Stone Barns

So for those of you who don't know, in the last few years Emalee and I have really gotten into gardening.  So last week, Emalee traveled to the Hudson River valley in New York state to visit the Stone Barns.  Emalee and I learned about this place several months ago while watching public television on a rainy sunday afternoon in Georgia- some good things come out of not having cable television.  We met Emalee's cousin George, his wife Britney and Emalee's aunt and uncle - David and Deborah Stegall at the barns who had traveled up from NYC.  What is now referred to as the Stone Barns was initially John D. Rockefeller's dairy farm.  The barns (made from field stone in a Normandy style of architecture) are situated on the hillside of the 23 acre estate.  What was once owned by the Standard Oil tycoon is now a center for sustainable agriculture - but still owned by the Rockefeller family.  The barns house a 4 or 5 star restaurant and serve only food from the farm.

Being an architect I marveled at the architecture of the barns and the elegant renovation of the interiors by a firm whose work I truly admire.  But what struck me more was the principle and production of the idea of sustainable agriculture.  Most of us read the organic label on our milk cartons or produce.  But do we really know what organic means?  What is organic?  What makes food organic?   Well, to be honest, the farm is not organic as we know it.  In fact, the farm goes a step beyond organic and is what is referred to as sustainable.  What this means is that the farm reconsiders the commercial methods developed in the last 80 years and is innovative and sustainable with it farming methods.  Instead of planting 14 kernel corn that we find in our local grocery store, the farm experiments with lost heirloom plant varieties that are more flavorable but may not produce the abundance of corn of the commericial varieties.  The chickens are free-ranging Red Rhode Island Game Hens that lay 3 eggs a week instead of 8.  However, the heirloom varieties of plants are sometimes preferred by top restaurants and are willing to pay the higher prices for a more flavorable hen.  The vegetable gardens are situated on the upper side of the hill while the sheep herd, hogs, and mobile chicken coops rest on the lower side of the hill separated by a wooded pond area and a couple of bee hive colonies.  The sheep, chickens, turkeys, and hogs rotate areas of the pastures daily so as not to over graze or fertilize.  The vegetables having flowering plants growing amongst them and wooded areas are spaced frequently to provide habitat for birds, frogs, etc. which help to keep the insect population in check.  

Since it is my belief that man is learning the balance of technology and from the mistakes of the industrial revolution of the last 100 years, the idea of sustainable agriculture on this farm is a micro-example of how 21st century man is re-learning the balance between man and nature.  And as I discussed with our tour guide afterwards, as advanced we think our society has become, the field of sustainable agriculture is very new and their is so much research to be done.  And while the planet continues to grow in population, farm land and farmers are drying up at an alarming rate.