WEST VALLEY — Hill’s Valley Farm of Cattaraugus received Farmer of the Year honors Wednesday night at the eighth annual Cattaraugus County Farmer-Neighbor Dinner.
More than 350 people attended the event at the West Valley Fire Department banquet facility. The food, cooked by the West Valley Fire Department kitchen crew, consisted of locally sourced foods from beef and turkey to vegetables. The desserts were locally sourced by Dina’s Catering.
Hill’s Valley Farm was started in 1979 by Richard and Donna Hill. Besides milking their herd of purebred brown Swiss, they sell show animals.
Son Dustin Hill, the Cattaraugus County Farm Bureau president, and his wife Katie, who comes from a brown Swiss dairy family in Missouri, round out the farm family. They have three young children.
In 2016, Richard and Donna Hill were recognized as the Active Master Breeder by the National Brown Swiss Association. Darin and Katie won the 2017 Young Farmers Achievement Award from the New York Farm Bureau.
The event’s guest speaker was Mark Printz, manager of Canticle Farm for the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, who spoke on community-supported agriculture. People invest in Canticle Farm’s produce, becoming shareholders paid in fresh produce over 28 weeks a year.
Printz grows hundreds of variety of about 40 different crops. Many are gown in high tunnels, plastic-covered greenhouses.
“There are multiple plantings and multiple harvests,” he said. “There is no middle man. You learn to eat seasonally.” He added the organization provides cooking demonstrations to introduce people to new produce.
Receiving the county Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board’s Ag Legacy Award were Barbara Andera of Great Valley and her late husband Francis Andera, who operated Frangalex Farm for many years.
The couple were longtime members of the Cattaraugus County Farm Bureau and dedicated in their promotion of agriculture. The annual Farm Bureau picnic was held at their farm for many years.
Presenting the award to Andera was Lynn Telaak, longtime agriculture educator and friend of the Anderas.
“The Andera farm was the premier dairy farm in the county,” she said.
Bliss Dairy Company of Freedom received the Cattaraugus County Soil and Water Conservation District Conservation Farmer of the Year Award.
Dustin Bliss and his wife, Laura Lee, received the 2018 Conservation Farmer of the Year Award from Brian Davis, field director of the Cattaraugus County Soil and Water Conservation District. The Freedom dairy farm has worked closely with the Soil and Water Conservation District and other groups to address agricultural runoff, erosion and sediment control on the farm.
Cattaraugus County Administrator Jack Searles received the Friend of Agriculture Award for his efforts to re-establish the Cattaraugus County 4-H program in the past few years.
(Contact reporter Rick Miller at rmiller@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @RMillerOTH)
