By Peter Lyons Hall
Warwick is blessed by being located in the middle of a superb agricultural region in the Hudson Valley, New York. We usually have adequate rainfall, we have not been subjected to the damaging storms that have plagued the West and tornado alley in the Midwest, and we also benefit from having a ready demand from nearby commercial and individual populations of consumers that don’t require the typical transportation requirements that can add to the cost of produce and result in the delivery of products that attempt to ripen during the trip.
According toTheConversation.com, “in the U.S., the top five egg producers are responsible for 40% of hens, with Mississippi-based Cal-Maine Foods alone is responsible for 13% of total U.S. production. An average-sized production facility in the U.S. can house 75,000 to 500,000 hens. Large facilities can house over 4 million. The mass production of eggs from these facilities means eggs are, in stable times, cost effective for the American consumer. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, eggs in the U.S. never surpassed $3 a dozen, and it was an affordable food solution compared with processed foods.”
But we can offset this disequilibrium by our collective and growing reliance on smaller, local farm markets, like the Lakeside Farmers Markets in Greenwood Lake, the Warwick Indoor Farmers Market in Pine Island, The Village of Warwick Farmers Market, and Florida NY Farmers Market. As smart consumers have learned large farms create a higher risk of viral outbreak, which leads to the need for isolation and destruction of millions of birds and the inexorable viral replication and hybrid mutations.
Beginning Saturday, May 31, 2025, the Greenwood Lake’s Lakeside Farmers Market will feature a growing variety of small, curated local farms and purveyors who have not been subjected to viral outbreaks nor the destruction of viral-infected or bacterial recalls of products. They are small intentionally, because they are family-owned and operated, often for multi-generations. Many are Certified Organic or Certified Naturally Grown, and consumers can actually speak with the growers themselves who can tell visitors how their products were grown, what ingredients went into them, and whether or not the baked goods are gluten-free or not.
Returning vendors include prominent produce farmers, orchards, poultry farmers with free-range chickens and fresh eggs (that may be allocated) that cost far below the anomalous prices that currently exist, grass-fed beef farmers with pastured pork, dairy purveyors that produce local cheeses and yogurt, and bakers of sweet and savory pies. New vendors will include vendors of mushrooms, vegan prepared foods, fresh baked goods, distilled spirits made from local grains, and a wide variety of artisan crafts. The key ingredient that all of these vendors share is scale: they are local, small, and are carefully chosen because they care about the community in which they reside.
To learn more about the Lakeside Farmers Market, click on VillageofGreenwoodLake.gov/lakeside-farmers-market/ and discover the entertainment and other events that will accompany this season’s schedule. And they will also continue to collect food waste this year to prevent it going into the waste stream and contributing to additional methane.
Photo credit: Peter Lyons Hall
