CRAFT Farm Profile: West Haven Farm

THE FARMERS

• John and Jen started West Haven Farm in 1992. Jen now works full time off-farm, and the daily work and management decisions are made by John and Todd.

• West Haven employs about 5 seasonal employees and 2 interns and a part-time office worker in addition to John and Todd, who work full-time year-round. Harvest help is also provided by 25 CSA working shares.

• In addition to John and Jen, West Haven’s owners include a group of partners who’ve formed an LLC. The LLC is working on how to create an ownership stake for Todd.

• John and Jen didn’t come from farming families, we learned about farming through school (a little), interning (a lot), and having our own farm (a whole lot). Todd learned about farming on-the-job at West Haven.

THE FARM

• West Haven grows a wide array of annual vegetable crops, tree fruit (apples and stone fruit), and strawberries. We also produce seedlings for sale, and greens year-round for market. Nathaniel Bokaer-Smith (age 12) manages a small chicken flock and sells the eggs. West Haven also grows flowers, mostly u-pick for the CSA.

• We have 10 fenced-in acres for our vegetables and fruit.

• Infrastructure: One barn/packing shed, 1 fancy 30x96 greenhouse (natural gas with super efficient boiler, moveable benches with heated water tubes, in-ground beds with bottom heat, mechanized auto peak-vent), three 18x96 unheated hoophouses, 2 big coolers (one for fruit, one for veg), big 20x30 party tent for downtown CSA pick-up, 1 old bunker silo for storage, 1-acre irrigation pond, municipal water for produce washing, 1 groovy composting toilet/camera obscura.

• Mechanization: 43HP Kubota tractor, 1 Allis Chalmers G, 1 big old on-farm truck, 1 box truck for delivering produce/seedlings to market and CSA.

• We crop intensively, sometimes growing two crops on the same ground in one year. We undersow cover crops whenever possible, and use straw mulch extensively.

MARKETS

• We have about 250 CSA shares (end-of-May through beginning-of-November), and also sell produce on Saturdays at the Ithaca Farmers’ Market (April-February).

• About 60% of the food we produce goes to the CSA, 40% goes to the farmers’ market.

• Excess produce from West Haven Farm is distributed to local food pantries each week.

• Sometimes people think of West Haven as an “EcoVillage” farm; actually, we grow much more that EcoVillage can use. About 25 CSA shares to go people who live at EcoVillage, and we supply the neighborhoods with some winter storage crops.

FINANCIAL ASPECTS

• Jen, John, and the partners in the LLC have invested a total of approximately $200,000 in West Haven Farm.

• We have used debt financing selectively for specific projects, such as building the barn, buying a new truck, and buying the greenhouse. The CSA model helps us stay in positive cash flow for most of the season, though we often need to access a line of credit to cover operating expenses during mid-summer months when the CSA money has been spent, labor expenses are high, and fall crops haven’t gone to market yet.

• West Haven has always “broken even;” but doing so often meant not paying ourselves very much in the early years of the farm.

• There are currently five full-time and four part-time employees, including John and Todd.

• Both John and Todd have partners who work off the farm.

• John has health insurance from Jen’s job. West Haven pays for basic health insurance for Todd and cost-shares insurance with other employees and interns depending on how many hours they work and the length of their employment.

WORDS OF WISDOM FOR THE BEGINNING FARMER?

• Treat your farm like a business from the start.

• Know that there are only so many years during which you can substitute unreasonably difficult work for the right equipment

• Build a community of support around you, and make your farm a part of the community.