RONDOUT VALLEY FARMING, HISTORY UNDERFOOT

These farms have more than just food production in common. Each family farm is headed by a robust, sharp-minded patriarch-matriarch team. At least one member of each family will likely take over the family deed. Though varying in scale, product, and customer base, the three ventures similarly specialize in growing vegetables, fruits and garden plants. Pioneers in agricultural tourism as well, each family unit supports a unique farm store.

Dressed like an enchanted ninepins player from Rip Van Winkle, a garden gnome (once ranked tallest by the Guinness Book of World Records) lords over Route 209 like a jolly giant, an agricultural wonderland known as Kelder Farms sprawling behind him. On the cusp of autumn, herons swooped above his pointed hat through wispy clouds that scrolled across a blue sky. In the nearby parking lot outside a Dutch colonial-style barn that houses a humble farm store, sun-baked owner-operator Chris Kelder, 45, pulled up in a utility vehicle. Assisting in the business, wife Jackie, a farm girl from Delaware County who Chris met when they were both students at Cornell, also teaches in the Kingston Public School District. They have two children, John, a freshman at Cornell (and fifth-generation family attendee), and Kaitlyn, a junior at Rondout Valley High School. The farm employs 15 local workers--high school and college students as well as part-time, otherwise at-home moms.

Awarded "Century Farm" status in 1990 by the New York Agricultural Society, Kelder Farm's chronicles commence with James and wife Effie Osterhoudt (descended from seventeenth-century Dutch settlers), who purchased the original 22-acre farmstead in Accord in 1836. They maintained a general livestock farm and also sold rye straw to a paper mill. Over time, James bought up more land, which passed to four children. Inheriting the stone farmhouse, the only daughter, Sarah, gave birth to son Simon in 1865. He took over the farm, raising its first two "monocultures"--dairy cows and chickens. His single child, Belle, married an engineer, Stanley Kelder, in 1908. The farm passed through family hands for two more generations and by the time Chris's father, Wayne (born 1941), graduated Cornell in the early 1960s, chickens were on the way out. The current family owners still occupy the original farmhouse, though the farm acreage is a few miles away.

More than most farms, Kelder Farm exemplifies agriculture's drift toward "agri-tourism." The current property, which the Kelders had rented for years, became available in 1997, and Chris and Jackie scooped it up, intending to phase out the dairy segment of the business. Then, in 1999, the barn on the old property burned down, and the family's efforts shifted "to creating a unique agricultural experience for people," Chris says. Planting acres of strawberries "for fun," they soon added raspberries and pumpkins, then hosted a few school field trips. Finding all to their liking, they visualized a broader customer base. "We have so many people within two hours of us and, if you draw the circle larger, a lot more people within four hours," Chris notes.

Today, Chris farms 100 acres of fruits and vegetables ("A to Z"--from asparagus to zucchini) as well as flowers, all for seasonal "U-pick." Fed by floodplain waters, the self-picking grounds expand west from behind the farm store to the Rondout Creek. Guided by homey, hand-painted signs, people drive their cars directly down to the fields. The smallish farm store retails a few food products alongside animal feeds (a sideline inaugurated to keep the store open year-round); nearby, a vest-pocket-sized petting zoo and homegrown mini-golf course beckon. "Our goal is to sell here and provide an experience here," Chris says. The golf course doubles as agricultural education center, a joint venture with local artist Maria Reidelbach, who also designed and named towering gnome "Chomsky."

The Kelder farm model refashions those of a half-century ago, when people picked their own to get more product for less money. "Now it's more about the experience," Chris concedes. "We live such fast-paced lives. Coming to our farm hopefully gets people to slow down and enjoy the experience." Characterizing a same-day trip from New York City as "affordable," he observes that a family can spend a lot less than at a baseball game, and have something to show for it afterward.

Acknowledging that natural resources, chiefly water and oil, will influence production and transportation in the near future, Chris is convinced that local farms also will play a large role in land preservation. "The cheapest way for a community to keep open space and viewscapes is to allow their agriculture to be profitable," he stresses. "We have to view our lands and resources as our 401K and our investment. My assets are very visible--no one sees my debts, but they see my assets every day when they drive by. People who invest in the stock market can't see what they have, but everyone can see what the average farmer has." Echoing the wisdom of Schoonmaker and Davenport neighbors, Chris concludes, "The closer you can keep your dollar to home the better."