Founded in 2014 by millennial first-generation farmers who met through the international WWOOF network, Unadilla Community Farm is an off-grid fruit & vegetable farm and non-profit permaculture education center, situated on 11 acres of field and forest in West Edmeston, in central New York State. The Unadilla River, which runs alongside our farm, gets its name from the indigenous Oneidan word for “a meeting place.” And at its very core, Unadilla Community Farm is just that – a place for people to come together, learn valuable skills from one another, and celebrate our togetherness with each other and with the natural world.
Our mission is to provide a space for the teaching and practice of sustainable skills.
This is what Unadilla Community Farm is all about, on the most basic level. The farm provides a space where we can pour our creative energies and manifest our common vision of a sustainable community free from the stresses of mainstream society, where we can participate in and learn about an alternative way of life.
Unadilla Community Farm is more than a farm, it’s a place where we can all grow as individuals. It’s a place for sharing knowledge through the products we offer, and through events, workshops, and our internship program. It gives us the opportunity to put our skills into practice, to develop a way of life that resonates with our ideals. This way we’re always experimenting, always learning, and through our example we’re teaching others as well.
Sustainability is our common ideal, guiding us in all of our actions. It’s the ability to look beyond our immediate desires, to look deeper inside ourselves, farther into the future, and consider the long-term implications of our actions. Our main concern is the enduring well-being of everyone and everything on the planet. What our work is all about is developing and sharing skills that move us towards this ideal. Whether we’re developing skills related to off-grid homesteading, organic farming, natural building, artisanal crafts, or holistic health, sustainability is the common ideal.
Our work centers on providing education and training in sustainable agriculture and natural building, and providing access to fresh produce for low-income and low-access communities.
We are showcasing a range of cutting-edge sustainable agriculture practices. Our off-grid center grows 200+ varieties of annual and perennial cold-hardy fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, and herbs. We are regenerating the land after decades of conventional monocropping, transforming an abandoned corn field into an edible food forest. As a member of USDA’s Conservation Stewardship Program and the first Otsego County recipient of New York State’s Climate Resilient Farming program, we showcase a diversity of USDA NRCS recommended conservation practices, such as rainwater collection, multi-story and alley cropping, no-till management, wildlife habitat planting, heavy mulching, on-site composting, crop rotation, and high tunnels.
Founded in 2014, Unadilla Community Farm Education Center Inc became incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in 2020.
Unadilla Community Farm is a co-founder & co-organizer of the Leatherstocking Farmers Network, which consists of over 60 members representing farmers, ranchers, food business owners, and ag agencies in the Greater Otsego “Leatherstocking” Region of New York (within a ~50 mile radius of Cooperstown).
Additionally, Unadilla Community Farm is represented by our board and staff on a number of agricultural advisory committees in the region, including:
Nina Buxenbaum was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY to a politically active, multi-racial household. She received her MFA degree in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in drawing and printmaking. Ms. Buxenbaum has been an artist and educator for her entire career. First certified as a K-12 Art teacher in New York, she has been teaching at the college level since 2001. She is a Tenured Professor of Painting at York College, CUNY as well as a member, and current faculty, at The Silvermine Artist Guild in New Canaan, CT, and Adjunct Art Faculty at Western Connecticut State University. As an exhibiting professional artist Ms. Buxenbaum has participated in residencies at the Cité Interational des Artes in Paris, France, the Skowhegan School of Painting in Skowhegan Maine, The Artists Alliance in New York, the Byrdcliffe Artist In Residence, NY, The Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, and The Hambidge Center for The Arts in Rabin Gap, GA. Her work has been included in several exhibitions including the Studio Museum of Harlem (NYC, NY), Samson Projects (Boston, MA), the Kentler International Drawing Space (Brooklyn, NY), the Ingalls Gallery (Miami, FL), Rush Arts (NYC, NY), Stella Jones Gallery (New Orleans, LA), and Galerie Myrtis (Baltimore, MD). Her work has also been featured in the International Review of African American Art, and in an Emmy nominated documentary series entitled Shades of US. She and her husband, Roberto Zapata, have been building a Food Forest and hosting classes at their home and have begun a larger scale project at York College, in Jamaica, Queens.
