TURKANA FARMS

Turkana Farms was established in 2000 on a fragment of a much larger former dairy farm and orchard which was slated for further subdivision and development. We envisioned it as a weekend farming project, but it became a full time endeavor on September 11, 2001, when considerable collateral damage from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center rendered our New York City apartment uninhabitable. There are many roads to agriculture.

Turkana Farms is small – 39 acres (about 8 city blocks by 5 blocks), compared with an average farm size of 211 acres in New York State and 442 acres in the U.S. Our guiding principles are sustainability, diversity and social responsibility. To us, this includes:

► Reducing environmental impact: limiting the number of animals grazing per acre, fertilizing with composted manures rather than chemical fertilizers, avoiding pesticides and herbicides. Our small scale allows us to work by hand rather than machine for many tasks.

► Buying locally produced grain and feed, organic where feasible. Our poultry eat our own weeds and vegetables, while the cows and pigs enjoy surplus apples from the orchards of the Rider Farm, next door.

► Raising heritage breed animals and heirloom vegetable varieties, to preserve biodiversity while maximizing flavor

► Treating our animals humanely

► Knowing our customers. We encourage direct farm to consumer connections, including farm visits.

► Enjoying our surroundings – integrating our home, gardens and agriculture into an organic and visually pleasing whole, on the model of a working “villa”

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer, Turkana Farms, LLC. Our website is under construction. For current offerings, see below, email daviesturkana@valstar. Net, or call 518.537.3815

TURKANA FARMS SPRINGS BACK INTO PRODUCTION

Greetings, friends. It’s that time of year again. Our seeds are ordered, our greenhouse partly planted, we are planning our poultry production and making appointments for our pork and beef processing for the season. For their part, our breeding stock have been doing their work as well. Our first wave of lambs was born around New Years, with a straggler on Valentines Day. The progeny of a second ram should start arriving this month up through early May. Meanwhile, we are closely watching our four breeding sows for signs of imminent farrowing, which we expect to start by April 1. All this means that we are now ready to begin taking reservations for this year’s:

● pasture raised Cornish cross chickens

● French meat guinea fowl

● Rouen duckling

● heritage turkeys for Thanksgiving

● Toulouse geese for Christmas

● Karakul lamb (late fall and again early 2009)

● Ossabaw and Ossabaw Tamworth cross pork

● Grassfed British White beef

See the Reservation Form below. Although we don’t take advance reservations for eggs, vegetables, or berries, we’ll again be selling those, via our weekly Green E-market this year. Please indicate on the reservation form whether you want to receive these weekly blasts as well.

As you all know, we are a small farm striving to adhere to socially responsible, sustainable production methods. When we buy grain, it is local, antibiotic-free, and wherever practical organic as well. We use no herbicides or chemical fertilizers or pesticides, relying on our own farm’s compost for fertility. We raise primarily heritage breed animals and heirloom vegetable varieties, to preserve biodiversity while maximizing flavor. We treat our livestock humanely and give them plenty of opportunity to enjoy their “animal-ness”. Several of you have recently mentioned reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan’s paradigm of humane treatment, environmental sustainability, healthfulness and flavor is what we aspire to.

Local though we are, we are not immune to the forces of the global economy, particularly the rising costs of grain on the one hand and transportation and processing costs on the other. We’ve had to raise our prices from last year, but have tried to keep those increases modest.

Please fill out the reservation form below with a check in the appropriate amount made out to Turkana Farms, LLC, and mail to 110 Lasher Ave, Germantown, NY 12526

RESERVATION FORM

Name___________________________ e-mail___________________________________

Address____________________________________________ Phone___________________

Please check here if you would like to receive email offerings in season:______________