Scott Chaskey is America's Favorite Farmer

who's also a poet. But the bearded, sixty six year old farming virtuoso is nothing if not one of a kind. And Ohio native with a degree in creative writing, Chaskey began, in his words, consciously growing food while living in England with his wife in the nineteen eighties for moving back to the States to take over as the head of Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, New York. One of the

first community supported farms in the country. Quail Hill began in nine as a small piece of land for a few local families, but the concept, which hinges on sharing risk with the other farmers, has gone global and Scott Chaskey is known in the agricultural world as the quote

spiritual father of community farming unquote. So we've been around twenty seven years, um, and we are part of I work for a land trust, the Peconic Landrust, which is a conservation organization that has preserved twelve thousand acres of land on the on the east end of Long Island. So Mechanic Land Trust is a conservancy that protects land out here. Who had the idea of let's take some of this land and farm it organically? Did someone come to you? You went to them? How did that happen? Yeah?

So so um, two years before we actually came to emmaganstt and and and hooked up with a Pconic Land Trust, there were ten families that were heard this about this idea of c s A. And you know from the beginning of it in Western mass your parents not, Oh they were, that's right, they were part of the of the first ten families. And that's actually how I got involved because when we I lived in England for many years.

When we came back, Bill said you want to come to this meeting about this community farm that were part of I obviously wasn't part of it at that time. And uh, here I am. You came back nine, that's right. Yeah. What was dining like in your childhood and your relationship to food when you were a child? Where are you from? Uh? So, I grew up in um western New York, near Buffalo, a place called Tonawanda. Uh And um what he had an interesting job. He ran a bookstore at university, so

he was. But he was so good at it that he kept getting hired to go on to another university. And so I like that living around a university and being part of that um. And so he ran the bookstore at the University of Buffalo and then at the University of Washington and then finally at Cornell. And so Ithaca became home in the end, and I counted as my hometown, even though I didn't get there until I was I think seventeen, so the end of your high

school years. Yeah, yeah, I graduated from Ithaca High School and it was immediately home, even even though I don't I mean, I've never been back to Tonawanda actually, right, And we're not to college to college fifty miles away in Binghamton, Harper College at the time it was called sunny Binghamton was harper and what was what was the

relationship with food? Because I think about my family and how it's unusually once when I think back now, Yeah, well, my mother is a great baker, so Irish mother Mary and German father Harry and um he grew up in a Germanic household, and so meat and potatoes were you know, was the law up? Well, yeah, until did you rebel? I rebelled a surprise surprise in the sixties. How many siblings to to an older sister and a younger sister. Yeah, I was in the middle of the boy in the middle. Yeah.

But getting back to food, it was really my mother's Irish recipes and uh highlighted also on Sunday evenings every Sunday by my father's German potato pancakes. Was it was it sitting down at a table, yeah, very conscious meal. Oh yeah, very conscious, well paced meal and everybody bolting their food like my house. No, we we sat and we ate, et cetera, and lax there's always dessert, you know.

It was it was every evening was you know, customary basically, However, I do remember as life got a little busier that there was also the beginning of the TV dinner era, so um, you know, yeah, I experienced that too. So when you were growing up and and and and living this way, when did you change your consciousness about what

you wanted to eat and didn't want to eat? Well? College, I mean, so I went to Harper College in in nineteen and in the the pretty fiery year right after the UH Democratic Convention that year, I remember, you know, being shocked watching that and here I am in in uh initiation week in or you know, in introduction to college and being away from home and the SDS, the local STS chapter at at my university took over the administration of Students for Democratic Societies who was took over?

