EECO Farm delivers enough vegetables to feed 100 families a week at the East Hampton Food Pantry. We’ve been doing this for almost a year.  

We will let them introduce themselves.  

The new fence is working. The deer are perplexed.
The fence is 2,589 feet long and 8 feet high. There are three gates: double gates by the compost area, one by the farm stand, and another at the main entrance. These gates must be closed every night in order to ensure our gardens and farm land will be intact come morning.  The deer will find their way in if any gate is left open.

PLEASE CLOSE THE GATE AT 4pm WHETHER OTHERS ARE WORKING OR NOT.  

We thank the following folks for generously contributing to the purchase and installation of the deer fence:
East Hampton Group for Wildlife
Ira Bezoza & Lynn Martell 
Annie Bliss
Robert Calvert
David Carangelo
Rameshwar Das & Katherine W. Rabinowitz
Arnie & Ruth Endelman
Rob Endelman
Michael & Francesca Friedman
Susan Griffin
Lucy Gullace
Dale Haubrich & Bette Lacina
James B. Jeffrey
Susan & Robert Kouffman
Stephen B. Latham
Richard Lynn
John Malafronte
Gail Meyers
Carl Ray
Roger Selfe
Eric Waldman,
   The Catherine & Henry J. Gaisman Foundation
Harvey & Lesley Weinberg
Willy & Sharon Wolter
Almond Zigmund

According to David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D. author of Anticancer: A New Way of Life (Viking, 2008), the following prevent or inhibit cell growth in certain cancer.

Many of the foods above have been shown to repress cancerous cell growth by more than 80%. Note that garlic, onions, and leeks rank highest among the most effective foods for all the cancers listed.  

This Letter to the Editor appeared in July 24th edition of the East Hampton Star.

I have been on the board of East End Community Organic Farm for one year.  Along with composting and finances and community  
outreach, arsenic has been the major topic of concern.   How much is there and what to do about it and how to respond to the press and public?

EECO Farm has been accused of being aloof and arrogant, of being a prissy garden club, and even worse in some circles.  The truth is that the board members, eleven in all, have been reluctant to speak to the arsenic controversy because the issues are complex and easily misread; most comments would sound either self-serving or self-incriminating.  So EECO has let others do the speechifying, most of which are well-intended but based on inaccuracies.

As it happens, I am scientifically unsophisticated enough and politically incorrect enough to speak up.  Like you, I have been concerned about EECO's arsenic and quiescence for some time.  Rather than drinking any Kool Aid, I have spent many months researching arsenic on Long Lane.

Here are some complicated truths.

• By practicing organic farming techniques for the past seven years, EECO Farm has reduced the levels of arsenic in our community gardens from 45 parts per million (ppm) to a median of 11 ppm.  This was validated by EcoTest Labs of Babylon, Long Island in May, 2008.The levels are considered safe by any measure and by all government agencies.  New York State Health Department says anything under 16 ppm is safe.  New York DEC states 3-11 ppm is perfectly normal "background" level in soil.   Federal EPA considers anything less than 43 ppm to be acceptable.
• By comparison, recent soil samples taken from the campus of East Hampton High School had levels of 10, 17, and 20 ppm.  (For practical purposes, one part per million can be understood as one drop of water in 18 gallons or one second of time in 11 days.)
• EECO sent the results of our soil tests to Dr. Steven H. Lamm, MD, DTPH, head of Consultants in Epidemiology and Occupational Health Inc. in Washington, D.C.  He is a leading expert on arsenic and other elements found in soil, air and water.Dr. Lamm wrote: "These are not levels to worry about, but are in the natural, non-toxic background range...The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry considers levels below 20 ppm to pose no threat to humans."
• In fact, Americans typically consume between 25 and 50 micrograms of arsenic every day with no ill effect. (One microgram is comparable to one ppm.)  Shellfish is the biggest source of arsenic, followed by poultry, meat, rice cereals, baked goods, fats and oils.  Fruits and vegetables barely register at all.
• As for working on the farm, Rufus Chaney, the USDA heavy metals expert, says only chronic doses of arsenic can lead to disease; that is, exposure to extremely high levels every day for a lifetime.  According to the Agency for Toxic Substances, the average American woman, weighing 132 pounds, would have to eat more than 18 micrograms every day for her entire life to see any ill effects.

