Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture is a non-profit farm and educational center with a partner restaurant, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, located in Westchester County, New York. The Center was created on 80 acres (320,000 m2) formerly belonging to the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills by David Rockefeller and his daughter, Peggy Dulany. It is dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture, local food, and community-supported agriculture. Its proximity to New York City allows people who primarily live in urban and suburban settings to experience a working farm.
Stone Barns Center is also home to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restaurant that offers guests contemporary cuisine using local ingredients, with an emphasis on produce from the Center's farm. Blue Hill staff also participate in the Center's education programs.
Stone Barns Center is a four-season operation, producing food even in deep winter in the minimally heated greenhouse.
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The land where Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture now sits was once part of the Rockefeller estate, which has existed in the Pocantico Hills area since the 1890s. The stone barns themselves were commissioned by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to be a dairy farm. [1] The complex fell into disuse during the 1950s, and was mainly used for storage. In the 1970s, agricultural activity resumed when David Rockefeller's wife Peggy began a successful cattle breeding operation.
Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture as it exists today was created by David Rockefeller, his daughter, Peggy Dulany, and their associate James Ford as a memorial for Peggy Rockefeller, who died in 1996. [2]. Stone Barns Center opened to the public in May 2004.
The farm at Stone Barns Center is a four-season operation with approximately 6 acres (24,000 m2) used for vegetable production. It serves as an educational resource by illustrating land use that is environmentally, economically and culturally sustainable. The farmers use an intensively managed six-year rotation schedule in the field and greenhouse beds, preserving the soil and locking in important nutrients.
The farm grows 200 varieties of produce year-round, both in the outdoor fields and gardens and in the 22,000-square-foot (2,000 m2) minimally heated greenhouse that capitalizes on each season’s available sunlight. Among the crops suitable for the local soil and climate are rare varieties such as celtuce, suiho, hakurei turnips, New England Eight-Row Flint seed corn and finale fennel. The highly diversified crops allows farmers to hedge their bets against poor weather.
The farmers use no pesticides, herbicides or chemical additives. The primary amendment to the soil is a highly nutritious compost, often referred to as "black gold," made from leaves, grass clippings, livestock manure and hay, and the restaurant’s kitchen scraps. A six-month composting cycle that uses natural biological heat processes, reduces the weed and pathogen contamination to produce a fertilizer key to the health of the farm.[3]
Stone Barns Center raises chickens, turkeys, geese, sheep, pigs and bees suited to the local ecosystem. The livestock farmers try to raise animals in a manner consistent with the animals' evolutionary instincts. The chickens, turkeys, sheep and geese are raised on pasture that’s kept healthy and productive through carefully managed rotational grazing. Grazing animals will contentedly spread their manure if they’re kept on the move with the help of portable waterers, portable fencing and other structures. The sheep and pigs’ bedding packs are regularly turned and composted. Farmers who raise animals in this fashion are frequently called “grass farmers” because there is so much emphasis on the health of the pastures.
Strategies for maintaining the pastures include intensive paddock management so the grazed area has ample time to recover and provide a natural refuge for birds and other wildlife, essential for the maintenance of ecological balance.
In spring of 2004, Blue Hill at Stone Barns opened within the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York.
Sourcing from the surrounding fields and pasture, as well as other local farms, Blue Hill at Stone Barns highlights the abundant resources of the Hudson Valley. Its head chef and owner is Dan Barber, who also owns Blue Hill Restaurant in New York City.
An episode of Top Chef was filmed at Stone Barns Center. The chefs used the restaurant's kitchen to prepare a meal for the farm's workers and their families.