By Ashley M. Casey

Staff Writer

Baldwinsville-based family farm Emmi and Sons Inc. has been named Conservation Farm of the Year for 2016 by the Onondaga County Soil and Water Conservation District. The award recognizes farms for environmental stewardship.

“It’s nice to be recognized for what we do, especially all the guys that work here,” third-generation owner Tony Emmi said. “They do a good job. They’re the ones that do the work.”

Emmi has collaborated with the Onondaga County Soil and Water Conservation District since 2006 to develop conservation practices through the New York State Agricultural Environmental Management Program. These practices include planting cover crops such as rye, sorghum or tillage radishes to maintain soil quality, micro-irrigation and nutrient and pest management practices to minimize the use of fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides.

Other environmentally-friendly projects on the farm include an agrochemical mixing pad on-site and a system to process water used to wash produce.

“We have a wastewater basin outside the packing house so all the water we wash vegetables with goes out on the drain tiles and distributes through the ground,” Emmi said.

Emmi credits his late father, Carmen Emmi, with pioneering many of the practices used at the farm today.

“A lot of it came from him,” Tony Emmi said.

Carmen Emmi, who died in 2014, developed a plastic mulch layer, a device that dug a trench, planted corn and covered the seed with plastic all in one step. Plastic mulch prevents weed growth, thereby reducing herbicide use.

Tony Emmi said his farm also maintains buffer strips, which reduce runoff, prevent nutrients from leaching into the waterways and protect crops from pollutants and precipitation. He said he also employs consultants to determine which pests, fungi and weeds are most likely to crop up each season so he can manage his use of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.

“In the old days, we used to spray every seven to 10 days,” he said. “[Spraying less often] saves the environment, and us too because we’re the ones applying it.”

The farm also conducts frequent soil testing to adjust fertilizer usage. Emmi said he found his land is rich in phosphorus, so he does not need as much phosphorus in his fertilizer mix.

“We’re very strict with our fertilizer mixes and what we put in the ground,” he said. “You might need to add a little phosphorus in the early spring, but after that we don’t.”

Emmi said he was surprised to be nominated for and to win the Conservation Farm of the Year award, but caring for the environment is important to him.

“It’s an added cost, but I think it’s well worth the investment,” he said. “We like to keep it clean.”

Emmi accepted the award at the Onondaga County Farm Fest, which was held Sept. 24 at Greenwood Winery and Bistro in East Syracuse.

“It’s a good award,” Emmi said. “People see what we’re doing; hopefully, they’ll try to do the same things.”

Incorporated in 1961, Emmi and Sons has two farmstand locations in Baldwinsville and Liverpool. For more information, visit emmifarms.com.