Sky High Farm, located on 40 acres off Hall Hill Road in Ancram, two-and-a-half miles from the center of Pine Plains, uses sustainable methods to produce nutritious, tasty, organic-quality vegetables and meats. It works with a network of organizations to donate all the food to people in the Hudson Valley and New York City who don’t always have enough to eat.
The unique farm got its start when artist Dan Colen left New York City for greener pastures, and decided to work with friends and farmers to produce food and give it away. It has evolved into a multi-dimensional nonprofit that donates the food it grows while supporting environmental practices and research, training new farmers, supporting food projects around the United States and internationally through grants, and offering public programs for young people.
Now it’s about to get much bigger. In June, Sky High Farm bought a 550-acre former dairy farm that straddles Ancram and Gallatin border. The plan is to move Sky High Farm’s main operations there, expand production, and, eventually, create an incubator for a new generation of farmers who will grow food in ways that support ecological resilience.
The Best Food for People Who Can’t Afford It
Improving the quality of nourishment people get through food banks and other systems is a key goal, explains Executive Director Josh Bardfield. “Food banks offer food that is packaged, processed or damaged, often in large quantities—lots of canned food and produce that may not be very fresh. Most isn’t grown using environmentally conscientious methods. And there’s not a lot of protein.”
To achieve its mission, the farm produces food that might be sold in the finest markets. On a recent Saturday morning, Ellie Youngblood, who runs the farm’s vegetable production, was carefully peeling back old and dirty outer leaves of small green cabbages—destined for composting—and placing the nearly perfect orbs into boxes for pickup. “We pay attention to little things like cleaning the vegetables,” she explains. “It extends the shelf life of the produce. And when people get it, they know that it’s been carefully handled.”
Offering fine quality food sends a message. “People tell us that getting this food makes them feel good, because it shows that people care,” Bardfield said. “They not getting seconds. This is as good as it gets. And it’s going to people who are excluded from access because they can’t afford it. And that’s just not right.”
While not accredited as an organic farm, Sky High follows organic farming standards. The produce is grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizer, in an intensive no-till system that protects against soil erosion. Bardfield said, “We’re not disturbing the earth as a way to maintain soil health and integrity.” One benefit is weather resilience. “When we have terrible rain, like we’ve experienced, there’s very little erosion.”
Out in the fallow post-harvest fields, Youngblood pointed to the cover crops. “There’s oats here, and tillage radish, and crimson clover, which fixes nitrogen in the soil,” she said. In the spring, the fields are mowed; in some cases, a tarp is laid over them to kill the plants. Then a tractor with giant steel forks punctures the soil so seeds can be planted. The area under produce production is only 1.1 acres, but no-till farms have high yields. “The more you pay attention to the soil health and pasture health, the better the nutritional value,” Youngblood said. “And it just tastes way better. Healthy soil means more nutritious vegetables, healthier animals and more nutritious meat and eggs.”
The farm produces beets, beans, berries, broccoli, cantaloupe, cabbage, carrots, cilantro, cucumber, celery, collard greens, eggplant, garlic, kale, microgreens, mustard greens, okra, onions, papalo, peppers, spinach, sugar snap peas, summer squash, tomatoes, watermelons, winter squash. Its livestock includes egg-laying Red Sex Links chickens, Idaho Pasture Pigs, and beef cattle that are a mix of Red Devon, Murray Gray, and perhaps other breeds. The farm also hosts six Katahdin hair sheep, but they are no longer harvested. “They’re pets now,” Bardfield said, adding that their primary benefit is to allow practical experience around the animals to educate people who live on the farm to study regenerative agriculture. Since the farm’s founding, it has donated over 150,000 pounds of vegetables and animal protein, according to its 2022 annual report. The farm processes its own poultry and uses local slaughterhouses for the pigs and cattle.
For the livestock, Sky High practices intensive rotational grazing. The animals are moved every day or every few days to help maintain the pastures, which they fertilize with their manure. “They cut down the grass—we don’t have to mow it,” Bradfield said. “The cows will come through, and then the chickens will follow, and they eat things the cows don’t eat.”
