https://www.carversvillefarm.org
Address: 6127 Mechanicsville Road, Mechanicsville, PA 18934
We run a certified organic farm where we raise top-quality vegetables, poultry, beef and eggs, and we donate over ninety percent of our harvests to Philadelphia-area soup kitchens and food pantries. In 2020, we gave more than 120,000 pounds of food, including pastured poultry and grass-fed beef and a wide variety of fresh produce. We also sustain the environment through our rigorous organic farming practices and train future farmers through our apprentice program.
Why: Because people in poverty deserve fresh, nutritious food. Our non-profit farm grows organic vegetables, eggs and meat specifically for donation. Last year we gave away over 100,000 pounds of food. With your support, we’re on track to donate even more this year.
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An interview with Tony D’Orazio
LEADING SUSTAINABLE FARMING INNOVATION IN BUCKS COUNTY
By Charlene Briggs, Executive Director, Land Trust of Bucks County
The Carversville Farm Foundation is a non-profit farm that combines ecological regeneration and agricultural production to serve our environment as well as our community.
We currently distribute our farm products to soup kitchens and food pantries in the greater Philadelphia area to help improve access to wholesome, locally grown foods. We are in the early stages of creating a diversified farm with intensive cover cropping, multi-species grazing, and vegetable, cheese, fruit and mushroom production.
MISSION: The Carversville Farm Foundation, a non-profit, produces fresh sustainable food specifically for donation to populations who lack access to a balanced diet; offers farm apprenticeships, workshops and facilitates information exchange; and nurtures organic farms through cooperative purchasing and other programs. Utilizing advanced sustainable farming methods, the farm works to provide these services while simultaneously regenerating the agro-ecosystem.
1. What motivated you to start the CFF?
My wife and I have a three-pronged philanthropic mission: to help those in need; make our food system healthier and repair our environment. Carversville Farm Foundation’s (CFF) mission addresses these three goals.
2. What is the scope of your influence in terms of food distribution?
Today our footprint is very small. In the years to come (this is a long-term goal), we hope to think creatively to find ways to help the small to medium sustainable farmer gain access to everything from new production techniques, shared processing facilities, capital investment, group purchasing systems, and cooperative and equitable distribution systems. Think a food hub on steroids.
3. Do you have plans to start a CSA or farmers market at CFF?
We currently sell very little of what we produce. Most is donated to soup kitchens and food pantries in the greater Philadelphia area. This will always be the case since one of core missions is to provide healthy food to those who do not have access to it. To date, we distribute to a few stores and restaurants, as well as have a Saturday farm stand at Max Hansen’s Grocery in Carversville. Eventually, we will increase the products that we sell with all revenue generated going directly back into the farm’s operations and mission.
4. Is CFF agriculture 100% organic?
So far, we have achieved organic certification for our crops and pastures. Over the next year or so our various animal-based enterprises will become organically certified as well.
5. Can you share what types of regenerative practices you use to restore and maintain ecological balance?
We have many practices underway. This is one of our core missions. All of the land we are working has been farmed for nearly 300 years. The land was tired and damaged. We are striving to manage the land both to restore and maintain ecological integrity. Conventional or no land management invites erosion, watershed degradation, flooding, low organic content, and invasive species.
Sustainable land management is designed to restore soil health by regenerating organic matter, healthy perennial root systems, and extensive microbial activity. We started our process by removing 45 acres of over-grown nursery trees, as well as restoring about 100 acres of conventionally farmed open fields with soil containing very little organic matter content and microbial activity. We then established a very comprehensive cover crop and organic soil amendment program. We practice multi-species rotational grazing whereby our goats, sheep and cows graze together in one group, followed by our chickens and pigs. This type of management allows us to efficiently move each group of animals to fresh pasture every day keeping them healthy and stress-free while spreading their manure evenly on the land. These practices have begun to positively impact the biological activity of our fields, as well as increase the volume of topsoil and organic matter content.
Read more
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Article
New York Times (may be possible to view this)
Their Produce Is Pristine Enough for Picky Chefs. But They Give It Away.
The couple behind Carversville Farm believe that everyone deserves high-quality food, so they donate most of theirs to kitchens feeding the neediest in Philadelphia.
MECHANICSVILLE, Pa. — Steve Tomlinson takes pride in the details at Carversville Farm, the 388-acre certified-organic spread he manages here in bucolic Bucks County.
There’s the high-tech poultry barn, where an automated system ensures that wobbly week-old chickens get just the right amount of light, heat, ventilation and food. There’s the 10-foot-long steel barrel washer, which gently buffs a pile of freshly dug Lehigh potatoes, and the acre of Bolero carrots now emerging from dark topsoil that took Mr. Tomlinson nearly half a decade to restore.
Mr. Tomlinson, 40, loves those carrots, which are sweetened by fall frost, stay crunchy in cold storage and grow to a perfect size for his customers’ mirepoix. “It’s all about consistency in the kitchen, so the chefs don’t have to work too hard,” he said.
Carversville Farm looks like so many others that cater to picky chefs. But Mr. Tomlinson’s customers don’t work at restaurants: They work at soup kitchens and food pantries throughout the Philadelphia area, and they get every bit of that impeccably grown food free.
The nonprofit farm, formally called the Carversville Farm Foundation, was started seven years ago by Tony and Amy D’Orazio, a husband-and-wife team of entrepreneurs. The farm, which includes a lazily grazing herd of Angus cattle and a rafter of Bourbon Red turkeys, donates 90 percent of its produce and meat. (The other 10 percent — Mr. Tomlinson tracks it by weight — goes to a stand, open once a week, that neighbors begged the foundation to run.)
Plenty of farms give food away. And since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, federal and state programs have even begun paying them to do so. The newly created Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System, for instance, helps steer food that would otherwise go unused to state residents at risk of hunger. But Carversville Farm functions more like a dedicated supplier for chefs at half a dozen emergency food providers, all of whom collaborate with the farm in deciding which crops to grow.
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Volunteer program
You can help. We welcome volunteers on the farm every Wednesday and Saturday. We also welcome donations to help fund our non-profit, to help cover essential costs for seed, feed, tools, equipment, delivery expenses and more. We also sell a small portion of our harvests through our farm store and reinvest 100% of sales into our mission, raising even more food to donate to neighbors in need.
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Other
Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System
The Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System (PASS) program helps to support Pennsylvania’s agricultural industry statewide – making connections between production agriculture and the non-profit sector responsible for getting more nutritious food into the hands of Pennsylvanians at risk of hunger.
