Black Dirt Region: Pride and Produce

NEW EDITION 2020!

New Book Tracks Growth of Hemp in Black Dirt Region

A Locavore and Foodie Alert

Pride and Produce, the sold-out book about the fertile Black Dirt farming region of Orange County, has been reprinted. The Third edition, with updates that include news about the growth of CBD-Hemp, is now available in both digital and print version.

The new edition has two new sections. One covers some of the changes in the Black Dirt valley since the book first came out late in 2016, including efforts to curb flooding, and the growth of agritourism in this rare fertile farmland.

The second new section covers the rapid growth of hemp farming for cannabidiol (CBD) – a wellness medication – throughout the Black Dirt farmlands. At least 20 farmers put a total of about 700 acres under hemp during the 2019 season.

Farming hemp for CBD has taken off across the US – and New York State – as sales for the CBD as a wellness medication have soared. However, the future market for CBD is uncertain.

The book is written by Cheetah Haysom, an award-winning journalist who lived in the Black Dirt Region for 25 years and was for two years the President of the Pine Island Chamber of Commerce in the heart of the Black Dirt.

One of the most fertile tracts of farmland in the United States stretches across a bucolic valley just 60 miles from the skyscraper forest of Manhattan. Yet few of the millions of people in the tristate region who love fresh, local food, are aware of this fabulous black soil – let alone the threats this agricultural treasure now faces.

Just when appreciation of locally grown food and its nutritional and environmental benefits have never been greater, production on the 14,000 acre Black Dirt region of Orange County, New York, where an estimated 70% of the fresh produce sold at tristate farmers’ markets is grown, is in jeopardy.

The biggest threats are repetitive flooding of the Wallkill River, which winds through the Black Dirt Valley, and a severe labor shortage, thanks to the political failure to fix the agricultural work visa in the Immigration Bill, stalled in Washington, DC.

Both problems can be ameliorated, if not fixed, if there is public and political will, writes Cheetah Haysom in her new book, “Pride and Produce: The Origin, Evolution and Survival of the Drowned Lands, the Hudson Valley’s Legendary Black Dirt Region.”

Haysom, a journalist who has lived in the Black Dirt Valley for 20 years, describes the predicament of the region’s long-suffering farmers. The book covers the origins of the extraordinary black soil, the fascinating history of the region – including the Eastern European settlers who drained what was once a boggy swamp and made it into arable farmland – and the pungent yellow onions which in decades past covered the whole valley and made the region famous.

The book also goes into some of the issues that concern all foodies – whether in the tristate region or across the United States: organic farming, genetic modification, financial viability of produce farming and the existential question of whether farmers, facing prejudices, conflicts and uncertainties, will want to farm in the future.

“Pride and Produce,” is an alert for locovores and foodies alike. Dr. Richard W Hull, Professor Emeritus of History at New York University, and Municipal Historian for the Town of Warwick (in which the Black Dirt region falls) writes in a review:

 

After years of exhaustive research including interviews with the farmers and migrant field hands Haysom has woven an amazing tapestry of the trials and tribulations of modern farming. She gives life and meaning to her informants and makes the reader feel they too are participants in the unfolding drama. Haysom brings refreshing clarity to the complex issues of preserving a nationally-important and ecologically rich freshwater wetland while ensuring the commercial food producing viability of what is becoming the most important food-producing region in the tristate New York region.