The document provides stories about students and interns who have worked on Bittersweet Farm. It describes how some students came with fears of farming activities but grew to enjoy their experiences, like Rolando who was afraid of dirt but later worked in the pigpen. It also shares how the farm educates students about the realities of farming through hands-on work, like Madeline who was uncomfortable birthing piglets but later appreciated her time on the farm. The farm aims to teach students about food production and building a sustainable future through community-based learning.

1. Food for Thought
NOFA NY Organic Farmer of the Year 2014
Keynote Address
Wow, thank you and welcome.
I have been asked to bore you for no more than fifty minutes, so
what is to follow is the Reader’s Digest version of our story. Some of us
can be seen in the slide show behind me. Note that there are humans in
our eco-system.
We are more than just a producer of food. We are Bittersweet
Farm, a small – scale diversified organic agricultural enterprise wholly
committed to sharing. I personally aspire to someday knowing enough
to be a farma, in the meantime I have settled on being a small –scale
local, diversified organic agricultural entrepreneur. We share. Sharing is
Caring. We belong to a nutritionally rich education sharing community.
Community starts with community organizers. You my
friends/comrades will be richly rewarded as organizers within the
organic community. Affluent, privatized societies are not sustainable,
and are not challenged to contribute to community.
In 1896 William Jennings Bryan said
“Burn down your cities but leave our farms and your cities will
spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will
grow in the streets of every city in the country.”
Has anyone seen Detroit Michigan lately? Under the current
economic system Detroit may indeed be bankrupt, but it, like many
cities, towns, and villages here in New York, Vermont, and all of New
England, is on the very edge of the future. It is being rebuilt from the
soil up into small – scale, local, diversified, organic communities.
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2. Groups like Farm Fresh Rhode Island, North Country Grown
Cooperative, and Finger Lakes Organics are making it happen. In
Flushing Queens, the John Browne High School contains the only
department of agriculture in the New York City School System and
Steve Perry, the assistant principal of agriculture, is looking for farms
where their students can get hands on experience. This IS the future of
agriculture.
Food is, for lack of a better word, IMPORTANT. And small scale,
local organic agricultural entrepreneurs are very important people. Very
Important People. I declare all of us VIPs.
As such we must share all of our mistakes, missteps, failures, pain,
suffering, knowledge, successes and, our seeds.
We must preserve the knowledge of the past and plant the seeds of
our future. The following is a quote that I think speaks to sustainability.
Though it seems counterintuitive, it is a truism.
“All we really have is that which we give away.”
My friend Dan Kehleher, (who for 35 years has been breeding and
saving corn seed that I call Kehleher corn), had been in the habit of
sharing much of his seeds with others. At one point in his life, fire
destroyed his seed shed and all his saved seed within it. Shortly after the
fire, friends returned seed they had received from Dan and had
propagated. He now had only the seed which he himself had given
away.
Hi, my name is Brian Bennett and amazingly I was selected as the
2014 NOFA-NY Farmer of the Year. How that happened I do not
understand.
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3. If you actually saw my farm, it is likely you would not understand
it either. So why am I here? I am here to share. To share my story with
you.
I was born on a dark and stormy night in 1958 – ok I don’t have
time to relive over 50 years here so, briefly, my mother, thanks Mom,
was raised on a farm in Indiana. She always told horror stories about
picking lima beans, peas, weeding, being chased by turkeys, dogs, pigs –
having to pick up pigs by their ears. She hated the dirt and said that one
day one of her kids would grow up to become a farmer just to spite her.
So at age 11 I volunteered, and someday I may grow up, but today I
have been officially selected as a faamaa.
At age 11 I began to make my farm plan. With help from the
Encyclopedia Britannica and Rodale’s Organic Gardening and Farming
magazines I wrote; “ I will own a 130 acre farm and have a Ford 601
Workmaster, Horned Dorset sheep, White geese, Shetland sheep dogs,
Suffolk Punch horses, and Jersey cows. “ With many false starts I
moved toward a future of food production. I had a garden, then an
organic garden. I worked on large corn/soy farms in Indiana; I received
a 2 year degree in bookkeeping. I attended a Real Ag school for one
year where I quickly realized I did not want to be a Real Agricultural
Engineer. So as we all know, in order to be a small – scale diversified
agricultural entrepreneur we must first get a Bachelor of Fine Arts
degree from a prestigious Art College. After my wife and I received our
BFAs we were prepared to get our Masters of Fine Arts, or buy a farm.