How much arsenic actually seaps into the food grown at EECO Farm?

Earlier this summer, we had EECO lettuces, asparagus, and herbs tested at EcoTest Labs in Babylon.  The results were
encouraging: less than 1 ppm.  That's a scientific designation: "less than 1 ppm."  It means barely detectable.  It is hard to imagine any comparable farm producing cleaner produce.  To continue our vigilance, we will, at summer's end, test other plants, fully grown and always the parts that are consumed.

Organic farming reduces toxins and amplifies nutritious elements.  That's the purpose of organic farming.  If it were not true, no one would bother.  EECO Farm would not exist.  That fruits and vegetables are generally more delicious is a felicitious by- product of using no pesticides, no fungicides, no herbicides, and no synthetic fertilizers.  Health benefits are accrued to farmers, consumers, and Mother Earth. Whatever arsenic that may still exist at EECO Farm is either naturally occuring or left over from a half century of pesticide usage that contaminated much farmland on Long Island and beyond.

Arsenic does not vanish.  It is not biodegradable.   It is buried by smart farmers and clever gardeners who till the soil six to nine inches deep, who then use mulch high in phospherous to bind with arsenic and render it less accessible to plant life, who use homemade compost, and then, come the autumn, plant dense cover crops to hold the soil in place and prevent ill winds from blowing anything across the road -- no arsenic found its way to East Hampton High from EECO Farm.

Arsenic is frightening.  The word and the substance.  There is no denying its history.  And while any traces of arsenic is cause for attention, and active remediation, organic farming is one of the most efficient and least expensive ways to reduce levels of any hazardous metals in any soil. There are, of course, a few common sensical safety tips worth keeping in mind, especially if there are small children around.

• Don't let your kids eat the dirt.   Kids like to eat dirt.  No one knows exactly why, but it's not a good idea under any circumstances.
• Leave all dirt and dust outside when you return home. That is, clean your shoes, your tools, and your self.
• Wash all food.  Any danger is in the dirt.
• Peel root vegetables when possible.
• If there a wind storm when you are at the farm, it is best not to breathe the dust particles.  Random exposure has never proved damaging, but it's unpleasant.

These tips are posted at the farm headquarters, as well as on the EECO Farm website.  (www.eecofarm.com)

Everyone involved with EECO Farm cares about health -- their own and yours and the South Fork's.  Families do not plant and seed and till and weed and water and care for their gardens purely for the good exercise and fresh air -- not one of the hundred gardeners (or Mary the beekeeper) would toil at EECO Farm if this were not a community organic farm.  There is no profit motive.  There is nothing to deter us from salutary agriculture.  It is a place to work with the soil and swap stories of husbandry and compare green thumbs and pick a few extra weeds when a neighbor is away.

EECO Farm is organic on many levels.  That's why people gravitate to it and why it is flourishing. Without tooting any horns too loudly, EECO Farm is remediating 42 acres of town land without government financing, without corporate backing, without inordinate expense to the taxpayers.   Everyone involved is a volunteer -- no one at the farm  
is paid, including board members.  An annual stipend from the Town of East Hampton is used to repair equipment and mend fences and install wells and reach out to the community with educational programs.  EECO exists to spread the word and deeds of organic farming, to acquaint students with the joys of growing your own food, to host nature walks and environmental talks and picnics at the farm, to help feed neighbors in need, to get healthy produce distributed at farmstands and farmers' markets and restaurants from Water Mill to Sag Harbor to Montauk.

How ironic that such a place is associated with arsenic, that a letter of this nature is required.  After seven years of strictly organic agriculture, common sense might lead one to conclude that EECO is hale and hearty, and we are.  We are also look forward to seeing you at the farm -- and the farm stand -- both more vibrant and luscious than you remember.

Bruce Buschel,
Member, EECO Farm Board of Directors

East Hampton Star
(02/26/2009)
By Kate Maier
Photo Credit Kate Maier

The notion of teaching children about sustainability, nutrition, and science by incorporating gardening into school curriculums has taken root on the East End, where fragmented groups of parents and educators are starting to come together to talk about the possibility of adding greenhouses, gardens, and even farm stands to local schools.

