Jim Petrie, who composed and performed music for the film, Our Farms, Our Farmers, smiles broadly when speaking about the Pine Plains farmers profiled, “They love cows. They love what they do.” Petrie wrote, and sings, in this first production of the Local Agriculture Documentary Project, an original song, “I Wanna Be A Farmer”. He adds, “There were 30 farms when they were young—3 or 4 now.”
The producing group, the Little Nine Partners Historical Society (LNPHS), originally intended to capture the experiences of four long-time farmers – John Boadle, Barry Chase, Ronnie Osofsky, and Lloyd Vail, Sr., though it later broadened the project to include the younger generations. The 22-minute video includes three of the four; sadly, Ronnie Osofsky died before he could be interviewed on camera. Osofsky’s brother, Rick, and his son, Dan Osofsky, join Lloyd Vail Jr. and his wife, Amy Vail, Sarah Chase, Rory Chase, and Ben Prentice. Prentice is a recent Pine Plains high school graduate/current Cobbleskill Community College student who has been raising his own dairy cows and beef cattle on local farms, including Vails’ LoNan and Parker Stephenson’s farm.
In the film, directed, shot and edited by the team of Murphy Birdsall – who grew up in Pine Plains – and her husband Keith Reamer, the farmers tell their stories, relating changes in practices and economies over time. They express the pleasure of a job where they are called on to do many different things throughout the day.
The project was spear-headed by a subcommittee of four from the historical society who have guided this project from the beginning: Parker Stephenson, whose family has been coming to Pine Plains since the 1960s, Ann Simmons, sister-in-law of the late Ronnie Osofsky, Scott Chase, cousin of Barry Chase, and Dyan Wapnick, president of LNPHS.
Stephenson says the impetus behind the film is “to see and recognize the older farmers—to capture that generational knowledge of challenges then and now, as well as their recollections and stories. It’s honoring the elders. It’s a community project. It’s Pine Plains history. It’s everyone’s history,” she says.
Ann Simmons includes that a model or inspiration for the project was Rosey Chase’s oral histories of Pine Plains residents, which are published in two volumes. “These stories get lost,” Simmons said. “We lost Ron Osofsky. We lost him. Timing is important.”
It is hoped that this film will be the first of many. Anyone with local farm photos or reminiscences or stories is encouraged to submit them to the LNPHS website. An invitation to do this and to donate funds for the films is posted at lnphs.com/local-agriculture-documentary-project. Our Farms, Our Farmers will be shown by LNPHS as part of the town bicentennial celebration on Saturday, March 4 at The Stissing Center and will feature an intergenerational panel of farmers.
This piece has been republished to correct some errors and omissions in the original Jan. 20 piece. It has been updated to reflect that the film is completed, that the directors are Murphy Birdsall and husband Keith Reamer, and that Ben Prentice’s experience predates his working alongside John Boadle.
Photos courtesy of the Boadle, Chase and Vail families