We realized that an MFA was probably a lot easier, but I was quite
depressed by the idea, and it was way more expensive than buying a
farm. So while my sister Sandy handled less than easy questions as to
why I turned down a scholarship to the Maryland Institute of Art, my
wife Ann and I pursued my dream of farming. We bought a small farm
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4. in West Baldwin, Maine, where we were quickly given horned dorset
sheep by Dr. Hussey our veterinarian. A Ford 601 Workmaster came
our way when somehow, as if by magic, my employer had the
opportunity to buy a nice barely used John Deere tractor, but there was
an old tractor stuck in front of it. He told me if I could remove the old
junk tractor I could have it. Well this old tractor turned out to simply be
a dust covered Workmaster that started right up. I took it home and we
immediately used it to fit our 1 tillable acre. White Geese and a job
milking Jersey cows came along. While we both worked full time city
jobs off farm, as well as part time jobs, with the help of MOFGA (Maine
Organic Farmers Growers Association) we began to pour every penny
we could into building my dream while my wife mostly cried. After 15
years of no central heat, frozen water, rocky ground, we got central heat,
a master bedroom with a beautiful bathroom and a big barn. So I used
the master bath once, never slept in the master bedroom and had one
winter with central heat.
Then, American Broadcast Corporation came and bought land
adjacent to ours. We fought construction of the worlds’ tallest television
transmission tower on land directly between our small farm and
Briarcliff Farm where I milked Jersey cows. The tower was only 1000
feet from our farm and started at 1million 365 thousand watts of
electromagnetic radiation that was supposed to be safe and allow us to
watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island. We moved.
The owner of Briarcliff Farms had been giving us back copies of a
magazine called “Farming”. It was printed in St. Lawrence County and
in the back there were ads from many realtors, such as 200 acre-farm,
cows and equipment included – turnkey operation - $50,000 etc. Well
Henri Black told me the only place we would be able to farm was St.
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5. Lawrence County. So, unable to resist the allure of the sub tropical
farming conditions of St. Lawrence County, we headed west.
We moved to our present home at the peak of January weather,
with no bathroom, no plumbing, and no viable heating system – nothing
but a dump of a house on beautiful land in Heuvelton, NY where my
amazing, patient wife began to cry all over again.
The move was bittersweet.
That’s the past. In order to arrive in the future we must plant the seeds
now. So presently Bittersweet Farm engages young people in the
vagaries of food production. Some of the people we work with come
from Saint Lawrence University, Clarkson University, State University
of New York Potsdam, SUNY Canton, the Youth Advocacy Program,
Worldwide Workers on Organic Farms, interns, the DayCare Center,
BOCES, Community Supported Agriculture members, neighbors and
family. We believe that the education we provide, reinforces the
concept of caring through sharing, seeding the future in a way that helps
others to gain some freedom through knowledge and experience.
Community Based Learning has provided us with Food For Thought,
Making a Difference, American Soils, and Having an Impact. We
thoroughly detail to young people, the requirements of surviving in an
amazing array of weather conditions. Doing chores at 4AM often times
requires 3 pairs of socks, long johns, 2 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, sweat
shirt and sweater, wool cap and gloves, but then again by 11am the
students may find themselves working in the High Tunnel at 90 degrees
and bright sun with high humidity. Still the students arrive in shorts and
sneakers in February, to do woods work at 10 degrees, and with 6” of
snow on the ground.
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6. We look to the agricultural traditions of the past to build a
diverse and sustainable future. One in which the community is left to
the next generation better than we found it.
So let me tell you some stories, keeping in mind Wendell Berry,
with whom I identify.
“I am a man crude as any, gross of speech, intolerant, stubborn,
angry, full of fits and furies. That I may have spoken well at times is not
natural. A wonder is what it is.”
I changed some of the names to protect myself and the innocent.
Mike, Ben, Corey, and RJ had been coming to the farm for a
couple of years. After having read the Foxfire books, The Whole Earth
Catalogs and my copy of the Little House on the Prairie series they
decided to build a real log cabin. Their parents paid for an antique
crosscut saw and double bit axes.
With the help of my oxen Beave and Judd they built a beautiful 6
foot X 10 foot X 5 foot high log cabin with cracks in the walls that are
wide enough for the owls to roost comfortably. It was a learning
experience that now works as a pen for our boar. They call it the Hog
Log House. With this wealth of experience they set out to build a 36
foot X 40 foot student center. As you will see pictures of this 12 foot X
26 foot rustic log cabin, they made amazing strides in a short time
period, but fell short of their goal. Do not let perfection be the enemy of
the good enough, and when building a log cabin always remember A2 +
B2 = C2 as well as Archimedes and his fulcrum.
This rustic log cabin with a wood cook stove, heat, and solar power
has opened up a whole new world called Friends of Bittersweet Farm. It
has been used by the Locavore class, Girl Scouts, Board of Cooperative
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7. Education Services, interns, WWOOFERs, students, hunters, Sister
Bethany and her retreats. It has made it possible for Lisa, John, Kelly,
Betsy and others to have their own space for the few hours per night
they are not required to work.
Let me tell you about Rolando. Born and raised in New York City
he is/was a self proclaimed germophobe. He would come into the house
wash his hands then wash the doorknob off to go back outside then
promptly turn around, go back into the house and wash his hands again.
We started him out slowly digging carrots but he was totally
freaked out by the fact that there was dirt on the carrots – this was going
to be tough. After many class hours he decided to introduce us to his
girlfriend Skye. She was totally the opposite – a Vermont country girl.
While I do not know the exact details as to how it happened – I came
outside to see Rolando in the pigpen completely covered in more than
just mud. I was afraid that there may be a real crisis, instead he was
laughing and thoroughly relaxed and enjoying himself and his girlfriend.
After that day he came out regularly until graduation. After graduation
Rolando tried working in finance in the city, then called us to tell us he
joined the Marines and found that his experience on the farm made his
boot camp experience very easy, pleasant and clean by comparison.
Since that time many young farmers have considered a week at
Bittersweet Farm like Marine Boot Camp.
Madeline arrived in an expensive looking red sports car. She was
dressed in her farm clothes, you know, $500 leather jacket, the best LL
Bean pants, and high healed boots, ready to engage in a full immersion
experience. She explained that her family owned a farm in California
and a house in Connecticut. The farm in California was a small
vineyard, one that gave her the experience of looking out the window
and watching the 100s of migrant farm workers pick grapes. So, well
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8. experienced in all that farming offers, and dressed in her high heeled,
suede work boots we immediately introduced her to a 300 pound sow
that was giving birth in less than ideal conditions. It was cold, wet and
stinking of manure and after birth. Madeline looked petrified as she
knelt down beside Sassafras and did her best to warm two new born
piglets while not throwing up. To make a long story short – she is
required to keep a journal – the story she wrote in the journal was far
from flattering – she wrote how gross it was, she hated it, it stunk, and
she was scared to death. People should not live like this. So at Saint
Lawrence University the seniors have something called Senior Week in
which they are free to party or do whatever they please for 5 days prior
to graduation. So what did Madeline do? She showed up on our farm
first thing Monday morning, (Ok it was 9AM give her a break), she
worked with us everyday of her free week on our “real” farm. At the
end of which she told us how terrific the experience was.
Stella arrived with her 12 member First Year Program as expected.
When I asked the group if anyone had any fears, concerns or issues,
Stella volunteered that she was scared to death of horses and hated large
animals. Therefore I made Stella our horse person for the semester.
Needless to say it was a very, very rocky start for Stella and our horse,
Pearl. However, by the end of the semester this young woman
harnessed Pearl, skidded logs from the woods, rode standing on the
bobsled and had the confidence of a seasoned teamster. In her journal
she wrote it was the BEST, worst experience she had ever had.
