Hillary Harvey
Farming Up
After decades of working behind the scenes at restaurants like Le Cirque, Polo at the Westbury Hotel, Montrachet, and Bouley, Ray Bradley found himself drawn to growing his own food as well as businesses. For a time, he rented land, but in 2000 he started farming his own 27 acres on Springtown Road in New Paltz, raising pigs, chickens, heirloom organic vegetables, herbs, and honey. “We make good products,” he says. “I smoke and cure my own bacon, and people love it and buy it constantly. Value-added products are a great way to extend the season and be able to use the whole crop.” Besides the bacon, Bradley’s pickles, jams, and paprika are a big draw at the Grand Army Square Plaza and 97th Street greenmarkets. Not content to make do with his market presence and self-serve farm stand, Bradley invites the public to farm dinners, tastings, and festivals on his farm, at which he merges his agricultural and culinary skills. And he’s just acquired a farm brewer’s license, so next season’s visitors can look forward to homemade craft beverage. “A lot of people are doing it these days,” he says of the beer, “so we’ll see where that goes.” “As long as people come see us on weekends and have a good time, I’m happy,” says Bradley. “It’s a ton of work but also a ton of fun; everyone who comes here enjoys it. And now I’m doing it for me, not working for someone else.” RayBradleyFarm.com
For Miles Crettien, Verticulture Farms is a union of passions: ag science and food activism. “I’ve been farming and working with plants and food for the last 15 years—every job has had something to do with food and food production. It’s what I’m passionate about,” he says. It’s an educated passion: Crettien came to New York City from New England by way of Ithaca and Bard Colleges. “I was considering a doctorate in ethnobotany; then I spent the summer in a Cornell genetics lab and realized I’m way too much of a people person,” he says. “I thrive in community settings; I love making a social impact around food.” Crettien moved to the city in 2010 with a job teaching urban agriculture at a nonprofit organization; further study led him to fall in love with the concepts of vertical farming and aquaponics (a method of raising fish and veggies so that each nourishes the other in a selfcontained system) and launched Verticulture two years later, using crowdfunding and a microloan. Now, from the rooftop of the old Pfizer manufacturing building in Brooklyn, Verticulture produces and sells 500 clamshells of basil (Thai and Genovese), spearmint, and arugula every week to markets, co-ops (including Bushwick and Park Slope), and restaurants. Next comes expansion. “The main purpose of the current farm was to test a model that we could replicate at scale with better materials,” Crettien says. “We have a small, profitable operation, and while running it we’re constantly testing: state-of-the-art LED lights, in-house monitoring system, bed design, filtration. We really bootstrapped this. And we’ll keep on building everything in-house to maximize value.” VerticultureFarms.com u
Above: New Paltz farmer extraordinaire Ray Bradley works one of his fields. Right: At the top of the former Pfizer manufacturing building in Brooklyn, Verticulture’s Miles Crettien inspects a basil bed irrigated by fish water.
Pamela Pasco
doing It His Way
find these small-batch products at
upstater.com/bite-sized-foodies WINTER 2016/17
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