For months, some East Enders have been meeting at the Bridgehampton School to discuss many of the ideas articulated by Alice Waters, an advocate for school gardens and lunch reform, who details her own successful experiment with a kitchen garden at a middle school in Berkley, Calif., in her most recent book, “Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Idea.”

“Knowing where your food comes from, eating locally, these are all things we need to start thinking about,” said Bryan Futerman, a chef at Foody’s Restaurant in Water Mill, who has been raising money to build a greenhouse at the Springs School.

On Sunday, a fund-raiser for the Springs Community Seedlings Project and the school’s PTA will be held at the Springs Firehouse on Fort Pond Boulevard between noon and 3 p.m. Supporters are invited to sample gourmet soups, and, in keeping with the sustainable theme, are encouraged to take along a bowl and spoon. Mr. Futerman and Joe Realmuto, the chef at Nick and Toni’s, will be on hand to discuss their pet project, which has been in the works for over a year.

With just over $40,000, they are about halfway to their fund-raising goal, and the biggest roadblock so far has not been community support, but the slow-turning wheels of bureaucracy at the New York State Education Department. Mr. Realmuto said he hopes to break ground this spring, but that won’t happen until the state approves a new, free-standing structure that will ultimately be used as a classroom.

The Springs School Board has been enthusiastic about the project, which will be funded through the private fund-raising campaign and Project MOST, the after-school program. With a grant writer on staff and an operating budget independent of the school district, Project MOST seemed like the best way to go about fund raising, said Mr. Futerman, who explained why the cost of the project seemed so high in contrast to some other school garden programs.

“We’re looking to have somebody actually be our farm manager, that runs that greenhouse and maintains it,” he said, which would be a potential full-time position under Project MOST. Kids enrolled in the after-school program, a garden club, and any teachers who would like to integrate gardening into their classes would be welcome to use the greenhouse and surrounding outdoor gardens.

Mr. Futerman and Mr. Realmuto are no strangers to the process of adding student-grown veggies into a school curriculum. Both have worked for years with the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, which built its greenhouse last year. Now, they said they would like to see a similar program grow at the public school their children attend.

At Hayground, which has had a garden for 12 years, children of all ages run barefoot, raise chickens, and create their own science projects and plays. Many are involved in a culinary arts program, in which Mr. Realmuto and Mr. Futerman teach.

Jon Snow, a teacher at Hayground who has been offering advice at the Bridgehampton meetings, said he would like to see a children’s gardening network blossom on the East End. He noted that Sag Harbor Elementary School’s new greenhouse has been very successful this year. That project was started in 2003, when Kryn Olson, a fifth-grade teacher, applied for a grant and began raising funds. Each classroom at the school now maintains its own garden bed year round.

“We’re really interested in sharing what we’ve done and collaborating, starting a farmers market, and inviting any local kids who grow stuff to be a part of it,” said Mr. Snow.

“I’m just amazed at how big of a movement it has become,” said Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz, who teaches landscape design at the Bridgehampton School. “The interesting thing about the Springs and Amagansett programs is they are both parent-driven,” she noted.

Students in Ms. Fayyaz’s class recently held a contest to see who could come up with the best raised-bed garden design, using drafting software to articulate their ideas. She led a tour of the school’s garden and indoor plantings with the class on Tuesday, and pointed out the spot where, someday, she hopes the school will build its own greenhouse.

Kieran Brew, a parent in Amagansett, said “the match to the gasoline” in his school district happened when he sent out an e-mail offering to use his food and beverage background to “contribute some time and energy” to the school. “Two days later, I’m sitting at the school talking about building a greenhouse.”

Mr. Brew’s Facebook group, “Amagansett Sprouts,” had 69 members as of yesterday. Along with a group of other recently impassioned parents, he hopes to start a similar program with a greenhouse at the Amagansett School, and said that Mr. Realmuto and Mr. Futerman have been extraordinarily helpful.

Peter Garnham, a master gardener and the chairman of the board at the East End Cooperative Organic Farm in East Hampton, approached Mr. Brew on Facebook to offer his expertise.