And I was, you know, had no idea of what this was, what was happening. So I mentioned that because my entire consciousness and probably the consciousness of the country changed as well, a lot of questioning of everything that was ever, absolutely everything. How did that plan to your eating habits? Yeah? And uh, do you know of the

do you know of the Moosewood Cookbooks? That's a it's a restaurant in Ithaca that's arted and right right at that time and and it was, you know, the first sort of vegetarian outburst really at that time, and so it was cooperative, etcetera. And so that had tremendous influence. And and also I remember when I left it may have been the year I left college. Um, Francis more Lapay had written Diet for a Small Planet, which sold millions of copies and still still does as a matter

of fact. And that's what I took when I went out into the world to you know, learn about my own style of cooking and eating, etcetera. Where did you go to begin that process? Um? Everywhere? Traveling? It was a traveling I traveled, yeah, uh, you know, with a little Volkswagen bug. And then you know it's predictive everywhere everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, When did you first go overseas? What did you overseas before? Uh? Probably during during college, sometime sometime in the middle of college,

which was putting uh, Switzerland, France. Um. And what struck you when you wrote? What was happening then for me? And the traveling was was opening to a new world basically because all I knew was the United States. So I just think it's about it in terms of it for someone who later on goes on to spend a huge part of their adult life growing food. Your life is about food and agriculture, so so your relationship to

those things which is very in ordinary. Then I really entered into consciously growing food in England when I moved to England. So this didn't come Did you move there to get a graduate degree in in literature? And I lived in Oxford for a couple of years, but I actually was studying through an American university, Antioch College, which had a center for British studies in London, and the fellow who headed the program was studying for a d

phil at Oxford. And so I said, I like the idea of spending time in Oxford, and I went back and forth to London, got a job as a gardener. That was the beginning job as a gardener, And that was the beginning. Did you seek that job? But that was the only job, you know, I think was a local paper and you know I had I I was living in a bedsit it's called you know, one one one room little not an apartment, just the room in Oxford across seven pounds a week and I didn't have

any money. So I got a job as a gardener for a pound an hour. And what happened when you did that job? It really led to um, you know, my love of the earth. And I worked with gardeners up in a really beautiful place called Boers Hill outside of Oxford, is five miles uphill. Actually, there's a famous little woodland on the way up called Benzi Poplars, and there's a great poem by grown Manly Hopkins about Binzi.

And I rode my bike by that every day, and I worked in these gardens and I'd come down and spend the rest of the day in the body Land Library, which was heaven on Earth and you and you did the gardening job for how long? A couple of years when I lived in Oxford, and then when I came back to the States, I sort of picked it up and and learned some more ardening from friends, et cetera. And yeah, and he decided to move back that went back to England, and because we missed it by that time,

I met my wife in England. Two of us were Americans, but we were really cross paths over the cross passed in a poetry class because a friend of mine was teaching a class and asked me to come in and read next to your No, she was. The story that we tell often is that she was wearing ll bean boots and I had lived in Maine, and so I remarked about her ll bean boots and here we are. That was a key. That was a key. Actually the real key was that a week later because I was

scheduled to go back to the States. And a week later we saw a poster for a Wordsworth festival in London and it was being opened by Shamashini before he won the Nobel Prize. And the second night, Basil Bunting, who was my teacher at Binghamton, by some odd chance, great North reading poet. We're reading Wordsworth. And so I stayed and she and I that was our first date,

was to go to the words. Do you find I don't think this is necessarily so, but do you find that your passion for and your immersion in literature and poetry and your work in agriculture go hand in hand? Oh? Yeah, they do go hand in hand. Yeah. I can't quite explain it, um, but but they go hand. Yeah. You

get it to your dough. So you go to England for ten years, right, and you are involved in agriculture the whole time, are you studying literature teaching a little bit of a little bit of both actually, or all

of that. But we lived on a Cornish hillside. So after Oxford, um, my wife read a book called The Cry of a Bird written by this woman who started a bird sanctuary in a little village called Mousel, and we went down as caretakers after they had died of of their studio and their cottage and uh and their publishers owned owned the places at that time, and they after we were there for three months, they said, well, it seems you know you're the ones who should be here.

Do you want to buy the places? So we had never thought of settling in Mousel, or or England for that matter, and nor did we have any money. But we figured it out and we bought the studio in cottage and stayed there for eight years. So your kids born over there? Yeah, My oldest Levin Levin was born and had a Cornish accent, so it was really really fascinating to have the American parents with him and over there.

That's when we came back when he got to school age, but he did he was enrolled in a preschool and then he went to you know, kindergarten for a while, and you came back for the back when he was about five. Because it wasn't really working schooling. It didn't seem quite right. So we thought, well, let's try it out. When you know, it's our first kid, let's you know,

and you're really focused on that sort of thing. And so and also by that time we'd lived eight year is in this little fishing village and life was good, but my wife was missing home, and so was her home. Her home was originally New Mexico and then Berkeley in the sixties. And you guys are touching all the lefty touch stuff Berkeley. Yeah, well, maybe we'll get to that later on because because we actually my wife grew up on this beautiful property along the Rio Grand. Her father

had kept the land. He sold the house, but he kept this ten acres of farm farmland on the real Grand and when he passed away left it to my wife and her brother and and we just put a conservation easement on this farmland in in that um lots of you know, hot things, peppers, etcetera. Right, and uh, it's a beautiful, beautiful place and uh, you know fifty five years later, she's coming back to this land that she grew up on. And uh, and you put an easeman on. It was really interesting for me to on

this side. Worked for a land trust creating conservation easements with other people for many years, and now I was on the side of being a landowner creating an Eastman was it's a really beautiful thing when you come back. What year was that? Had you decided was there a preconception where you would go where you weren't sure? We know we would touch base here because we had moved Connie here and and yeah, Connie's my my wife's mom, my mother and my mother. And why here she moved

here because she was divorced at that time. And and her best friend was Elaine da Kooning And Elaine da Kooning had come to teach at the University of New Mexico when Connie was there many years before. As a matter of fact, Um, there's a story of her dancing with Megan, my wife in her arms when Megan was one year old. So that's that's the year. And Connie stayed friends with with Elane and she came out to

visit Elane. Uh. They took a walk found a house in the Northwest Woods, very close to here, and Connie bought that house and moved and we moved her. We were at this period where where we could help her out, and we moved and settled here for a little while to help her. Where part Uh, it's sag Saddle Lane now in so we were at Connie's house and it's northwest, yeah, northwest, it's you know, a stones throw from where we are

right now. Again Elane lived right around the corner. What I love is when we're talking, I don't know Mausel and I don't know this little corners hillside, but you and I talking, our listeners are probably going, what you know, Hants Creek, northwest wife Brook. It's it's he's Tampton focus tempton.

When did Peconic Glantrust start? And it was really because John Halsey, who grew up in in Southampton, had gone to school in California when he came back and he saw houses popping up in all the potato fields and he said this, this isn't right. Should do something about this, and he got together with some friends he learned abo Atlantras. Because land trusts had had been existent in this country since the nineteenth century, but they didn't take off in

a way until the seventies. John found out about land trust and what land trust could do something that municipalities could not do right in protecting land, conserving land, and so three he started it and started kind of slowly. But when I came up a lot of money to run a land trust, a lot of money to buy land or protect land, and the Hampton's obviously right. So um, I had never heard of a landrust before I got involved with the community Farm. That was my first interest

was that. But then I learned about what John was doing, and John was open to this idea of of accepting the community farm even though he had never heard of

a c s A either. But that marriage took place in nineteen eighty nine, the marriage between the community Farm where we talked about earlier, where my my my in laws were part of those first ten families, but I wasn't connected to the land trust at the time, So it was the first ten families, that first ten families was doing what forming the c s A. Forming the c s A because they had heard of this idea and it was you know, this little colonel what landed

were they? Were they farming? Then I was in Bridge Hampton. Uh did you did you ever run into Hugh Williams, guy named you Williams. He had to so he had an apple orchard. He didn't own the land, but he was a biodynamic farmer. In the first c s A is, the idea of c s A started on biodynamic farms in different parts of this country. And Uh, when I went to the first meetings of c s A is in a little Waldorf school which is based on ruff

Steiner's teachings. Uh, in Kimberton, Pennsylvania, there were twenty people people. The next year there were fifty people, and then a hundred and fifty people, and c sas began taking off all over the place. Now it's estimated that there are six thousand or more in the country. Um, so it's just taken off like blossoms. Basically coming up, Chasky discusses

what community farming looks like in China. To hear from the founder of another socially conscious empire, this one a bit more caffeinated, explore our archives to hear my conversation with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in the back of my mind. I kept dreaming about what I needed to do for my dad, and my dad died in and I wanted to try and build the kind of company he never got a chance to work for. So the entire business model was trying to balance profit with conscience, benevolence and

social impact. Take a listen at Here's the Thing dot org. This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the Thing. Scott Chaskey weaves together his passion for planting and prose. He's penned multiple books on the community farming movement, most recently Seed Time. Through decades of thoughtful farming in his fields, fueled by an earnest desire to do good, he's created a road map for the kind of food

creation that America desperately needs. I mean, what what's happened is that I don't think we could have predicted this in the beginning, is that it would take off the way that it has, So that are I feel that our real influence goes way beyond those fields, for instance,

