Our Environment, Animal Tips & the Great Outdoors

Above photo by Walter Hergt. 

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. 

Located on 40 acres off of Hall Hill Road in Ancram, New York, the land that would later become Sky High Farm was purchased by artist Dan Colen in 2011. While Colen didn’t initially have grandiose plans to start a farm, it quickly became clear to him that the land had a deep agricultural history. With the help of Josh Bardfield, the current co-executive director and a former board member of the farm, the first farmers were hired to work the land in 2013. Partnerships were quickly formed with the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York and the Food Bank for NYC, and Sky High Farm was born. The farm began donating 100% of production into the urgent food system and doing important foundational work surrounding public health frameworks to support food access programs in New York State. 

“Through conversations with people who were working in food pantries and food banks, it became clear to Dan and Josh that there was a lack of access to high-quality, nutritious produce and protein,” explained co-executive director, Sarah Workneh, who joined Sky High Farm in January of 2024. 

“So naturally, the impetus behind the farm was to grow high quality food as a way to supplement the packaged and processed food that people were receiving from the food banks and pantries,” explained Josh. 

Championing food access by creating meaningful relationships

Sky High Farm’s seasonal growing plans are guided by the needs and desires of the communities that it serves. Over the past decade, Sky High Farm has donated nearly 150,000 pounds of vegetables and 130,000 pounds of animal protein through collaborations with food access partners and organizations. Some of the organizations that Sky High Farm partners with include Willow Roots in Pine Plains, Long Table Harvest in Columbia County, Dutchess Outreach in Poughkeepsie, Hungry Monk in New York City, Columbia County Recovery Kitchen, Sweet Freedom Farm in Germantown, and the North East Community Center in Millerton. 

“At this point, 98% of the food we raise and grow stays within Dutchess and Columbia counties,” said Josh. 

“Some of our work involves understanding the people that we’re serving, and we do that by building stronger relationships with our food access partners. They’ve helped us gain insight into the specific needs of partners and communities that we both serve,” Josh noted. 

Sarah agreed: “A lot of our programs look to address larger issues related to food systems. Access to fresh food, how people get access, the structural interferences that affect that, how the food system as a whole affects our climate, and how the communities are affected by these circumstances are all pieces of a bigger puzzle that we’re looking to address.”

Educational programs and fellowship opportunities 

In addition to championing food access, Sky High Farm also strives to create more conversation and educational opportunities within the community. These goals came to fruition in two forms – the Sky High Farmer Training Fellowship and educational and community programming. 

The Sky High Farmer Training Fellowship was inaugurated in May of 2022 and is a paid educational work experience for an annual group of fellows to receive training in regenerative agriculture focused on vegetable production and livestock management. The Sky High Farm team develops a curriculum for the fellows over the course of the growing season, which runs from April through October. The curriculum covers a variety of sustainable farm management techniques, including no-till garden management, propagation, food processing, livestock management, and animal husbandry, as well as vegetable washing and packing. 

“The fellowship was established as an experiential work and learning opportunity, as we noticed that there were few farms in the Hudson Valley offering apprenticeships and other opportunities like this,” Josh explained. “The fellowship is a great way for us to give people the opportunity to learn about the kind of farming that we do here – regenerative agriculture that occurs within the context of a nonprofit organization built around food sovereignty.”

Along with their hands-on experience, fellows also learn about Sky High Farm’s operations from a farm management and organizational level; are provided with readings and background that contextualize the agricultural work within the food justice and sovereignty movements; and participate in educational opportunities such as local farm visits, workshops, and early career professional development. 

Sky High Farm also makes opportunities for its fellows to participate in the work that happens in the community through food access partners. Last season, the fellows volunteered over 100 hours at the North East Community Center in Millerton, which allowed them to experience all parts of the process – from growing the food at the farm, to seeing where it goes, and participating in broader regional networks. 

The fellowship program culminates in an optional two-month research project, which gives fellows the opportunity to more deeply explore an area of interest and ultimately, paves the way for them to discern what kind of work they wish to do following the program. 

The driving force behind the education and community programming at Sky High Farm is similar to that of the fellowship programs. “For a lot of us, where our food comes from and who has access to it are abstract ideas. Our relationship to nature is not as tangible as it used to be. Socializing the idea of what food means, where it comes from, and how it affects other peoples’ lives is important, especially as it relates to the youth,” Sarah explained. 

The programs, which are intended to be a small step towards big change, are based around opportunities for skill sharing, community service, artistic exploration, and resource distribution. Previous programs have included a variety of events from a day on the farm to a workshop on connecting with the land to cyanotype workshops. These programs are almost always offered free of charge. 

“We want to solve the day-to-day problems of food access, but we also want to think about solving long-term problems, too. Long-term solutions will come from people having awareness and participation within those systems,” Sarah said.

Sharing the wealth 

Sky High Farm also established its grant program in 2022. The program, which is an annual program of grants ranging from several hundred to tens of thousands of dollars, is committed to building equity in Sky High’s extended agricultural circle by supporting a range of projects by farmers and food justice advocates. 

Sky High Farm earmarks a portion of its annual operating budget for the grant program. It then redistributes the funds to individuals, organizations, and community centers across the country that are dedicated to solving similar problems in the food system. In 2024, Sky High Farm made 28 grants across 17 US States and Puerto Rico totaling $350,000. Since its inception, the grants program has funded almost $1 million in grants to 78 individuals, organizations, or projects globally.

As a nonprofit, Sky High Farm’s goal is to have a diversified mix of funding sources. Most of its funding comes through contributions, donations, and grants, but a portion comes from a separate for-profit business – Sky High Farm Universe – a clothing brand that was created as a means of sustaining and expanding the work of Sky High Farm by building awareness and generating revenue to be donated to the farm. 

“Through the brand’s wholesale donation program, all of its retail partners are required to make an up-front donation to the farm before selling a single item, transforming all of their customers into the farm’s donors,” the Sky High Universe’s website states.

Sky High Farm received federal support for its efforts to use climate smart practices, but that has been paused. More broadly, Josh and Sarah note that they are seeing the impact of funding cuts on other farms and on the rural economy and a potential impact on nutrition support and food access programs. Programs that support diverse constituents are particularly vulnerable. “We need more small farms, not more consolidated, big farms,” Josh said.

Sarah concurred: “A lot of the funding that was connecting small farms to food access programs and climate research is now in jeopardy. That’s worrisome in terms of our larger context. It’s a threat on many fronts.”

Expanding the farm

 In 2023, Sky High Farm purchased a 560-acre farm in Ancram to expand capacity and capability. 

“We have the opportunity to shepherd the land from a managed corn and soy farm to a farm that is imagined more holistically. Habitat management, water quality, wildlife, pollinators, tree health, and forestry are all parts of the natural world that work together with our farming practices to not only grow the most nutrient-dense produce and raise the most nutritious proteins, but also to bring health back to the land,” Sarah explained. 

With the increased space, Sky High Farm will also have the opportunity to expand its educational and community programs in ways that it wasn’t able to previously. Josh and Sarah hope to welcome people to the farm for a variety of activities, including gardening, farming, hiking, and birding. 

“That’s one of the things I’m most excited about. We have a great opportunity to start facing outward in a different way,” Sarah said. •

To learn more about Sky High Farm, visit its website skyhighfarm.org. To learn more about Sky High Universe, visit its website skyhighfarmuniverse.com.