At Greenane Farms, in the rural Delaware County Catskills, Patrick and Thanya Rider run a diverse farm, raising vegetables, berries, pasture-raised meats and garden plants, and making fresh food from their farm produce to sell at their farm store. They offer a CSA for members to buy shares of the year's produce, and also sell their products at their farm store in Meridale and at several local farmers' markets and stores.
In the video clip above, produced by Pure Catskills, the Riders talk about why farming matters to their family, and their community.
PATRICK RIDER: My name is Patrick Rider, and I own and operate Greenane Farms with my wife Thanya in Meredith, NY.
My wife is from Mexico City. I am an Irish-American by heritage, and we work hard to combine these two cultures into both how we produce food, how we process it and how we present it to our customers.
We farm because of a real driving need for us to provide wholesome, safe food for our family, and that’s really why we began farming.
As we got bigger we were able to produce more volume than we could consume, and it gave us the opportunity to share that food with our family and friends and neighbors. And before we know it, we actually had a business.
This is a family endeavor; this farming is really a way of life, not a career. The most rewarding part of farming for us is being able to spend time as a family. Spending that type of time together, spending time that we have with our now almost 2-year-old daughter every day and watching her grow up, is very special, and that’s really what makes it worthwhile for us.
THANYA RIDER: Here at the store we prepare jams, jellies, pies. We do empanadas, we do tamales. In Mexico we’re so used to having fresh food. So, here for me to have fresh food is really important. So, I really want to have fresh food, and prepare fresh meals and have good quality food. And people like our food, our Mexican style. It’s really nice and it makes me feel really good. It makes me feel like I want to produce more things and do more things for people.
PATRICK RIDER: Bringing together different cultures and ideologies allow us to provide and produce a product that’s just a little bit different, just a little bit special.
I hope that people understand that the type of care that and dedication that that requires takes a lot more effort on our part, and it costs a lot more money. And we hope that our customers will understand that because things cost so much more for us to develop and grow and raise, that they can understand why the products we offer also cost a bit more money as well.
Pure Catskills is a regional, buy local campaign developed by the Watershed Agricultural Council.