So listen to this. I never would have guessed, So that you know we're doing this kind of work and spreading the word in this country but I just went to a global CISA conference in China in November with people from twenty eight different countries, and I never would have guessed that that level of engagement and would would would happen, you know, from from starting a community farm and amaganst so I was on a on a panel discussing biodiversity in China with a Japanese farmer, a French farmer,

and a Chinese academician. It was absolutely fascinating. And and so the reach of what we've done, what I'm saying is is goes far beyond our fields. And but my attention daily is on those fields. How many separate parces of land other than the classic quail hill down there, other by the windmill, one other? How many other areas are you responsible for? How many fields? Well, so the total acreage that Deborah left was two We leased some to Part of our mission as a land trust and

as a community farm is to lease land. Basically when you ask, you know, who's farming, who are we employing. The way we've done it all these years is that we have an apprenticeship and so we're actually training young farmers to you know, go out and manage their own farms basically, and so uh, Katie and Amanda for member Waves were my apprentices and now they're in their seventh or eighth year of running their own farm right over the railroad tracks. And and that's land that that's land

that we had managed for another landowner as well. So what's your staff at the height of the summer, you have? How many people win your stuff? Ten? At ten at the most, it's and and we we could Is it tough to find those ten in the summer or is it easy? No? Because we're well known now we get a fair amount of applicants for the apprenticeships and we actually get to choose which is they come all over and house we house them. That was the most difficult.

What's your housing plan here? We've got three houses which we sort of accumulated over the years one way or another. Basically Deborah left us one where yeah, but but the uh um, the other two. I mean we moved a house. It was a sixties ranch house that actually would you put it? We had a ninety two acre piece that had a separate lot on it so that we wouldn't and we put it right on the edge of the separate lot. What are you doing on that it's habitat,

it's it's land preserve or habitat. So when these what's the number of people off season with you two? It's a little lonely. But we have a winter share, so we actually have people coming all winter to pick up vegetables. It's not just the summer. We have a traditional roots seller and we store crops in the roots seller and people come all winter and so they get we grow green's in the greenhouse and etcetera. So if you can't compare and contrast, if you would, I'm not assuming that

one is favorable and one is not. But techniques and philosophy, even that you witnessed and that you lived over in England, compared to the way it is here, what do they do better than we do? And what do we do better than they? If anything, they do better by having a sense of history that is not ignored. So I mean that's a very general statement, but you know this thing.

Recently I've been doing reading and returning to the thought that in this country where people without history, you know, and and of course there's lots of history, but we live as there's no time for history, have no time for history. So I mean that's what I was fascinated by in England. I mean I would have been anywhere else in Europe as well, just happened to settle in England. But that's what I felt there, and I felt perfectly at home with that concept and I missed the Yeah,

in the end, it is a more thoughtful approach. Yeah, yeah, I guess people are in a hurry all over the world now. But um, this trip to China was open. It was absolutely eye opening, like what does a community farm look like in China? And how do you help the Chinese leap frog to where you think they should be? Yeah, and why are they at all interested? And what does

it actually mean? And it was. It was absolutely fascinating and quite actually they're putting at the local governments are putting lots of energy into that in a way that isn't happening in the country at all. I mean that what we're talking about, the kind of work we're doing is all grassroots and it's not, you know, funded by government at all. Um in in China they're worried about feeding people. You know. Well, I mean I think that

you bring it. You come to a point that I was going to get to, which is among the criickest paths to political instability, is a collapse of the food supply. And the problem in the United States is that we produce more than enough food for three square meals for everyone in the country, and and the and the gap there is distribution, and that's true worldwide. I'll never forget when I was going to sell my house and um my friend said to me, well, you know, don't say said,

