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FARM Staff - Matthew Goldfarb, Executive Director
Since 1994, I have been seeking out farming skills through others’ knowledge and insights as well as through my own observations. Through these experiences, I have raised dairy cows, fed livestock, grown hard and soft fruits and all sorts of delicious vegetables, and overseen production and selling of our harvests to local markets and restaurants. In doing so, I have worked side by side with amazing mentors, students, friends, draft horses and all of nature’s weather. Like a farming Woody Guthrie, I have shared my passion of the outdoors with kids and families from the Redwood Forests and Pacific highways, to the Blue Ridge and Rocky Mountains, and the prairies of the Midwest. However, I didn’t farm the Gulf Stream waters--I sailed them. Although my geographical locations have changed, my farming goals have remained consistent: to see farms used as a common ground to strengthen communities. Specifically, working with students, I have used the farm’s nurturing qualities to not only instill positive work ethics and the dignity of labor, but the importance of serving others. Concerns about the social, political, economic and the environmental viability of rural and local communities is part of why I am so passionate about farming. Food ties us to all these issues. Because food is an essential piece that can bring all these disparate groups together, the farm is a habitat that not only connects people to their place (the land, their ecosystem, their home, their environment) but also to each other. I have come to The FARM Institute because I share and believe their vision that a farm is a system that provides nourishing food, education, balance, joy and awareness. I also came to The FARM Institute because I just bought a new windsurfer, and a day sailing on the Atlantic is better then any day sailing in the corn fields of Iowa! The FARM Institute - Post Office Box 1868 - Edgartown, Massachusetts 02539 - (508) 627-7007 |
In
2005 I joined The FARM Institute. After traveling from the plains
of Iowa to Martha’s
Vineyard with my wiffle ball and bat, books, gardening tools,
bicycle, fish tackle, art supplies, windsurf gear and work gloves,
I am thrilled to smell the salt air and be part of The FARM Institute’s
community.