$50K Grant Helps Rockland Farm Alliance Survive Renovation

Unable to farm and sell produce or run their education programs while officials are having the historic barn at Cropsey Farm renovated, the Rockland Farm Alliance pleaded for help. Now the Rockland County Legislature and County Executive have approved $50,000 in funding to the RFA for operations and maintenance for 2019.

“The Rockland Farm Alliance is one of our county’s important nonprofit organizations,
providing both educational programs and agricultural advocacy in addition to continuing a
decades-long tradition of growing food at the historic Cropsey farm,” Legislator Harriet
Cornell said. “I’m so pleased that we were able to provide this important financial assistance.”

The lawmakers voted 14-0 Tuesday to approve $50,000 in funding. The legislature tapped
various budget lines in its department budget to provide the money to the RFA.

County Executive Ed Day signed the agreement Friday saying, “I am pleased that both
branches of Government were able to work together to provide funding to the Rockland Farm
Alliance for 2019. Not that long ago there were farms all over Rockland as most people made
their living from the land. This action will help preserve an important part of our agricultural
history.”

The RFA, which has not received County funding, has cared for the Cropsey Community Farm property on South Little Tor Road for the past eight years.

The 25-acre parcel was preserved – and saved from development – through an intermunicipal agreement more than a decade ago between the County and the Town of Clarkstown.

In January 2017, the Blauvelt-Cropsey Farm was named to the National Register of Historic Places. That year, the two governments agreed to spend $1.5 million to restore the historically significant Revolutionary War-era New World Dutch barn.

The renovation has made it impossible for the RFA, the non-profit, 800-member Rockland Farm Alliance formed in 2005 to farm the Cropsey property, one of its main sources of income, or even offer most of the group's educational programs.

"The result is a huge loss in revenue," the Rockland Farm Alliance organizers said in May. "At the same time we have ongoing overhead expenses, the most costly of which is the maintenance of the entire 25-acre property. If RFA does not receive funding soon for the upkeep of the Cropsey property we will likely have to close."

Two Blauvelt brothers established the farm in 1769, when they built the Dutch Colonial home at the site. The farm had 10 subsequent owners between 1850 and 1890, when Jim Cropsey’s grandfather Andrew, a Brooklyn lawyer, purchased the property. The property passed to Andrew’s son, Wallace, then to Jim Cropsey, who fully farmed the site. Finally Jim and Patricia Cropsey agreed to sell it to the county and Clarkstown.

Now Cropsey Community Farm is a 12-acre USDA Certified Organic vegetable, herb, and flower farm on land that has been preserved by the NY Open Space Conservation Plan. Through the RFA, the farm has supplied produce for more than 200 members of its community-supported agriculture farm-share program, as well as vegetables for sale at Nyack Farmers' Market on Thursdays and the Cropsey Farm Stand on Saturdays during the season. The farm also has sold to local stores such as Hungry Hollow Co-op in Chestnut Ridge, and its produce is on the menu at many local restaurants. What was not consumed by paying customers was donated by the thousands of pounds annually to local food pantries and charitable organizations.

SEE: Rockland Farm Alliance Needs County Funding For Cropsey