “help us preserve not only our environment, but our history as well for generations to come.”
