Choose & Cut Your Family Tree -- in a Suburban Nature Retreat

SWPP Development Corporation - Research and Development for profitable Urban farming!

SWPP Development Corp. is at the forefront of modern day farmers. