Brien Adams)
BREWSTER- The Westchester Land Trust’s Preservation Award has been presented to members of the Ryder family of Brewster, owners and operators of Ryder Farm, the oldest working farm in Putnam County.
The recognition came at the Land Trust’s annual benefit that raised more than $440,000 for land protection throughout the lower Hudson Valley.
The Ryder’s permanently protected their 128-acre farm through a conservation easement with Westchester Land Trust in 2023. Ryder Farm was established in 1795 by Eleazer Ryder and has been stewarded by the family since then. Throughout its history, the farm, which is situated along Peach Lake, has been a working farm with a general store, a dairy farm, and a family leisure resort. Ryder Farm was an early adopter of the organic farming movement and sold its produce at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City. The farm has more than 3,000 feet of frontage on Peach Lake and the protected land safeguards drinking water access, as the area drains into the Croton Reservoir system.
More than 300 attended the affair including Martha Stewart to commend the Ryder family and others recognized including Annie Farrell for her decades of agricultural innovation throughout the region. Farrell was born in New York City and spent summers at her family’s cottage along Peach Lake at the Putnam-Westchester border where she formed the Delaco Agricultural Co-op, and then established Annie’s, a business dedicated to providing organic specialty crops for restaurants.