don't sell that house. They said, you know that problem. You've got ten acres there, you know you gotta And they said, because you know, in the next fifteen twenty years, we're all going to be growing our own food in this kind of global warming prelude, you know. And I wonder if you think that that's true. Are people going

to start growing water politics? Well, I'm sure that more people are going to have to be engaged in growing food, uh in a sustainable fashion than we have now, because we're down to one percent of our population engaged in agriculture, whereas before the Second World War of the population lived

on farms. This extraordinary and that is not sustainable, Nor is the kind of um corporate approach to you know, the industrialization of agriculture that you're talking about that really isn't sustainable, and so we have to come up with some other ways. And that's kind of what we're doing in our small way, and it's going to involve more people.

That's that's that's the way it is. Are there major companies who you admire the way that they produce their products and grow food or youth or as all of the mass production of food, you know, without saying anything litigious, you know, is there are they all basically the same and cutting the same corners or their companies you actually mire what they do. I don't know. It's a slippery slow hope, Yeah, there was some nothing, nothing's jumping into

mind immediately. But it is a slippery slope because of the I don't know, if you've seen the charts of who actually owns you know, the natural food companies, you know, and and they're almost all owned the ones who are playing so so, so you know, that's a very slippery slope. And we are trying to change that. And I mean, I don't I know of no other way to change it other than by actively working on it the way

that we are. My fondness is more for people who are working on it on the on the grassroots, all all the not for profits who are supporting uh, young farmers getting into into this style of agriculture or whatever. So I can't think of a single company right now that I want to give all my praise to. It's really the all the people who are working behind the scenes in the grassroots way. Basically, what do you think about the whole foods revolution? Yeah, we're showing up in

neighborhoods like you. I never imagined they would be in the New York and so, yeah, well it's serving it's serving some purpose. Let's say that. Yeah, so you're out here at a restaurant, an ordinary restaurant, even a top restaurant, with a very expensive menu, and the produce on the on the on the table, the tomatoes and the guens

stuff is usually coming from Up Island. Correct, It varies a lot, but there's I'd rather talk about the local chefs who have been incredibly supportive of what we do and who bought Oh yeah, many mores aren't the big so for people to understand as precious as this area is, Yeah, the big, big farming operations for this area are Up Island.

In the Riches and Riverhead correct well up as up Island. Yeah, well no, they're on the North Fork from there, on the North Fork and they're selling primarily to you know, high end restaurants, etcetera. But there are a number of local chefs who have been like, you know, we we we started a garden behind Nick and Tony's restaurant years ago and they've always been incredibly supportive. And so there's Nick, you know, Jeff Sure and and and then uh Joe

real Mudo from Nickntoni's. There's Colin and Stas Uh, there's Jason at Allman's. You know, these these chefs are being so incredibly supportive and they we have a great relationship

with and they're not the only ones. So so during the years you've been out here for um, you know, over twenty five years now doing what you're doing now, there's been this I don't want to say revolution, but you can almost say that in terms of wineries and wine growing and the conversion of North Fork properties for people who don't know this area that's across the the bay from US North Fork properties into wineries. What do you make of that operation? You said, that's something that

you were surprised by Uh. Yeah, I mean I think everyone was surprised. But I mean in nine I think was the first one, and the Channing uh no, the first one. Um, I've forgotten the name right now. But on the North Fork there's only you know, there's only three wineries in the South Fork. There's fifty or so on the North for I think everyone's surprised that in

since seventy that many have popped up. We have a very close relationship with with Channing, yeah, and with Wolfer, and uh, you know, I'm very supportive of of of how they're caring for the land, intending for the land. Yeah, it's amazing to me at the time I've been down here, how they unbelievable harvesting of the of the clippings and the soil and have been get that ready. And some people say because it was always a very reductive attitude

towards that wine. I'm not a wine drigger myself, but people would say to me, oh, please, if you came to a house and said I want to bring some indigenous wine, people were doing why are you bothering doing that? Yeah? And now all of a sudden, some of those moms. They're producing other producing some great wines. Now yeah, yeah, but it is interesting how they just which is it's a wonderful climate for growing things. You know, we're in

