CANTON — A talk on finding locally sourced, healthy foods and the challenges of the U.S. food system will be held Saturday, May 30, at noon at Canton United Methodist Church 41 Court St.
The event will feature Joe Eisele, co-owner of the market, who will also discuss his decision to leave mainstream dairy farming and move into a direct-to-consumer model after training at Cornell and preparing to launch a large-scale farm operation.
Joe Eisele, co-owner of River Valley Farm Market, will give a talk about how to find locally sourced, healthy foods and why he abandoned the mainstream dairy farming model. Trained at Cornell, Joe was deep into starting a large farm operation when he pulled the plug and began his current direct-to-consumer business.
Eisele is a livestock and vegetable farmer in St. Lawrence County. He operates Northern Limits Farm and is a partner in River Valley Farmer’s Market in Potsdam. Born in Glen Cove, (the Long Island suburbs of NYC), it was an improbable place for someone to have begun a long journey to be a farmer and to devote their life to agriculture.
He spent his youth and high school years splitting time there and in Andes, N.Y., a town in the Northern Catskills, where he spent time working and learning on his neighbor’s 50-cow dairy. The farming bug hooked him—cows, crops, open fields, working outside. Joe pursued his love of animals and farming by attending SUNY Delhi, SUNY Cobleskill, and finally graduating from Cornell in 2002. He began raising beef cattle at age 19, while spending his 20s working on large commercial dairy farms.
His tipping point came in his mid-30s as he began questioning the ag policy and farming practices employed in the U.S. as it related to chemicals, runoff, resulting chronic disease, and consumer health. The last 13 years have been devoted to developing a system of connecting people with their food source, growing and providing high-quality protein sources, studying law, and building a network of farms and community to bypass the traditional, institutional, and unsustainable model that is the U.S. food system.
This event is sponsored by Waste Not Permaculture, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in Brooklyn in 2015. WNP moved its operation to Canton in 2022 in part to be closer to the agricultural heartland of New York. WNP’s mission is to promote sustainability and permaculture practices in St. Lawrence County. In support of that mission, it has sponsored a series of films on these topics and has also interviewed a number of local farmers and organizations who foster sustainable practices. To see these interviews and to find out more about WNP, go to Waste Not Permaculture.
The requested fee to attend the talk is $10, but the event is open to all. You must register to attend, however. To register, go to https://bit.ly/eiseletalk, or call 718-496-5139 or email greg@wastenotperma.org.
Following the talk, WNP will conduct its annual meeting.
Dining and Cooking