“I think it’s very important that kids see where their food comes from,” Mr. Garnham said on Tuesday. “It’s tragic that you’ve got kids here who are amazed when they see a carrot come out of the ground.”

He warned that maintaining a greenhouse, or a garden, is no easy task. About 15 years ago, he attempted to start a garden at the Amagansett School. “It didn’t get incorporated into the curriculum and nobody took ownership. It wasn’t a summer program, and during the summer, the garden went to hell.” The project fizzled. He suggested keeping it simple and starting with a traditional garden — an inexpensive idea that doesn’t need state approval.

“A few years ago, we converted an old cement courtyard and built raised gardens,” said Ginny Reale, a health teacher at the East Hampton Middle School who runs the Bonac on Board to Wellness program there. The project was largely supported by donations, and because seeds are cheap, Ms. Reale said it hasn’t cost more than $50 a year to maintain.

Margaret Hayes is in charge of the Montauk School’s greenhouse. Between teaching middle school technology and elementary reading, she tries to maintain as many green projects as she can, including the student-planted daffodils that blanket the school’s lawn in the spring.

She said she would like to see more teachers take advantage of the greenhouse. “There’s a lot of teachers that are reluctant to use it because they are not good gardeners, but they can do very simple things in the greenhouse to be part of the curriculum,” she said.

For any school looking to plant, Mr. Garnham stressed that it need not be so complicated. “It seems to get so tied up with red tape and bureaucracy. Give me 100 bucks and I’ll start a garden. All you need is some guy with a rototiller and $5 worth of seed and you’re off.”

27 East.com
By Carolyn Kormann
Feb 24, 09 4:11 PM
photo credit KYRIL BROMLEY

The demand for staples from people in need has more than doubled at the food pantries in East Hampton, Montauk and Springs this winter over last.

To feed the demand, Peter Garnham, the chairman of the East End Community Organic Farm, and the EECO Farm board of directors, have decided to devote two acres of the 42 acre farm to growing fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers for families in need.

“It just seemed to me that with the pantries really hard up for good, fresh food,” Mr. Garnham said, “we’ve got 42 acres, and if we couldn’t grow enough to make a difference for them, there is something wrong.”

EECO Farm is a non-profit organization that leases farmland on Long Lane from East Hampton Town. Plots of from one to 15 acres are rented to commercial farmers, who grow and sell organic produce to local markets and restaurants. Four acres of the farm are devoted to more than 100 community gardens, each 20 by 20 feet, which can be rented by any individual or family who joins EECO Farm. There is also a three-acre compost operation.

Seed will be sown for the food pantries under the guidance of EECO Farm’s three master gardeners, Peter Garnham, Hannelore Bladuell and Elaine McKay. Volunteers and community service workers will help with weeding and harvesting. Mr. Garnham said that 10 to 15 members of EECO farm have already offered to volunteer.

The list of what they will grow includes: arugula, beans, beets, broccoli, carrots, cucumber, kale, lettuce, onions, parsley, peas, radishes, spinach, summer and winter squash, swiss chard and tomatoes, plus basil, dill, and cilantro.

Mr. Garnham is a garden writer for Horticulture, Organic Gardening and other magazines, and through his writing contacts, was able to secure seed donations from distributors around the country, including Johnny’s Selected Seeds, High Mowing Organic Seeds, Seeds of Change, Renee’s Garden Seeds, Burpee Seeds, and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

In early March, the master gardeners will start seeding in the greenhouse to produce transplants that will be ready to move outside in May. The first harvest will be in May for the cool season crops such as lettuce, spinach, arugula and some of the Asian greens, which grow fast.

Fresh produce will be provided to only the East Hampton and Springs food pantries in this first trial year.

“I don’t want to overextend and make promises which we can’t keep,” Mr. Garnham said.

Dru Raley, the director of the Springs pantry, said that she had 130 people who needed food last week. In a typical winter week last year she’d see about 60. There are a lot of people without work, she said, people who normally would be sheet rocking or doing other construction work through the cold months. But no one is building, she said.

“I don’t know how you get those jobs back,” she said. But she said the idea from EECO Farm “is terrific. If we can get some people involved in going down and helping them, too, that would be great, either people who work at the food pantry or our clients.”