I was not aware of any family issues big Jess was having during
the time he was at Bittersweet. Jess was on the 0 and 10 football team
and found himself doing community service on our farm. Apparently he
enjoyed his punishment because he convinced his advisor to place him
in full credit classes on our farm for two semesters. He worked his butt
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9. off in the woods and started construction of Ann’s shoot house, (the
video of which he put on You Tube). He came back to Saint Lawrence
University after graduation for the Home Coming of the 4 and 0
freshmen team. There he grilled the First Year Program kids not about
football but about our farm. Was the shoot house done? Would it be
done before winter? How come you haven’t spent more time there?
I have way more to say about Nicole, but I will start by simply
calling her amazing. Based primarily on my bias and prejudices I
thought this 21 year old sorority girl would wither, die, and be devoured
by pigs at Bittersweet Farm. Well, was I wrong! The first time she
came out I thought she was dressed like a typical sorority sister, (is there
such a creature anymore?), ready to go shopping after her beauty
treatment. So naturally I put her in the pig field with 5 sows, 1 boar and
6 SUNY Potsdam boys. It was cold, the field was flooded, the electric
fence was down and the sows were in heat. A nice quiet, easy day on
the farm. She immediately stepped up and pounded in cedar posts,
distracted and sorted pigs, ran page wire, all while dressed in an outfit
more expensive than all my clothes, and more suited to Rodeo Drive
than a pig pen. As it turns out, this 18 year old sophomore had never
been on any farm before and was amazing. She has been back three
times since, once as, what I wrongly thought, the leader of 16 of her
sorority sisters. (A few of which were real sorority girls, like You have
spiders!) My dear, wonderful friend, Mary Hussman is one of Nicole’s
professors and shared with me how Nicole’s new found passion is as a
locavore, convinced of the efficacy of preserving old ways and
establishing a community of small scale, diversified Farmers of the
Future.
Is this seeding the future? I believe it is.
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10. Maddy was quiet and reserved the entire semester at the farm,
competent but lacking confidence. One day her and her mother had
arrived, and while I was talking and giving a tour to Mom they
announced that I had convinced Maddy to dropout of an ‘all expense
paid’ education at a prestigious liberal arts college and become an
unpaid, overworked WWOOFER! Now wait a minute Mom – that was
not my intent. But Mom’s eyes lit up, she hugged me, thanked me and
said that if she had had the same confidence building experience that we
gave her daughter, she would be a WWOOFER today. Maddy
WWOOFs in many states out west and emails us from time to time
reminding us of things she learned while here.
Erin and I come from very different planets and developed a
system by which if she was sick of me talking she would make the sign
of the cross in front of me. This meant I was to shut up.
As well, if I were picking in the greenhouse and talking to myself
alone for 2 hours, because early to Erin was 6:30am, she would quietly
go one row behind me and begin her work of the day while never
interrupting my conversation with myself. She started out not knowing
much about greens production. When she left, she went to a very small
farm in New Zealand that produced greens for a niche market. The
young couple she worked for was very surprised and pleased as Erin was
the first WWOOFER they had that knew of mizuna and minutina, ruby
streaks and golden streaks, what to do with lambs quarter and wild
mustard, how to plant, tend, harvest, wash, pack, present and use many
different greens. She received the ‘I Survived Bittersweet Farm’ T-shirt.
After her stay in New Zealand she presented me with a book of
poems by Wendell Berry, titled The Mad Farmer Poems. In it she
wrote:
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11. “To Brian, the best MAD farmer I know. “
Either she doesn’t know any other farmers or she sees me for how insane
I really am.
We often see that having help is not very helpful. One intern was
adamant that she had lived with the indigenous people of Peru, but after
having encountered a mouse in the cabin and a garden snake in the bean
row, she insisted that we put her up in a hotel because in her home on
the 83rd floor of an apartment building, there were no cockroaches nor
rats in the upper East Side.
After Hector drove the tractor through the new fence, after the
$489.00 chainsaw had to be replaced, after the nightshades were found
in the salad prepared by our young farmers, after not one, but two baby
chicks were stepped on, after many thousands of dollars of losses, we
continue on our exciting endeavor. I make mistakes every day. I
encourage our young farmers to make every mistake they can, at our
expense, because it is not their mistake until they make it. To make it to
the future we must all free ourselves to learn from our missteps,
mistakes and inexperience. Some farmers farm for 30 years but have
only 1 year of experience.