Food That People Really Need
Sky High Farm’s mission, however, goes beyond growing good food sustainably. It also strives to give people the kind of food they really want, and that’s appropriate to their cultural and culinary customs. The farm is currently collaborating on a major grant-funded survey of food pantry users to better understand who they are and what they need. In a farm market setting, farmers learn from customers. “If you’re selling things, you find out what people want to buy,” Bardfield stated. Nonprofits need different methods. “We take the winter to have a really intensive planning process with our partners, to find out, for example, what kinds of produce really resonated with people.”
Take cilantro. The farm grew a modest amount last year but increased production when Sky High’s team learned how popular the fresh herb was with many of the people from Central America who go to the food pantry run by one of the farm’s partners, the North East Community Center in Millerton. “It’s not something you often see in food banks,” he said. “This year, we grew exponentially more cilantro.” The farm also grows papalo, a Mexican herb that is similar to cilantro.
Its chicken gets high marks from nearly everyone. “People tell us they are the best chickens they have ever had,” said Bardfield. “They’re super excited to get these birds.” But not everyone wants chicken heads, feet and organs. So, Sky High partners with a food pantries in the Hudson Valley and New York City that serve immigrant communities from West African countries, the Caribbean and Central America, where cooking with these head-to-tail chicken parts is integral to their culinary traditions.
Not everyone who is food insecure is an immigrant, or a person of color, or even living in poverty, however. Nor is everyone comfortable going to a food pantry. “It’s clear to me, as a Red Hook resident and someone who’s involved in the community, that you don’t actually know whether your neighbor is food insecure or not,” said Bardfield. “In rural areas, it’s often hidden. There are a lot of myths about food insecurity,” He praises programs such as the Red Hook backpack initiative, in which students—often identified by teachers, who may know which kids might come from struggling families—get Friday backpacks filled with nutritious food to tide them over until they get free or subsidized lunches at school during the week. It’s a program Sky High Farm has supported in past years. The pandemic, he said, shined a light on these issues. “Rates of food insecurity were actually decreasing throughout New York State until the pandemic,” he said. But that trend has been reversed. “The need now is greater than it’s ever been.”
Sky High Farm also works closely with Willow Roots in Pine Plains. “Working with Nelson and Lisa (Zayas) really helps us see who the people are who are consuming our food, understanding what their needs are.” The farm also work closely with Long Table Harvest, Dutchess Outreach, the Hungry Monk Rescue Truck in New York City, Columbia County Recovery Kitchen, and Sweet Freedom Farm in Germantown.
A 550 Acre Future
By 2011, artist Dan Colen had achieved enough success to purchase 40 acres in rural Ancram and leave New York City for a more nature-centric life. But Colen wanted to give something back. So, he came up with the idea of growing food and giving it away. Bardfield was already a friend, and together they worked out a plan and hired two people to raise food. A few years later, Sam Rose, who now runs Four Quarters Community Farm in Red Hook, took over operations, expanding production and bringing in seasonal interns. “We had two to four people who would come to live here and work with Sam for the duration of the season. So, we had a little more capacity,” Bardfield recalled.
In the early years the Food Bank for New York City, and the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, would come up, on different days, fill a van and head out. Bardfield said, “We plugged into a system. It worked really well for everyone involved. But we didn’t know where the food was going. So, Sam and I started exploring other options, including Willow Roots, which at the time was just operating out of the Zayas’s house. The farm connected with Long Table Harvest, a gleaning organization that goes to farms to take produce that isn’t being brought to market and distributing it. We started building stronger local relationships.”
By 2016 Sky High Farm became a 501(c)3 nonprofit, with a board of directors, which included Bardfield. “Until then, we had never fundraised because Dan’s studio was essentially funding the farm,” he said. The ensuing years included intensive planning—and then the pandemic hit. “It was a catalytic moment. We knew that if we were going to make this nonprofit functional and grow it into a bigger organization, now was the time.” In November of 2021, the board asked Bardfield to leave his job and become the first executive director. He hired a consulting company to help develop a strategic plan.
