A Portrait of our Farmers: Inverbrook Farm
By Margaret Gilmour
In celebration of Chester County’s agricultural bounty, we’re rounding out our farmer profiles with Inverbrook Farm, a 10-year-old sustainable family farm run by Claire Murray who grew up in Chester County, went away to college and came home ready to spread her appreciation for locally grown, organic food.
Again, the images are all shot by photographer Carlos Alejandro, whose stunning photographs brought all the stories in our series to life.
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As a child, Claire Murray spent most Sunday dinners in West Grove at Inverbrook, her grandparent’s 100-acre property bought and named—Inverbrook means near a brook—by her great-grandfather in the 1930s.
By the time she was about 15-years-old, Murray and her family moved onto the idyllic tract of land with her grandparents, and Murray’s appetite for the outdoors continued to flourish.
This country girl savored the fresh air, sprawling grassland and garden-fresh vegetables her grandmother grew, and headed to Penn State a few years later where she majored in Environmental Resource Management.
It was at Penn State that Murray was first introduced to the CSA concept.
Immediately intrigued, she immersed herself in environmentalism, activism and nutrition, devouring new concepts along the way and eventually adding a minor in International Agriculture and then another in Science-Technology and Society.
“I felt like I’d found my community,” Murray says.
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A Portrait of our Farmers: Pete’s Produce Farm
By Margaret Gilmour
Second in our series on local farmers is Pete’s Produce Farm, overseen by Pete Flynn who has farmed Chester County fields for over 23-years. This consummate farmer, who has locals anticipating his nectarous corn each summer, has just taken on milling his own flour and corn meal, which makes buying locally sweeter than ever.
After Pete Flynn graduated with a degree in dairy science from Michigan State University, he naturally followed a path into the dairy industry and set out to launch his own dairy farm.
Flynn began his career as a dairy farmer in 1986, working in West Chester on the Jones’ farm, a 160-acre property which is now home to Rustin High School. He was three years into processing milk and caring for his cows when he discovered that he preferred growing corn.
In fact, he started growing the sweetest corn around and sold it at the end of his driveway to eager customers.
Flynn sold his cows in 1992, barely four months before the barn burned down after being struck by lightning. With good luck and agricultural sagacity in alignment, Flynn had already exchanged his livestock for a tractor, and established fields of delicious produce.
The same year he opened his first farm market where his cows once grazed, and sold the ripe-and-ready veggies to a growing crowd of grateful followers.
Flynn’s reputation for sweet corn grew like his harvest. So, when the Jones property sold to make way for the high school, Flynn approached Westtown school—just a mile down the road—about moving his produce stand to their site. (more…)
A Portrait of our Farmers: Sunnygirl Farm
By Margaret Gilmour
In 2007 there were over 1,733 farms in Chester County with an average size of just under 100 acres. Although a handful of these farms sell directly to consumers, their number has increased about 25 percent since 2002.
This is good news for locals interested in the food-to-land connection and supporting the Buy Fresh Buy Local movement.
We think knowing your local farmer is just as important as knowing where your ingredients come from. So, in the spirit of seasonally inspired cuisine, we spent some time talking to three local farmers about the current state of small farms, what they think the future holds for the industry and, just as important, what they do for fun. (The Proust Questionnaire and James Lipton, the host of the TV program Inside the Actors Studio, inspired many of our questions.)
The farmers we interviewed are a varied group of individuals: Mary Ann Petrillo and Jennifer Cully from Sunnygirl Farm in Kennett Square, Claire Murray from Inverbook Farm in West Grove, and Pete Flynn of Pete’s Produce in West Chester.
The first farm we profile in our series is Sunnygirl, the young–but wise–team of two (along with a couple of much-appreciated volunteers) harvesting their bounty in smallest fields of the bunch.
A special thanks to photographer Carlos Alejandro, who generously volunteered his time and talent to shoot the gorgeous photographs for the series.
Source: Buy Fresh Buy Local and Chris Fullerton, Director of Consumer Outreach at PASA.
Sunnygirl Farm
Mary Ann Petrillo, a native Delawarean, spent three-and-a-half years journeying all over the country for the right spot to start Sunnygirl Farm before snatching up 14-acres in Kennett Square. It was the pull of the land that kept her coming back for over a year before she decided to stay close to her roots and plant herself here. (more…)
A bit of Chester County Farming History
By Margaret Gilmour
Once again, Pennsylvania farmers are gearing up for the upcoming growing season. Not just firing up their tractors, but also launching discussions on soil fertility, crop yields and the latest technology, all topics farmers have followed since the beginning of time.
