From field to soup kitchens, van loads of tomatoes

Dear Editor,
Two weeks ago we kicked off our tomato harvest making our first deliveries to our friends at the Masbia Soup Kitchen’s three NYC locations. We are bringing down weekly van loads of tomatoes to the city thanks to a new program from New York State named Nourish NY.

According to the state’s website, “New York State’s Nourish New York Initiative is a lifeline for our families and our farmers who have been struggling with changes brought on by Covid-19. This critical program helps people who are food insecure to access the nourishment that they need, while providing a market for farmers to sell their products.”

We are growing a whole bunch of tomatoes that are all earmarked to help feed over 700 families in need. We are extremely grateful for this opportunity to provide delicious red field tomatoes to the Masbia network.

As a community-serving educational farm this is exactly the kind of production we love doing.

This is our biggest vegetable production since our garlic growing days, and we are looking forward to expanding this partnership with Masbia and New York State for next year.

Yisroel Bass
Yiddish Farm
New Hampton, NY

New York State farmers who have surplus can share the details with food banks at agriculture.ny.gov/NourishNY.