Contact: Michael & Heidi Gogins
For more information, e-mail heidigogins@gmail.com

Property address: 1576 Crescent Valley Road, Bovina Center, NY 13740
(The farm is located about 5 miles outside of Bovina Center, going towards New Kingston, in Eastern Delaware County. We are at the head of Crescent Valley and are at the end of a dirt road.)

Available for: Lease/Share/Partnership

Acreage available: 167, of which approximately 40-50 acres are cleared. Most of the cleared land is currently in hay production; we also have about a 10 acre piece of pasture (brush hogged every year). The balance is forest.

Land use: We currently have 70 layer chickens and sell eggs.

Organic: Yes (without certification)

Land description: Active agriculture

Soil description: Organic

Water description: We have spring and well water and get 8 gallons a minute from the well. We have 2 ponds. The dairy barn has an existing water line, but it would have to be made to work again. The pasture has access to water.

Housing available: We are looking into several possibilities, but don't have anything in place yet. One of our neighbors, who owns 175 acres adjoining us, now lives abroad and has a house we are hoping will be available.

Buildings available: We have our house, a cottage (currently rented year round), 2 barns (carriage/horse barn and a former dairy barn), a school bus garage, and an old garage that serves as the chicken house. The bigger barn ( dairy barn) is a bank barn on 3 levels and is in good shape, with a new roof 4 years ago, and new windows on one end. Our neighbor put in an electric fence around the pasture last year, but it is now in disrepair and would need to be fixed or replaced.

Other details: The farm was originally settled around 1830 by John Burns and it remained in the Burns family as an active dairy farm until the early 1980's. When it was sold, the new owners got organic certification in place, and began raising organic chickens which they sold to high end restaurants in NYC, including Bouley!

When we bought the place in 1998, organic certification had lapsed because of a 5 year hiatus, but there has been no pesticide or herbicide use on the land in the intervening years. Bovina is a great community with an active farming population. There is a newly formed organization in town called Farming Bovina, aimed at encouraging and reviving local farms.

Our farm is gorgeous, quiet, teeming with wildlife, way off any main roads and is in the NYC Watershed. We are in the process of getting a conservation easement through the Watershed Agricultural Council, which will ensure that it remains agricultural after we're gone. Both our neighboring farms already have these easements in place.