Unlike some of the Confined Animal Feeding Operations who
send buses to the Mexican border and haul back immigrants who are
paid $12.00 per hour, work 16 hours per day, 6 days per week and can
not leave the CAFO for 3 years, we employ subtle tactics of persuasion,
using promises of great food and lots of fresh air, to ensnare
inexperienced, unknowing, young people to work from 5am to 11pm,
365 days a year, for no pay, in miserable conditions, and shortly after
they do escape us, with tears in their eyes – they willingly return for
more. Can the future really be seen without tears in our eyes?
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12. Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been quoted as having said;
“A nation that destroys its’ soils, destroys itself. Forests are the
lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our
people.”
I would like to add that the meadows and edges that purify our water
may hold answers to future sustainable food production. Feed the soil
first, then feed yourself and all those who hunger to learn.
The Earth is all any generation has. Today we must recognize that
the earth has limits to our pillaging. As contemporary food producers
we must realize that we are working with ancient life forms that deserve
care, respect and reverence. Everything is connected. Look for
connections, relationships, expect, demand, embrace and cherish
diversity in everything. Everything a farmer does effects her, her
family, her neighbors, her community and our Mother. The future
belongs to those who nurture. All of life really is connected (have you
ever heard of the six degrees of separation?) We are all connected. It is
all about our relationship with the soil, the seeds, the plants, our family,
our friends, neighbors, our community.
As stewards of the Earth, food producers must blend today’s
science with basic core values to create products that support the life
force in the soil, on the farm and in the community. Community starts
with community organizers. It is time now to build communities
through regenerative agricultural practices. Think permaculture,
perennial grains, biodynamics, heirloom varieties, heritage breeds,
young minds, and changing works. To be truly sustainable food
production must be valued and include many, many more very important
producers. The more people living and working in rural settings, the
more people there are to care for agriculture and the environment.
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13. Joel Salatin has said; –“If land stewardship is to be done well it is
going to take more loving stewards on the land. It can not be done well
when we have (giant) driverless tractors run by GPS.”
Listen carefully to the words of Clarissa Pinkole Estes
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of
stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.
Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist
some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not
given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass
to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is
an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We
know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace,
but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first,
second, or hundredth gale.”
The opposite of poverty is justice.
Every word I repeated to you today, every quote I used, I used
because it adds real meaning to my life’s dream. I look to traditions of
the past to build a diverse and sustainable farming system. I
acknowledge my debt to my ancestors. First to the hunter-gatherers who
collected grubs and roots, hunted animals for food, and lived in tight knit
communities that set the stage for farming. I acknowledge my debt to
all of our ancestors who domesticated plants and animals by selecting
and saving seed, and breeding the most suited. By doing this we entered
into a symbiotic relationship with these plants and animals that
benefitted both us and them and in the process changed the landscape of
Earth.
If we are truly “investing” in the future, none of us will have
excess. We all will have just enough. Small is beautiful. We only have
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14. that which we give away. We share. Sharing is caring. Look to the
edges for more answers.
I would like to give special thanks to;
Ann, Catherine and Carl Bennett
Alan, Sandy, Glen, Sherry, the Bennett Clan
Barbara and Marjorie Rowell
Erin Hannafin
Liza Wolfgang
Leah Larson
Mike Long
R.J. Moon
Brenda Papineau
Ben Prime
Corey Yager
George, Brooks, and Chase
Cochran
Krysia Korneski
Louise Gava
Julie Johnson
Yuske
Casimir
Karim
Taylor
Rebecca
Joan
Lettie
Oreane
Houston
Lydia
Emlyn
Olympia
Jiaweo
Nicole
Sher
Kevin
Jacek
Jessie
AJ
Logon
Mackenzie
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15. Sophie Mia Ellen
Dom Emma
Mary
Morgan
Lexi
Masanori Setto
Jenra
Patrick
Sarah
Brent
Jordan
Paul
Jacqui
Betsy
John and Kelly
Ad infinitum
Please look to the past, share in the now, for your farming future.
Thank you all. Good luck and God Speed.
THE END
Now, any questions?
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