The Farmplate Blog

Everyone knows that New York City has long been home to a diverse and thriving food culture, with growing numbers of artisan food producers, urban farms, and locavore-friendly restaurants. 

But for those looking for a glimpse of fertile land unfettered by the trappings of the big city, there is a sustainable food and farming mecca just 25 miles north of Manhattan. Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture is a non-profit farm and education center that grows over 200 varieties of produce year-round. Farmers there also raise laying hens, broiler chickens, turkeys, geese, sheep, pigs and bees. It's already relatively well-known, but we at FarmPlate wanted to give them a plug for the great and diverse work the Center does for the good food movement.

Instead of distancing itself from the City, Stone Barns is both intimately connected and worlds away. The farm sells its vegetables, eggs, meat and honey to the public at an onsite farm market three days a week, and to Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Blue Hill in New York City. Co-owned by Dan Barber, David Barber and Laureen Barber, these two world-renowned restaurants are the largest customers of the Center’s farm. The celebrity of the Barbers and their restaurants gives the Center a louder voice in the food movement than it would otherwise have.

The Center gets over 100,000 annual visitors and has reached more than 48,000 children through school and camp programs since 2004. "It's a fantastic spot for people to come from the city, and from Connecticut. That makes it a powerful spot for consumer outreach," says Mara Flanagan, Marketing and Communications Manager, who is herself a resident of Manhattan's Upper West Side.

That's why Flanagan sees Stone Barns as serving a real educational purpose in the growing local food movement - in New York and beyond. “In many ways, we're seeking to address the human capital issue that the food system is facing. As we’ve lost family farms, we’re losing the intellectual capital that goes with that," she says. To address the issue, Stone Barns holds the annual Young Farmers Conference. They also organize farming apprenticeships, and a variety of other hands-on educational programs, including farm to table cooking classes.

That diversity of programming is designed to attract a variety of potentially interested people again and again. "We encourage people to come back and explore, and see how the farm changes with the seasons," says Flanagan. "People want to be a part of growing their own food and being a part of the change going on in our food system."

For New York City natives, the Center's rural setting is just a short drive or train ride away. Stone Barns is open to the public year-round, Wednesday through Sunday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. For information about upcoming programs and events, please visit www.stonebarnscenter.org.

Show your support and appreciation for Stone Barns Center by "digging" them on FarmPlate >

Photo by Annabel Braithwaite

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Jeff Gangemi is FarmPlate's Director of Partnerships and Communications. A lover of both local and far-flung foods like soup dumplings and carnitas tacos, Jeff believes in the power of food, writing and entrepreneurship to effect social change.