Tianna has been farming in the Northern Catskills for over a decade. Currently, Tianna, Amanda Wong and Walter Riesen own and operate Star Route Farm, LLC. For the last few years, Star Route has transitioned our diversified vegetable and small grain farm into a Food Sovereignty project fundraising to grow food for and with local pantries and Food Justice Organizations in NYC. Concurrent with Star Route, Tianna also founded and manages THE 607 CSA, a 800+ person multi-farm Community Supported Agriculture Project supporting 42 farms in Otsego, Schoharie, and Delaware counties. Tianna sits on the Board of the Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship, the Watershed Ag Economic Viability Committee, and Congressman Delgado’s Agriculture Advisory Committee. She started the Catskills Chapter of the National Young Farmers’ Coalition. She is also a founding member of Delhi’s Bushel Collective and the Schooner Apollonia, a Hudson Valley Sail Freight venture.
When Greta's not out in the field or teaching a class on grassroots organizing, you can find her checking the farm's inbox, writing grants, updating our website, and doing all things admin. Prior to joining Unadilla Community Farm, Greta worked and WWOOFed at organic farms and vegan retreat centers across North America. She also previously worked as New York Organizer for Food & Water Watch, campaigning on issues related to fracking, genetically engineered foods, climate change, and the corporate control of our common resources. In addition to her current work with Unadilla Community Farm, she is the Organizing Director for World BEYOND War, a global anti-war non-profit.
Bari Zeiger is a young farmer and community organizer. Currently, Bari is the Director of Development and Administration at Providence Farm Collective, a Western NY organization centering the actualization of immigrant and refugee food sovereignty through nurturing access to farmland and fresh, culturally relevant foods alongside peer-to-peer education. Bari is the Farmer Representative of NE SARE's Administrative Council, as well as a grant reviewer for the New England Grassroots Fund. She has participated on the National Young Farmers Coalition Ad Hoc Federal Policy Setting Process Committee and currently acts on the Federal Policy Committee as the Women Affinity Representative. Bari is a member of the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute’s Board of Directors. While earning a degree in Philosophy and Environmental Studies at SUNY Geneseo, Bari interned on a local, certified organic family farm and engaged peers through organizing on-farm volunteer events and on-campus panel discussions related to sustainable food systems. In her final semester, she conducted a Directed Study on the role of structural violence in the U.S. migrant farm labor system, participated in grassroots activism as an ally for migrant dairy workers in Western NY, and co-founded the Student Coalition for Migrant Workers. After graduating in December 2016, Bari moved to the North Carolina Foothills to serve as an apprentice at A Way of Life Farm and was involved in all aspects of commercial, diversified vegetable, herb, and fruit production, as well as the silvopasture hog operation. Thereafter, Bari managed the farm at Frost Valley YMCA optimizing and expanding production, educational programs, and community relationships. In 2020, Bari began the process of building her own agricultural small business, Healing Poem Farm, in Java, NY, outside of the city of Buffalo.
A practitioner of permaculture and owner and manager of Let it Grow Landscapes, Vic Ziminsky creates and installs edible and ecological landscape design plans for community and home gardens. He became certified to practice permaculture design through the Center of Bioregional Living, in New York City. Let it Grow Landscapes is an Organic Landcare company, certified by NOFA-CT. Vic studies at the New York Botanical Gardens School of Horticulture and Landscape Design. He taught English in Chile and studied creative writing at Binghamton University. Vic has been practicing sustainable agriculture and permaculture, professionally as Let it Grow Landscapes, since 2014. Prior to that, with his family, he employed permaculture practices at their home garden. After becoming passionate about local, sustainable food production, he left a career in the financial industry to devote himself to caring for the land.and practiced farming, particularly as a volunteer for the Food Bank of Westchester. Currently, Vic works with individuals and organizations to better take care of nature, build community, and to realize a perennial return of bountiful food and beauty in our ecosystems.
