Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture

The Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture is a non-profit farm, educational center and restaurant in Westchester County, New York. It was created on 80 acres formerly belonging to the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills by David Rockefeller and his daughter, Peggy Dulany. It is dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture, local food, and community-supported agriculture. Its proximity to New York City allows people who primarily live in urban and suburban settings to experience a working farm.

Stone Barns Center is also home to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restaurant that offers guests contemporary cuisine using local ingredients, with an emphasis on produce from the farm at Stone Barns. Blue Hill staff also participate in the Stone Barns Center's education programs.

Stone Barns Center is a four-season operation, producing food even in deep winter in the minimally heated greenhouse.

History

The land where the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture now sits was once part of the Rockefeller estate, which has existed in the Pocantico Hills area since the 1890's. The stone barns themselves were commissioned by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to be a dairy farm. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9F00E0DD1F3BF932A15757C0A9629C8B63 New York Times, 2004: Dine at the Rockefellers', Get in Touch With the Earth] >] The Stone Barns complex fell into disuse during the 1950's, and was mainly used for storage. In the 1970's, agricultural activity resumed at Stone Barns when David Rockefeller's wife Peggy began a successful cattle breeding operation.

The Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture as it exists today was created by David Rockefeller, his daughter, Peggy Dulany, and their associate James Ford as a memorial for Peggy Rockefeller, who died in 1996. [ [http://www.stonebarnscenter.org/sb_about/dedication.aspx Dedication: A Letter from David Rockefeller] ] . The Stone Barns Center opened to the public in May 1994.

Four Season Farm

The farm at Stone Barns is a four-season operation with about six acres used for vegetable production. It serves as an educational resource by illustrating land use that is environmentally, economically and culturally sustainable. The farmers use an intensively managed six-year rotation schedule in the field and greenhouse beds, preserving the soil and locking in important nutrients.

The farm grows 200 varieties of produce year-round, both in the outdoor fields and gardens and in the 22,000-square-foot minimally heated greenhouse that capitalizes on each season’s available sunlight. Among the crops suitable for the local soil and climate are rare varieties such as celtuse, suiho, hakurei turnips, New England Eight-Row Flint seed corn and finale fennel. The highly diversified crops allows farmers to hedge their bets against poor weather.

The farmers use no pesticides, herbicides or chemical additives. The primary amendment to the soil is a highly nutritious compost, often referred to as "black gold," made from leaves, grass clippings, livestock manure and hay, and the restaurant’s kitchen scraps. In a six-month composting cycle that uses natural biological heat processes, these materials are pasteurized to produce the weed-free and pathogen-free compost key to the health of the farm. [Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture Backgrounder]

Livestock

The Center raises chickens, turkeys, rabbits, sheep, pigs and bees suited to the local ecosystem. The livestock farmers try to raise animals in a manner consistent with the animals' evolutionary instincts. The chickens, turkeys, sheep and rabbits are raised on pasture that’s kept healthy and productive through carefully managed rotational grazing. Grazing animals will contentedly spread their manure if they’re kept on the move with the help of portable waterers, portable fencing and other structures. The sheep and pigs’ bedding packs are regularly turned and composted. Farmers who raise animals in this fashion are frequently called “grass farmers” because there is so much emphasis on the health of the pastures.

Strategies for maintaining the pastures include intensive paddock management so the grazed area has ample time to recover and provide a natural refuge for birds and other wildlife, essential for the maintenance of ecological balance.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns Restaurant

Blue Hill at Stone Barns is a restaurant housed in what was once the cow barn of the Stone Barns complex, seating 80+ in the main dining room and 64 in the private dining room. Menus change with the availability of local produce, with an emphasis on food produced on site at Stone Barns.

Although Blue Hill at Stone Barns and the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture are well-integrated, they are two separate organizations. Blue Hill at Stone Barns is a for-profit organization that helps financially support the non-profit Stone Barns Center by renting the restaurant space and purchasing the meat and produce it uses.

ee also

* Slow Food
* Local food
* Sustainable Agriculture
* Organic Farming

External links

* [http://www.stonebarnscenter.org/ Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture official website]
* [http://www.bluehillstonebarns.com/ Blue Hill at Stone Barns]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E3D91238F931A35751C0A9659C8B63 New York Times, 2003: The Estate Next Door]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9F00E0DD1F3BF932A15757C0A9629C8B63 New York Times, 2004: Dine at the Rockefellers', Get in Touch with the Earth]

References