WHAT WE DO
For us, a diet made up entirely of whole food, in season, and in abundance, is normal, not the exception. There are no highly processed foods in our share. No ingredients that you can’t pronounce. No fillers, preservatives, nor artificial colors. We do our best to keep packaging at a minimum, and the plastic we do use is BPA free. Your eye will need to adjust to the lack of splashy colors and persuasive marketing text. What we provide is just good food, custom-grown and harvested for you, delivered straight from the dirt. It is simple, and it is revolutionary.
Essex Farm uses solar and horse-powered equipment whenever practical. Essex Farm considers many factors when determining the appropriate equipment for a job. Among these are a commitment to alternative energy, weather conditions, and soil compaction. When trained personnel are available and conditions are appropriate, draft horses are used to haul firewood, maintain and prepare fields, plant and harvest crops, and collect maple sap from our sugar bush.
OUR COMMUNITY
Farming is a community effort and we look forward to enabling our CSA program to support other farms that live up to our standards of sustainability. We envision the Champlain Valley as the birthplace of a new generation of sustainable agriculture. We foresee a future where farms power themselves, their communities and the world. In 15 years of operating the farm, we have trained and mentored over 50 beginning farmers who have started more than 12 new farms to date. In 2012, Essex Farm Institute began as a formalization of the success of Essex Farm in training new farmers. Read more about the institute by clicking on their logo below.
OUR STORY
“When I met Mark in 2002, he was farming in central Pennsylvania, and I was living in Manhattan. I loved my city life. But frankly, he seduced me with the food. I married him, and we built this unique farm together, on the good soil and clean water of an Adirondack valley. The share is based on Mark’s dream to produce everything that he wanted to eat, in the most responsible way possible.” ~Kristin Kimball
Mark graduated from Swarthmore College with a self-directed degree in Agricultural Science. He has been farming for over 20 years, and has traveled across the country and around the world in search of a truly sustainable, diversified farm. Kristin graduated from Harvard University and worked as a writer and editor based in New York City before meeting Mark.
Kristin’s memoirs, The Dirty Life (2010) and Good Husbandry (2019) chronicle both Essex Farm’s history and the Kimball family’s start in rural Upstate New York.
You can visit her author website at kristinkimball.com