Roberto Zapata: “Unadilla, the home where my heart grew. You held my hand through a tough transformation. Thank you!” Born in Norwalk, CT, Roberto Zapata is a first generation son of Mayra, from Costa Rica, and the late Roberto Zapata Sr., from Colombia. At a very young age Roberto learned how to work with his hands. He has had a long history of wood working and construction. Roberto is a passionate builder, designer, and creator. He apprenticed with an arborist for three years. During this time he learned rigging, SRT climbing, and proper tree pruning. He has independently pursued the study of tree, plant, and mushroom medicines. In 2015 Roberto started a community garden project, Meadows Garden Pride, in the public housing complex where he lived. Through the use of Hügelkultur he created garden beds that required no tilling, fertilizing, or irrigation, thus eliminating many inputs. From 2017-2018 Roberto led campers ages 8-18, and adults of all ages, in foraging, plant identification, and medicinal plant harvesting classes at Holmes Camp & Retreat Center. In 2018 he earned his permaculture certification. Roberto desires to restore land to a place of abundance, not just for people, but for all living beings. Roberto embraces diversity, letting go of ego, and aspires for all people to understand that we all are part of this ecosystem; that Planet Earth, and all the siblings, are our responsibility. Roberto believes in freeing ourselves to begin healing, and surrounds himself with others looking to provide this healing work, and more, for the land. La Jolie Journet is a mobile community outreach program that Roberto, along with Nina Buxenbaum, are currently building, and invite all those interested to link up.
Ben has over a decade of experience in permaculture design, sustainable housing, organic farming, and community development projects. He has worked with local governments, NGOs, non-profits, organic farms, and intentional communities in North America, Latin America and Europe, and teaches permaculture design certification courses, natural building workshops and organic farming seminars. You can read more about Ben's previous natural building projects on his blog, Ben's Natural Building.
Originally from Chicago, Madeleine has spent a lot of time working for local food policy organizations, urban agriculture efforts, community gardens, and small-scale organic farms in the Midwest and the East Coast. Madeleine recently graduated with a Masters in Social Anthropology, where she studied ethnobotanical understandings of apple grafting. She spent the last year in England, working for a fruit orchard, learning how to harvest seaweed, and being a farmhand on the coast of Cornwall. She loves long distance biking, running, making body oils and soaps, knitting scarves, hiking, and cold water swimming. Madeleine is from a big, Midwestern family and grew up road tripping around America with her Bernese Mountain Dogs.
Autumn was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. She left home in 2021 to travel the country learning and working on sustainable farms through WWOOF USA. This is how she discovered Unadilla and began working there as an intern in the summer of 2022. Her passion for regenerative agriculture goes hand-in-hand with a dedication to environmental, social, and climate justice. She is the hub coordinator and co-founder of Sunrise Charleston, a Sunrise Movement hub taking action to advocate for climate justice in the Lowcountry. Along with farming and activism, Autumn is a life-long lover of the arts. She has worked as a piano teacher, gigging musician, and in theater both on and offstage. She loves creating art, especially comics, and recently published a few zines being sold in stores in San Francisco, California. Autumn is thrilled to be back at Unadilla continuing her farming adventures.
Alyssa grew up in Indiana and had a strong passion for the outdoors from a young age. Her Quaker upbringing instilled her with nonviolence and justice centered values. Although she started to pursue a degree in Peace Studies she discovered early on that she needed to have her hands in the dirt. She spent 12 years working on organic farms and plant nurseries in the US and Europe before finding land in central NY to start her own farm. She expanded her plant propagation skills working as a horticulturist at a nature sanctuary and she now runs Wild Ginger Farm with her wife, Elizabeth, where they sell garlic, herbs, and potted native plants. Alyssa hopes to help integrate the native plant and regenerative farm movements in an effort to create vibrant ecological landscapes that benefit both people and wildlife.
Growing up as one of only two gay teenagers in her extremely conservative hometown of Ludowici, GA, Elizabeth wasted no time starting her own adventure fresh out of high school, hoping to learn as much as she could about the world around her. Although she has always had some sort of small backyard garden, Elizabeth has not always been a plant person. As far as she can remember, she's worked with and for our animal friends; starting at the age of 7 when she went to work with her mom at the local vet clinic and helped the doctor as much as she could, to her very first job at a local animal shelter, and now to her current position as a veterinary assistant. Her views on plants and farming evolved when she met her wife, Alyssa. Elizabeth learned so much about the plant world from helping her wife run their small farm that slowly but surely became an escape from the emotionally tolling and exhausting routine of the vet clinic. Elizabeth is excited to continue gaining experience in both vegetable farming and native plant propagation.
Through our holistic focus on teaching sustainable skills, we showcase a wide diversity of practices. Tying together all of these areas are: 1) ecological sustainability, meaning lessening our environmental footprint by growing food and producing goods in a way that enhances the natural ecosystem; 2) ethics, meaning producing or sourcing products in a way that upholds human and animal rights; and 3) accessibility, meaning showcasing farming, building, and other techniques that are easily transferable, replicable, and low-cost.