For those in search of timely cooking ideas as the harvest peaks, consider the menu prepared last Sunday by Jason Weiner at the latest East End performance of Outstanding in the Field, the movable feast launched several years ago by chef and sand artist, Jim Denevan.

The family-style dinner for 150 guests, which sold out in a matter of hours, wasn’t just a display of some particularly delicious and sometimes underappreciated fish, fowl, and fare; it was also a coming-out party of sorts for the East End Community Organic Farm on Long Lane in East Hampton. Whole grilled jumbo flukes, pickled bluefish, duckfat-roasted potatoes, gazpacho, oysters, and pregnant peaches.

This unique farm, on land owned by East Hampton town, is under new management. Inspired by the vision of supportive neighbors, they've cultivated a revamped farm stand, more land under the plow, and a new attitude. “We are speaking out and stepping up,” said Bruce Buschel, a Bridgehampton resident on the farm’s board. “We assume there are tons of good folks who would love a small organic garden but do not have the space. For a modest fee, we can help out.”

At this time of year, the community plots were heavy with tomatoes, string beans, and pendant sunflowers. But Chef Weiner, co-owner of the bistro Almond in Bridgehampton and the farmstead Italian Almoncello in East Hampton, had a bigger palatte to work with.

“It took me a while to visualize how to do this thing,” said Weiner, who was recommended to Outstanding in the Field by Allison Dubin and Christopher Tracy of Channing Daughters Winery in Bridgehampton. Channing Daughters provided the wine at EECO Farm, as it has for the five other Outstanding in the Field dinners held on the East End.

“It’s going to be on a grill? In the middle of nowhere?,” Weiner asked. He was ultimately inspired by the flexibility of family style cooking. “It’s a great way to eat. And not just from the execution point of view. It’s 19 plates as opposed to 150. It’s a more generous way of eating and serving.”

Weiner, on a first name basis with his farmer-fisher suppliers, had some other guiding light: “Whatever is in the field, whatever is swimming.” “I’m a kid from Brooklyn,” he told a reporter from the London Telegraph, who was taking notes alongside someone from Forbes Life. “I’m not used to this. There’s no middleman out here.”

Putting such a meal together requires connections, of course, but also know how—like how to harness the depth of lipstick peppers, to take advantage of jumbo fluke, and to harness the flavor-packing oiliness of bluefish, an inexpensive and abundant fish that rarely shows up on menus because it has such a short shelflife. Weiner flash fried bluefish filets and then pickled them for two days, yielding an escabeche topped with Green Zebra and Sungold tomato served with crusty bread.

As the diners started to take their seats at the endless table, Felice Benvenuto, chef de cuisine at Almoncello, began to grill whole, 8-pound fluke—a perfect size for the family-style meal— served with a warm vinaigrette made with oyster and shitake mushrooms from Open Minded Organics in Bridgehampton. When he cleaned the fish, he found whitebait and baby lobsters in the gut. “The buttery bottom feeder shellfishy thing is set against the meatiness and woodsiness of the mushrooms,” said Weiner.

Following the fluke was Long Island duck breast from Crescent Farm in Aquebogue served with corn succotash. Weiner rendered out the duck fat (“That’s gold, that stuff.”) and roasted potatoes in it. “If there’s anything on Earth meant to go together it’s potatoes and duck fat.”

Before dinner, guests took turns sipping Channing Daughters field-blend wine, Sylvanus, and sipping a gazpacho-like soup concocted from cucumber and lipstick peppers, topped with fried Hogs Neck oysters, “only available when the oyster farmer says they’re ready,” according to Weiner.

Desert was peaches, ripened in Weiner’s car for a couple days, topped with Catapano goat yogurt and honey harvested from hives at the farm just a couple days before. “It’s started to crystallize,” Weiner said, dipping a finger in the jar he had just received from beekeeper Mary Woltz. “And it’s got this amazing flavor I can’t describe.” The beekeeper suggested sunflower

From SeriousEats.com  
Posted by Brian Halweil, September 12, 2008 at 11:50 AM

"About the Author: Brian Halweil is the publisher of Edible East End, the magazine that celebrates the harvest of the Hamptons and the North Fork. He is also publisher of Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan."