By Joe Paduda
The Leopold Conservation Award was conferred on Skaneateles’ own Greenfield Farms last week. The national Award, given in conjunction with New York’s Agricultural Environmental Management (AEM) Award, “honors a farm for its extraordinary efforts to promote and protect the environment through the preservation of soil and water quality while ensuring farm viability for future generations.”
Speaking about the Greenfields’ “exemplary efforts to protect and steward the land,” New York State Agricultural Commissioner Richard Ball said “their environmental practices, leadership, and dedication to giving back to their community are something to be admired and mirrored across New York State.”
Those who know the Greenfields are not surprised; the family has long been among the leaders in environmental conservation in Onondaga County. Greenfield Farms have received numerous awards for their environmental stewardship; Jim (known to friends as “Skinny”) was also one of the original leaders of the Skaneateles Lake Watershed Agricultural Program. Thanks to the City of Syracuse’ Rich Abbot and SLWAP Program Manager Mark Burger and their staffs, the SLWAP’s work has been the key to keeping the Lake’s water pure for decades, ensuring clean, healthy water has been available to hundreds of thousands of County residents without the need for a filtration system that would cost residents over a hundred million dollars.
Thanks in part to Skinny’s credibility within the agricultural community and consistent support for SLWAP, almost all agricultural lands in Skaneateles Lake’s watershed comply with the SLWAP’s Whole Farm Plan. There’s a very practical reason for this; as Skinny has often said, “our biggest commodity is our topsoil…if we haven’t got topsoil, we don’t have a farm.” Unlike farmland in the Midwest where topsoil can be more than 10 feet deep, its less than a foot deep here in Onondaga County. Topsoil protects the seeds, nourishes the crops, and stores the water; if topsoil runs off into the lake, seeds, fertilizer, and farms disappear.
The Leopold Award is given by the Sand County Foundation, one of the nation’s leading conservation organizations in honor of renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold. It is awarded to one farm in each of 19 states and regions; talking about Award recipients, Kevin McAleese, Sand County Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer, said they “are examples of how Aldo Leopold’s land ethic is alive and well today. Their dedication to conservation shows how individuals can improve the health of the land while producing food and fiber.”
Generations of Greenfields dating back to the 1780s have farmed the land around the lake; that tradition is continuing today as TJ Greenfield works with his dad and uncles to carry on his family’s work farming corn, hay, oats, wheat, and soybeans. He’s just as committed; “we’ve always been conservation-oriented…for us its our whole life…if we aren’t getting nutrients where we need them its hurting us and the environment…”
Next time you drive a couple miles down West Lake Road, slow down and look at the Greenfields’ lands. You’ll see wide grass waterways slowing runoff and allowing topsoil to settle into the land, contour strips on hillsides further reducing water and fertilizer loss, farm equipment moving through the fields carefully dispensing the absolute minimum amount of fertilizer and nutrients, and cover crops protecting the land from winter runoff while absorbing three cars’ worth of carbon emissions for every five acres.
Farmers like the Greenfields are why the crystal waters of Skaneateles Lake are as pure as any in the nation.
