Farmers Are the New Celebrities

As organic and locally grown produce has come to the forefront of public consciousness, quality farmers are becoming the new stars of the food scene. For the New York metropolitan area, one of the big farmer-stars is Amy Hepworth. Started in 1818, Hepworth farms occupies 400 acres in Milton, New York, about 90 miles north of New York City. Amy, who’s the head farmer has become famous through supplying local organizations and restaraunts with top notch produce,including Whole Foods and The Park Slope food coop.

New York Magazine reports:

“Just a few years ago, only a celebrity chef could have stirred up so much epicurean excitement. Back then, the food chain extended only as far back as the restaurant kitchens we viewed—sometimes literally, at, say, the Mercer Kitchen or Café Gray—as staging grounds. But we’ve come to realize that dinner originates in the planting row, not on the prep line. We’re increasingly conscious of how our food is produced, and where—and who—it comes from. So New Yorkers are now beginning to fetishize farmers the way we once did chefs. Some of us make ritual trips to buy our wares at the Greenmarket, nod with recognition when our favorites are name-checked on menus, and turn out to hear them speak when they make meet-the-farmer appearances in town.

The meet-the-farmer mania is characterized by a desire for personal connection. “In the past, people would call me and ask, ‘Where can I pick apples? Where can I pick pumpkins?’?” says Coop produce buyer Allen Zimmerman. “The thought of a farm being ‘our’ farm is new.” Our farm. Meet your farmer. I went to hear Hepworth speak at the Coop because I really had come to consider her my farmer: It was like a brand preference; I’d buy anything she grew, from a purple cauliflower to a doughnut peach. I liked the idea that I was buying from an actual person, from an Amy. “Farming for the most part is a man’s world,” says Zimmerman. At the Coop, “Amy is a legend. People meet her and they swoon.”

[New York Magazine via Influx Insights]