Even before William Penn created the three original Pennsylvania counties in 1682: Chester, Philadelphia and Bucks, this area’s fertile soil, ample rainfall and temperate climate destined agriculture to be the dominant industry.
The first farmers in Pennsylvania were Native Americans who planted corn, beans and squash. Later, immigrants brought their own farming traditions. We can thank the Germans for introducing oats and wheat among other things, and the Swiss for their basement-less barns made with a wide roof front and a wood and stone structure.
During the Colonial-era over half of all Pennsylvania residents lived on family farms, producing mainly potatoes, fruit, hay, wheat, corn, oats, rye and barley. Around 1698, Chester County opened its first farmer’s market, a simple set-up on a street corner in one of its towns.
By 1776, Pennsylvania’s agricultural economy had peaked and its well-kept farms and classic barns became icons depicted in images of the state from post cards to paintings, and the archetype for farms across the nation. With over 90 percent of its residents farming by 1790, Pennsylvania led the nation’s colonies in food production, feeding families across the country.
By the 18th-Century, this intensive farming took its toll on the once-fertile fields which were by then rapidly deteriorating. About that time, noted agriculturalist John Beale Bordley made Chester County his second home and purchased land west of Marshalltown in the mid-1790s, calling his estate Como Farm.
With over 90 percent of its residents farming by 1790, Pennsylvania led the colonies in food production, feeding families throughout the budding nation.
Como Farm became one of the first model farms where Bordley experimented with new farming techniques in an effort to reform methods currently in use. Bordley also helped found the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, advancing his campaign for more progressive, scientific approaches to farming like plant rotation, sowing soil building plants one year and more profitable crops the next.
By the 1850s, also in Chester County, Samuel Dickey and his entrepreneurial family built a rural community in the Hopewell Creek valley (Lower Oxford and E. Nottingham Townships), where they experimented with mechanized agriculture.
They began with horse and water-powered machinery at Hopewell Creek where they spun cotton and ultimately built a gristmill. The Dickeys eventually developed the whole valley including a schoolhouse, a chapel and a town store, while promoting their progressive farming process. Many buildings still exist today, preserved as an historic district.
Replacing simple tools and intense manual labor with mechanized threshers and harvesters was a welcome reprieve for many farmers. But too much production, too fast took its toll on the land and the rural families working hard to keep up with the times.
In fact, the early 18th-century marked the beginning of regional overproduction, with business-minded individuals fueling the Industrial Revolution in their attempt to maximize yields and efficiency in every way. The era affected all trades, notably farmers, who lost neighbors to thriving cities promising urban wealth and distinction.
By the late 20th-century, fast-farming, rising costs and suburban development drove many farmers out of business–-almost 58 percent in Pennsylvania in a span of 20 years. According to one study: “More than 170,000 Pennsylvanians left rural regions in the 1920s and more than 300,000 in the 1960s.”
Still, Pennsylvania continues to be America’s fourth largest producer of food products with dairy being the number one agricultural industry. Right here in Chester County, specialized farming includes mushroom growing in Avondale and Kennett Square.
We’re also enjoying a small, organic farm movement, shunning pesticide use and incorporating soil conservation and watershed management. This turn toward more responsible agriculture includes adopting methods of natural composting for disease prevention, and an emphasis of supporting our farmers by buying locally or participating in area CSAs (community supported agriculture).
According to Marilyn Anthony, Southeast Regional Director of PASA (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture): “There has been explosive growth in CSAs in Chester County alone,” she says. “In fact, I’m not aware of a CSA that doesn’t have a waiting list.”
In addition, Anthony points to a report produced by Penn State Cooperative in 2007 stating: “The number of farmers markets in the United States has increased significantly over the past decade. According to the USDA, there were 2,410 markets in 1996 and 4,386 in 2006, a growth of 182 percent. As this report will show, Southeast Pennsylvania has experienced a five-fold increase of farmers’ markets during this period.”
All this is good news for the farming industry and for locals wanting to eat fresh, locally produced goods. To locate a farm or farmer’s market near you, click here: Eat Local, and scroll down the list of resources. Chester County has a number of sustainable farms spread throughout the still-fertile land.
“There has been explosive growth in CSAs in Chester County alone,” she says. “In fact, I’m not aware of a CSA that doesn’t have a waiting list.”
CHESTER COUNTY FARMING FACTS:
PA State Program has preserved (through conservation easements) 231 farms in Chester County for a total of 22,104 acres.
There are 168,165 acres of farmland and 1,918 farms in Chester County according to the 2002 U. S. Census of Agriculture.
SOURCES: Chesco.org, explorepahistory.com, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Chester County Historical Society, Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture
