South Egremont — Elizabeth Keen and Al Thorp have played an important role in farm history in the Berkshires. Not only do they own Indian Line Farm, one of the first two CSAs (community supported agriculture) in the country, but Elizabeth took part in the first study groups that led to the creation of Berkshire Grown. Elizabeth was hired as the first coordinator of the organization with the task of creating a board and helping to formulate the group’s mission and vision.
Indian Line Farm in South Egremont was founded by the late Robyn Van Em in 1985, and was taken over by Elizabeth and Al in 1997 after Van Em’s untimely death. Elizabeth and Al now have a 99-year lease on the historic farm. Elizabeth says the lease has worked out terrifically for them. “There’s no downside. We were able to start farming immediately without a lot of debt.” She notes that the farm “was a mess” when they bought it so “small was our farming M.O. at the beginning.” Their major investments were making improvements on the property. “We wanted to make it beautiful without incurring an incredible amount of debt.”
They’ve farmed at Indian Line for close to 20 years. This year there are 140 members who pick up their shares on Tuesday or Friday from June 1 through to the end of October. Indian Line also offers working shares, which is a discount in exchange for 30 hours of work on the farm. Some people will work the barn on pickup days, and others help in weeding or harvesting. A few help her work the Great Barrington Farmers Market.
Many of the CSA members return year after year. “We lose about 10 to 15 percent every year,” she says. Those who join and remain with them have a commitment to cooking and experimenting with new foods. “They like to maximize their vegetable consumption,” Elizabeth says. Knowing that cooking the vegetables is an important factor in the CSA’s success, Elizabeth shares cooking tips and recipes.
Elizabeth started selling at the Great Barrington Farmers Market in 1997, but after a few years she took a break to concentrate more intensely on the farm. Now she’s back at the market and sits on their board. Like everyone else, she is delighted with the new location. “It’s beautifully landscaped. Jane Iredale has been incredibly generous with us, and Howard (Lefenfeld) has been good for the market,” she says.
Elizabeth has been planting since mid-April. At our interview in late May, she said, “This has been the second driest May on record. We haven’t gotten more than a half inch of rain so our irrigation system was put out much earlier than usual.” They are using constant drip watering particularly during prime planting weeks.
She plants a wide range of vegetables, which is “a wonderful thing because there’s always a few crops that don’t make it.” This past year she ramped up for winter crops to sell at the holiday farmers markets sponsored by Berkshire Grown. “Those markets were great for us,” she enthused.
Elizabeth is a lead farmer in CRAFT, the acronym for “Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training,” an association for farmers in the Pioneer Valley, eastern New York, and Western Massachusetts. About 15 farmers, many of them with CSAs, created a curriculum for apprentices or for newly hired help. Elizabeth also belongs to Berkshire Grown, NOFA MASS, and the Agriculture Commission of Egremont.
Indian Line Farm has benefitted from the services of many interns over the years. “Over the 15 years that we’ve farmed here, probably five of our interns have gone into full-time farming,” she says. “Many of them retain an interest in agriculture, whether it’s teaching or overseeing student gardens, or working in gardens for other people.”
While Elizabeth oversees the cultivation of the farm, Al is “the project person.” Elizabeth says he is “fantastic at maintaining, fixing, repairing the equipment.” Many farm families have one member who works off the farm to supply a steady income. At Indian Line, that’s Al, who owns Accord Engineering and Surveying. In addition to his engineering work, Al, a tenor, is a longtime member of the Quintessential Quartet that sings at many events in the Berkshires.
Both Al and Elizabeth worked as volunteers after college, Al in Norway, and Elizabeth in Central America. She was a member of a team, “Witness for Peace,” an ecumenical organization charged with helping people of Central America. She was part of a long-term team that helped Guatemalan refugees in Mexico return to their homeland. She spent most of her three years with the organization in refugee camps as well as accompanying refugees home.
Elizabeth and Al have two children, Colin, 11 and Helen, 8. “They’ve grown up very differently from me. They see we love what we do,” she reports. They like to harvest and cook. “They’re much more adventurous eaters than most kids,” she says, “and they appreciate getting paid for harvesting.” Colin is large enough to ride an old lawn mower, which, as is the wont for 11-year-old boys, he enjoys.
