Farms

Farms are part of the Hudson Valley’s DNA. 

The first stewards of these lands — Indigenous peoples like the Munsee Lenape, the Mohican, the Wappinger, the Schaghticoke, and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) — relied on the land for sustenance. They grew crops like corn, climbing beans, squash, pumpkins, and sunchokes, and foraged for wild foods like blueberries and cranberries. Today’s regenerative agriculture practices are inspired and informed by their ancestral cultivation methods, such as interplanting and maximizing the variety of crops to promote soil health and conserve water. 

During the American Revolution, the Hudson Valley was the breadbasket of the 13 colonies, drawing on the region’s fertile valleys and shipping access on the Hudson River. 

Today, the valley’s family farms — some of which date back three centuries — feed local residents and are also part of New York City’s “foodshed.” Like a watershed, which outlines how water drains into a specific geographic area, a foodshed illustrates where a region’s food supply originates and where it goes. 

To meet the growing demand for fresh, local food, Scenic Hudson partners with farmers to conserve their fields, orchards, and other natural resources. This enables farmers to grow their operations, sustains the agricultural economies of rural communities, supports the growing agri-tourism and farm-to-table movements, and maintains an essential part of our region’s heritage and scenic beauty. We depend on support from fellow land trusts, as well as state and federal funding, to achieve these successes for the valley. 

Since 1992, we have conserved over 23,000 acres on more than 153 farms in eight counties. We pioneered a “critical mass” approach — conserving clusters of farms in communities whose prosperity depends on agriculture. This effort has put more than $83 million into the hands of Hudson Valley farmers. Learn more about the Farms and Food for Life initiative here. 

In addition, we developed an innovative, collaborative strategy — a Foodshed Conservation Plan — to ramp up farmland conservation in the region, which is critical for meeting the growing demand for fresh, healthy food. We’re also continuously exploring ways to encourage farmers across the valley to embrace regenerative agriculture — methods that not only reduce a farm’s carbon footprint, but make its soils more productive and climate-resilient. 

Learn more about this type of farming and how we’re supporting it in our report, The Climate-Resilient Agriculture Initiative: Cultivating Climate Solutions in the Hudson Valley.