The farm now employs a full-time staff of seven, including a director of farm operations and a livestock manager. There is a robust educational component, the Sky High Farmer Training Fellowship, started in 2022, which brings in four seasonal fellows who live on the farm from April through December. They work on the farm, get a salary and a professional development stipend, and receive agricultural education, which includes a curriculum for soil health and pasture management, as well as other practical skills like fixing small engines, plumbing, and electrical work. In November and December, the fellows each complete a research project.
Youth groups from the region and from New York City come to the farm for a variety of events and workshops. One popular program hosted local elementary school students to learn about natural flower dyeing. Sky High also works with Future Farmers of America in Pine Plains and a YMCA farm project in Kingston.
Sky High gives grants, too. Bardfield said that last year, it dispersed $250,000; this year, $350,000. In 2023, grants went to agricultural projects in 14 states, including Puerto Rico, as well as Uganda. Last year’s recipients included a first-generation Asian woman in California growing heritage plants and produce; a cattle farmer in Ohio who went into unsustainable debt due to the pandemic; a free food CSA (Community Supported Agriculture project) in Asheville, North Carolina; and an urban farmer in New Orleans who is working to buy back land lost to Hurricane Katrina to build a community garden. “These are people who are doing amazing work but don’t have access to traditional funding,” Bardfield said.
Sky High gets its own funding from a wide variety of sources, including individual donors. They recently held a fundraising dinner for about 50 people in New York City that raised nearly $40,000. They get funding from philanthropic sources including the Mellon Foundation, Patagonia, and the Bank of Greene County. They also partner with Sky High Universe, a separate for-profit entity that produces upscale sustainably-produced clothing from recycled (“upcycled”) materials and sells through Nordstroms, Saks Fifth Avenue and elsewhere. “Once it’s profitable, 50% of the profits will come back to the farm,” said Bardfield. Even before profits are earned, the participating retailers are paying a participation fee that generates about $300,000 a year to the farm.
Working with strategic consultants, the board—including Colen, who still lives on the farm and is the board president—decided it was time to buy land rather than leasing Colen’s property. “We were on the cusp of really growing this organization and it felt like these 40 acres were limiting,” said Bardfield.
In June 2023, Sky High Farm closed on a 550-acre former dairy farm that straddles Ancram and Gallatin along County Rte. 7. It is now woodlands and farmland planted in soy and corn that is grown using conventional methods. Over the next two years, Sky High plans to transition its operations to regenerative agriculture—it has contracted with the environmental organization Hudsonia for a biodiversity assessment. It is assessing watershed issues, and partnering with Bard College on a study of fungal and microbial diversity in the soil. “This is an enormous opportunity for us to demonstrate scientifically what positive impact the type of farming we’re doing can have on a piece of property,” said Bardfield. The goal is to begin building the initial livestock infrastructure on the farm next year, move livestock to the land by the end of 2024, and start the first growing season in the spring of 2026. Vegetable production will start at the same scale as it is now, eventually expanding to five to eight acres.
Beyond that, Sky High Farms has even bolder plans—becoming a 40-acre incubator for new farms and new farmers. “The future of farming in this region, and the country, depends on access to land. Without land you can’t do anything. So, a portion of this property will be focused on designing an incubator for farm businesses. We will make land available to farmers who are perhaps just at the beginning of their business, where access to land is critical. The goal is to build housing and infrastructure such as a storage wash/pack station for post-harvest processing, build housing, — I don’t think it’s possible to actually support young farmers if they don’t have a place to live — give the new farmers plots of an acre to a few acres, access to equipment, training, and support for five or six years until they are ready to go out on their own,” said Bardfield. Then they will help raise grant money to buy land for a new generation of farmers. It’s a multi-million-dollar project—fundraising will start in 2024—and it won’t start operating until at least five years from now.
Bardfield has only been in his full-time position for two years, and he looks forward to expanding the farm’s connections to the community. “We want this to be a place people feel they can interact with directly,” he said. “That’s especially true for this new property as we develop it.” The farm sponsors community events and offers volunteer opportunities in season. Bardfield added, “If someone reaches out to me, and we have time, I would never say no to a visit or a conversation. That’s always something that we’re happy to do.”