Local Farm Makes Good
by Derrick Mead

Consider a world where global changes have driven fossil fuel price to five or six times the levels of the present. Among the host of disruptions this scenario would entail for the United States, a less obvious one might well be the disappearance of most of the familiar produce available at the supermarket. At first highly perishable mesclun salad greens trucked from California would jump from four or five dollars a pound to thirty, or the delightfully uniform waxed South African Granny Smith apples that now cost little more than a dollar a pound would rise to eight dollars or more. This situation would not hold for long, and across much of the country, fresh fruits and vegetables would gradually become a thing of the past.

Fortunately, produce in the Hudson Valley, even then, would be limited only by the seasons. Thanks to the continued hard work and careful land conservation efforts of local farmers like Ken Migliorelli, our area's residents possess at this very moment the choice— increasingly unusual nationwide—to purchase a wide spectrum of fruits and vegetables grown almost literally in our backyards.

From its base on Freeborn Lane, north of the village of Red Hook and east of the village of Tivoli, Migliorelli and his family farm a total of about four hundred acres of land, some owned and some rented. A specialist in hard-to-find ethnic vegetables and greens, Migliorelli grows in total over fifty varieties of field crops, ranging from spring herbs to winter squash. He recently expanded to the south of County Route 78, purchasing Mandara Orchards, and thus added apples, pears, and a variety of stone fruits to the farm's produce. These products are distributed almost exclusively by retail at the eight Farmers' Markets Migliorelli attends in season, in Kingston, Rhinebeck, and New York City, as well as through a farmstand off Route 9G (on the eastern approach to the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge).

All was not always so rosy for Ken Migliorelli's farming business. Running an entirely wholesale vegetable business some twenty years ago, Migliorelli was facing bankruptcy. Migliorelli managed to pull out of that crisis and prosper, despite the increasingly shaky economic climate for local farms. He attributes his continued success to having started early on with direct retail sales and continuing to emphasize that method over time.

An active proponent of the land conservancy for farms promoted by such groups as Scenic Hudson, Migliorelli hopes to continue expanding his business by acquiring land around Linden Farms, also in Red Hook. Farmers have a different perspective on open space than most other people—as Ken Migliorelli puts it, he just can't "stand to see a housing development go up on prime soil for vegetables."

As a family, the Migliorellis have great experience with the changing face of farming over the twentieth century. Until 1959 Ken's father Rocco raised vegetables on the last farm of its kind in the Bronx, when rising land rents finally made profitability there impossible. While Ken feels the changes and increasing influence of New York City on Northern Dutchess County have been a "long time coming," he does not wish to see the area transformed into another Westchester County.

Migliorelli is confident that farming in this area is sustainable, given the combined efforts of committed and flexible growers and a public increasingly aware of where and how their produce is raised. "Land should be saved as a resource," he says.

Beyond that, it seems only prudent as well to maintain an interest in the only local source of fresh, perfect bok choy and breakfast radishes. More information about Migliorelli Farms is available at (845) 757-3276, and the Farmers' Market Federation of New York can be contacted at (315) 475-1101.