By: Eric Dong
Ever wonder where Anabel’s Grocery’s produce comes from? With Anabel’s Grocery well into our second week of re-opening, plenty of fresh produce and local ingredients can be ordered directly from our website, including healthy grains, fruits and vegetables, and breads and pastries. Our produce is sourced from local farmers in the New York area, independent, family-owned businesses that balance environmental sustainability and high-quality produce. Many of them use innovative farming techniques to reduce chemical pesticide use, while also cutting down on water usage. Anabel’s Grocery works with these farms to provide high-quality, organic, and ethical produce to you at Cornell.
This week’s fruit and vegetable boxes, in particular, are sourced from a variety of organic, local New York farms. Each farm strives to produce sustainable, high-quality produce with different methods.
Thorpe’s Organic Farm, just east of Buffalo, provides Anabel’s with this week’s oranges and grapefruits. They grow over 300 varieties of fruits, vegetables and grains, while also raising organically-fed animals.
Their farm is entirely organic, avoiding any chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers; instead, they compost their own waste to create organic fertilizers and raise beneficial insects that substitute for chemicals. They have also been crop certified by the NOFA-NY (the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York) to label their products as organic, non-GMO. The farm is completely family-run, with six children and seven grandchildren helping with farm chores. When they open for visiting after the pandemic ends, check out their farm store, bakery, and fruit picking activities!
This week’s vegetable box also relies on independent farms across New York. One in particular is Wheatfield Farms, located in Niagara County, New York. They provide Anabel’s with our romaine and three-leaf lettuce of this week, and are extremely dedicated to forward-thinking, sustainable farming. Wheatfield Farms prides themselves on reducing their carbon footprint of shipping produce by harvesting crops that would typically have to be shipped from Arizona and California. In addition to that, they have invented a breakthrough in greenhouse farming with their TROPOS farming system, which allows them to reduce greenhouse energy usage by over 25%.
On top of this, Wheatfield Farms uses indoor farmland and hydroponics (essentially growing without soil) to reduce their water usage. They manage to save nearly ten times more water with hydroponics than field-grown produce, allowing them to conserve valuable water and supplement their environment. If you want to learn more about their sustainability efforts, visit their in-person site, or check them out on their website!
Next time when you shop at Anabel’s, take a look at the sources of our local products! By ordering from Anabel’s Grocery, you are directly helping these farms continue to improve and innovate in their efforts to optimize crop rotations, composting, and ultimately help with sustainable human use of our earth.
When the pandemic (hopefully) fades as we near summer, feel free to visit these local farms and support them! If you want to further support these farmers, visit their websites to learn more about their farming processes, as well as to purchase their other products. Many of them offer various activities like apple-picking and farmers markets that can become a relaxing leisure activity when resting from schoolwork.
- Thorpe’s Organic Family Farm: http://www.thorpesorganicfamilyfarm.com/#
- Wheatfield's Farms: https://www.wheatfieldfarms.com/
A few other farms that we order from:
- Noto Fruit Farm: https://www.notofruitfarm.com
- Sweetland Farm: https://www.sweetlandfarm.org/
- Porter Farms: https://www.porterfarms.org/