Hudson Valley Jane, a cannabis farm and micro-dispensary, is dedicated to bringing farm-to-main street cannabis to Hudson Valley communities. The farm itself is located off of Route 82 in Ancram, NY, and the Hudson Valley Jane dispensary will open its doors on Main Street in Beacon, NY, on June 7. 

Increasingly, more farmers and agriculturalists are turning to social media platforms to build connections with their consumers, share their experiences and stories, and even to educate people about where their food is coming from and how it’s grown. Social media has provided an opportunity for farmers to market their products and services and also bridge the gap between rural communities and urban consumers. 

Sky High Farm is not your average Upstate New York farm. A registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, since its inception, Sky High Farm has donated 100% of the vegetables and protein grown and raised on the farm to food access partners throughout New York state. 

It cannot possibly come as a deep, dark secret that the Hudson Valley is steeped in farming history, ranging from the days of Native Americans on up to today. If your intention is to farm in a productive fashion, common sense would tell you that it is advantageous to find yourself some good soil in which to grow your product – if you’re standing in the Hudson Valley, you’ve come to the right place. 

If you’re taking a drive through the countryside and you find yourself on Route 83 in Amenia, NY, chances are you’ll come across Elk Ravine Farm. The farm – owned by Jim Archer and named for the Rocky Mountain Elk that it initially housed – sits on 90 sprawling acres that encompass multiple different habitats, including wetlands, marshes, meadows, and forests. 

What is energy-efficient construction, exactly? The term refers to designing and building structures that minimize energy consumption by incorporating features such as high-quality insulation, efficient windows, optimized building orientation, advanced heating and cooling systems, and renewable energy sources. Incorporating these features allows for a comfortable living space, while also reducing environmental impact and lowering utility bills. 

Yes, of course, the knee-jerk response to any mention of nuclear power is to scream with the fury of seven tornadoes during an early Sunday-morning earthquake. Everyone has a position, certainly, but how about we set politics to the side and start with a clean slate here, shall we? Assuming we are now settled enough to, without provoking a barroom brawl, look into whether nuclear power deserves a seat at the table when it comes to providing electrical energy to our homes and businesses, let’s take a swing at it.

Plastic is everywhere, and it’s here to stay – literally – because it can take from five (cigarette butts) to 20 (grocery bags) to 450 (water bottles) to 500 (disposable diapers) years to degrade. And plastic never totally disappears, it breaks down into microplastics, often smaller than 5 millimeters long, that end up in water, on farmlands and inside our bodies. Microplastics have been found on top of the Pyrenees Mountains and in the bottom of the Mariana Trench. 

Imagine yourself standing among the most perfect 100-acre field of soybeans, planted autonomously by a GPS tractor, with rows like the lines on a notebook. Then, all of a sudden, you hear a faint hum coming closer and closer. It’s a drone, flying completely autonomously over the field, targeting unwanted vegetation by spot-spraying herbicides.

Pollination is vital to our ecosystem. Bees and other pollinators work hard, ensuring food security and nutrition and maintaining biodiversity for plants, humans, and the pollinators themselves. 

“My mother told me I was always pointing at the sun and trees. I always found great joy being in nature. When I was 12, that joy grew so large that I created my first environmental magazine with my best friend,” environmental economist, eco-consultant, and sustainability strategist Pamela Peeters remembers.

But if farming is becoming a less common profession, why does it seem like farms are cropping up (no pun intended) with more regularity in our region? Why, if farming is becoming arguably harder to do, are people more drawn to the land in recent years? What are some of the qualities of the modern farmer? These are some of the big-picture questions I sought answers by speaking with a handful of farmers in our region.