Bard College Farm

On The Farm 

• We grow from seed to plate 20 different kinds of produce and many varities as well
• Home to the largest cranberry bog in the Hudson Valley
• We planted 56 rhizomes of two different varities of hops
• An intricate drip-irrigation system is also our in-line organic fertilizer distributor
• We are a reduced till raised bed farming system
• Our largest workforce is 4 bee hives that improve pollination and biodiversity
• The farm employs 40 students over the course of the school year
• We host academic classes, field trips from pre-schoolers to incarcerated youth to a group of seniors from the Lifetime Learning Institute

Our Mission

The Bard Farm is a 1.25 acre sustainable urban farm that organically grows fruits and vegetables to sell to Chartwells, the campus dining service. Located on Bard's campus and worked by students, the farm, with its visibility and its accessibility, demonstrates the realities of small-scale farming and the potential for community to develop around food. By engaging the minds of Bard students and the extended community in the ways of local/organic food and sustainable agriculture, we are inspiring a lifelong compassion for community-based farming and a model of food production that improves human and soil health, raises small farmer's incomes, and will sustain for generations. This work to develop local food culture in the fields and on the plate is not only a lesson for us as consumers, a call for responsibility, but is also a direct way to improve the institutional buying habits of large-scale food companies like the one at Bard. Our efforts take a step, through activism and education, towards the realization of a future in which every person has equal access to healthy food.