zone seven. We're one of the only places in the Northeast that has the growing climate that his zone seven climates. So that's the amount of growing days that you have. And also we have a fair amount of sun cut y'all is the sunniest town in New York State. Not many people are aware of that, so we get the right amount of rain. We have these beautiful soils left by the glaciers, and we have a very forgiving climate

for growing things. Yeah, what was an interesting, um, if you can say, what was an interesting issues or challenges you have with raising your own children in terms of food? Well, and naturally they you know, they're really great kids by the way, three and three and um. Growing up, you know, they enjoyed going to other people's homes where food was served that they didn't get in our home. But for example, uh, well meet for one, so my wife and I are

both vegetarians, but interestingly enough, our our two sons. So I have two sons and a daughter, and the two sons really need meet and they you know, they they we found that out as they were growing up, and so I tried. I mean, I'm the cook and the family and I did my best, but um, I don't I don't think it was really what they were gett in another households. So that was something they missed. And of course we didn't serve a lot of suits at all,

and we're fairly strict about that. And then we learned later when they grew up about the stash that they had in their room, you know, after after Halloween or something like that. But you know, now that they're in their twenties, my oldest son is thirty two. Um, and they come back they're so appreciative of growing up in a household with with fresh latency to that. Yeah, so you know, growing up there were you know, there were arguments one or two. But well, it's funny because on

our website people will see a picture of you. We're gonna post a picture of you and everybody knows you from your striking facial hair, your gigantic and beautiful beard and you're thick mane of hair. And thank you for nominating me for best beard. By the way, my son sent me apparently you made a comment, so you do have You and the Smirnoff Vodka band are talked the best beard. But um, now, now for you doing this job, you're fit as a fiddle, You're a very lean, spry

in spite of your golden beard. You're you're physically very on your toes. But I'm imagining you're not gonna do this forever. And the question becomes, how does Scott Chaskey replace Scott Chasky? Is there a succession program? I mean, right now, you know there's a number of people who can who can take over doing what I'm doing, So I'm not really worried about that. How much long are probably at the most a couple of years and sixty six now actually? And would you stay in the area

after that? We'd want to travel a bit, I think, and we just stay home this land and this will probably be home. And the kids tell us you cannot sell these Yeah, that's what they That's what they tell us, So they want to come back to So what about your writing and teaching in the off season? The other part of you comes back and the win and the

s in the wintertime? Yeah, I mean that's um, I mean, I do you know, I'm writing in my notebook throughout the year, but you know, to actually finish a book, I mean that does take the winter time for me. But um, that's what I'll be doing more of and I'm trying to I'm trying to do more of that now. So I've been working in the mornings before going to the farm writing for actually the last couple of years. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to finish those last

two books that I that I wrote. So there's gonna be a lot more of that. I'm working on a book now about Bill Kingbo, my my father in law, who who is a sculptor and a really great man. And so that's that's my work for this winter. Well,

I must say that I can't imagine this community without you. Think, you know, you're such an important part of this community because you was just it's funny how because you're so striking looking the beard and everything, but for obviously but you're so strikingly but whenever people see you, you symbolize the fire is burning of the agricultural mantle of this community. I can't get over how important that is that we don't just save land that's all would have land that

what you're doing hopefully carries on. Um while I have you, I want to take advantage of what one thing, which is now that I have little children and I finally get around to doing my organic plot on my property next summer, what should we be growing? This nice and easy for my little kids to get involved. And what's an easy thing to grow? Well? Starter, you know people, I mean almost everybody likes tomato, so cherry cherry. You have to grow cherry tomatoes, right, and there's this one

called sun Gold that everyone absolutely adors. But also you know some squash. You know that's the summer squash grows fast and you know, um, it keeps coming, so that's a good thing to grow. We have a little patch on the side of our house and I said to my daughter, what do you want to grow? And said, pumpkins? Why not? Why not? I don't know If I'm okay, we'll share some seeds with you. But also demand that you have to grow garlic. That's only favorite crops and

it's very easy to grow. Talking about his dual love of writing and farming, Scott Chasky says it has something to do with quote being in touch with the soil, and then actually having some time for solitude and reflection. No better time than now to heed his advice. This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to. Here's the thing