Friends of the Farmer Hudson Valley Festival

FarmOn! launches with the inaugural Friends of the Farmer Festival and Hootenanny Farm Fresh Benefit Dinner with the Beekman Boys of Beekman 1802! Two days of dinner with local farmers and a festival combines commerce and community to connect family and friends with local farms to learn where their food comes from and why it matters.

Lakeside at the Copake Country Club, the first FOTF festival kicks off inspired to bring economic development to family farms in an effort to bridge rural and urban marketplaces for an initiative to develop rural prosperity with local family farms, producers, makers and growers while we stand up for our farming community by eating.

The Fabulous Beekman Boys hosted the first Friends of the Farmer Hudson Valley Food Lovers Festival launched on a gorgeous, sunny, summer day in Columbia County NY and 1500 turned up to connect to seed and soil!

 

The Festival’s inaugural events included the Hootenanny! Farm Fresh Fundraiser Dinner and Friends of the Farmer Hudson Valley Food Lovers Festival, both held lakeside at Copake Country Club in June/July 2011.

 

Chef Straussman (Freds at Barney’s New York) and Chef Glenn Strickling (The Greens) created the Hootenanny! farm-centric menu sourced within 5 miles of the plate using ingredients from 20 local farms and 10 local food artisans with the Fabulous Beekman Boys lending their first season’s BLAAK cheese, one of their own “Beekman 1802? artisanal selections for the Hudson Valley cheese course.

The festival proved to be a gathering that bridged rural and urban populations and created one conversation about farm to YOUR table, the Friends of the Farmer Festival engaged communities to encourage commerce from local food sources and family farms to support health and wellness.

Local food vendors, music and libations were served and the Farmer was celebrated as the REAL celebrity in food – a rock solid star we can all count on to work hard to feed us well.

The evening concluded with a bonfire and ice cream sundae bar presented by Ronnybrook Dairy. Funds and awareness were raised. a tradition that has continued every year since.

Camp FarmOn!

In 2011 FarmOn! announced it’s philanthropic partner – Cornell Cooperative Extension, who together with QuestarIII and Taconic Central School District created and funded “Camp FarmOn!” a youth education program that fosters the entrepreneurial spirit in agriculture.

The formal partnership with Cornell Cooperative Extension begins with a youth summer Camp FarmOn! to foster the entrepreneurial spirit of youth in agriculture with educational programs where kids ages 13-16 learn by doing and develop a business plan for a profitable solution to farming. The first of the FarmOn! Educational experiences focused on inspiring succession through generations by sustaining profitability in agriculturally based ventures and offering credentials and a “shark tank” for students to pitch their business plans for investment. 1431 people raise nearly $5000 to fund 18 students for CampFarmOn!