As accessing affordable, fresh, local produce remains difficult in many urban communities across the Northeast, one organic farm in Amsterdam, New York, is getting to the root of the problem.
Lovin’ Mama farms sits on nearly 120 acres of protected land – the Strawberry Fields Nature Preserve about 5 miles east of downtown Amsterdam.
The farm has nine greenhouses that grow a variety of fruits, vegetables and flowers.
There are also five dogs, 200 chickens and, according to owner Corinne Hansch, more earthworms than you could ever count.
“We've actually done studies of our soil and found, like an insane number of earthworms. We call them our soil livestock. So yeah, we're really proud of our earthworms, our soil microbes. They're our partners,” said Hansch.
Now, thanks to local support the farm is busy setting up shop in downtown Amsterdam with a commercial kitchen and café space.
Hansch and her partner have been operating the organic farm for a decade. The pair arrived in upstate New York after they say they were unable to afford to stay in Mendocino County, California.
“Yeah, we are not on Prime ag land at all. So, we've had to import massive, literally, tons and tons and tons and tons of compost. We've built our soil by adding compost every year between crops, every time we a crop is done, we rip it out and add another layer of compost. And we did that for eight years, until we grew our organic matter in our soil to eight, sorry, 12% which is kind of unheard of in the conventional world. Like in the Midwest, we see farms at half a percent or 1% organic matter,” said Hansch.
It took the farm eight years to get to their current soil health.
Fields are covered with black tarps and organic woodchips to stamp out weeds – it’s an organic farm, meaning harmful chemicals don’t get used.
For the most part, however, Hansch says pesticides aren’t needed when your farm is in the middle of a thriving ecosystem – so-called “good insects” eat the harmful pests, and ponds house frogs and other animals that help manage the local wildlife.
“We're sequestering carbon with our growing practices; we're creating habitat for pollinators and birds songbirds. At the same time, we're growing really nutrient dense food, and we're distributing it to our community, which is like a public health service. So, I think of myself as like a public health servant and environmental health servant. So, I mean, it's just so inspiring and wonderful every day to, like, wake up and get to do this work of feeding my community and stewarding land. It has many layers of impact,” said Hansch.
Hancsh says it’s not easy keeping the farm on steady ground – they struggle to get approved for loans, and they have to fight for the grants do get.
So, when an opportunity to purchase a store front just off Main Street in downtown Amsterdam presented itself, her team jumped on it.
“It’s definitely a food desert. There is Mi Isla is an amazing little community grocery store downtown, but that's really it. Between Dollar General and Stewart's. There's, it's pretty hard to access food, and if a lot of people who live downtown might not have a car, so the grocery stores are pretty far away. So yeah, we're really excited to bring organic produce into downtown, and we definitely want to do subsidized food boxes we're going to accept EBT. We just really want to be accessible to everybody. People hear organic, and they think, oh, that's going to be expensive. It sounds exclusive. The cool thing is, because we are the farmers, we can really provide things at cost, and we can get really creative with kind of, maybe selling seconds or market leftovers, we're really at an advantage because we are the producer,” said Hansch.
Downtown, construction is well underway on the 2,100-square-foot market place and kitchen.
Hansch’s partner, Matthew Leon, says the expansion has been a long time coming.
“For 15 years we’ve been vegetable farming and not had a certified kitchen with which we can turn that product into a value-added item. So, basically, now with a certified kitchen we can take the thousands of pounds of tomatoes that we produce every year and can them into salsa, posadas, tomato sauce,” said Leon.
Leon adds that the space will also sell sandwiches – a proper café to go along with the organic kitchen.
In addition to $35,000 in crowdsourced funds, Hansch and Leon were also able to secure a $35,000 Community Development Block Grant as well as $32,000 from National Grid’s Main Street Revitalization Program.
He credits the support of local donations as a testament to the need of what they’re bringing downtown.
“Even though there is Mi Isla and some mini-marts and a Dollar General downtown, there’s not a lot of shopping for food in the downtown area. Most of the shopping is actually, must be, three or four miles up Route 30 where we have all of our big stores. We’ve got Hannaford, we’ve got Aldi’s, we’ve got a lot up there. For years, I’ve seen people literally walking up from downtown Amsterdam to get their groceries,” said Leon.
Lovin’ Mama Kitchen is expected to open August 1.
