Rockland Farm Alliance To Expand Education With O&R Grant

NEW CITY, NY — Orange and Rockland Utilities is making a $20,000 contribution to the Rockland Farm Alliance to help support the expansion of RFA’s Agricultural Education Program. The program is aimed at giving low-income students a greater understanding of how their food is grown and how it gets from the field to the table.

The O&R donation will be directed toward assisting the RFA in maintaining infrastructure needed to implement, support and maintain a robust, hands-on education program at Cropsey Community Farm, a 25-acre, small-scale working organic farm in New City.

Over the past six years, 4,000 students and hundreds of adult have enjoyed the unique learning opportunities provided there.

The O&R grant will help the RFA get back on track after the historic barn at Cropsey Farm is completely renovated.

The RFA has cared for the 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.

That made it impossible for the RFA, the 800-member nonprofit 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 in 2019.

As the RFA plans for the future, the O&R grant is important support.

“The success of the education program to date led the RFA to recognize the need to expand not only the scope of our offerings but also the populations we serve, connecting more students from underserved areas throughout Rockland County to the Agricultural Education Program during the school year," RFA Chief Executive Officer John McDowell said.

Between single site visits by public school classes in the spring and fall, and a summer camp experience for 250 students, RFA has a target outreach audience of 650 students.

O&R President and CEO Robert Sanchez said, “There are few better examples of science in action than a working farm. And, this program makes that science accessible, engaging and fun through daily hands-on farm chores from picking tomatoes and beans to gathering eggs and tending chickens.”

SEE: A New Generation of Farmers Comes to New City's Cropsey Farm