Genesee Valley Organic Community Supported Agriculture

Ammie Chickering is a native of Brookfield, a small town in central Massachusetts. She is not from a farm family, but grew up vegetable gardening. She has worked as a shepherd for the guarding dog project at Hampshire College (her alma mater), on a dairy farm in New Hampshire, and did a 4-month stint as an apprentice on an organic research farm in Switzerland. In the 1980ís, she served with Elizabeth on the NOFA/MA Certification Committee while working for the Massachusetts Dept. of Food and Agriculture.

She met Greg in Massachusetts in 1989 and pulled him into her lifelong dream of having a small farm. Land was unaffordable in New England so they relocated to upstate New York. They married and bought an old house and 52 acres near South Butler in 1991, not far from Rose Valley Farm. For outside income, Ammie took the job of Administrative Secretary for NOFA-NY and ran the membership office from home. Greg went to work for Rose Valley Farm. Their daughter, Helen, was born on May 28, 1994. The following summer, Ammie became an inspector for NOFA-NYís Organic Certification Program; work she continued to do on a limited basis through 2001. When Greg became a partner at Peacework Organic Farm, it became obvious to Ammie that limited time and energy, advancing middle age, and the demands of parenthood would never allow them to also develop a farm on their own land. With her tolerance for office work more than exceeded, she joined Liz and Greg in 2000 to pursue her farming dreams at Peacework. Helen joins her folks at the farm during school vacations and on weekends. She particularly loves her time spent with the CSA kids at the farm.

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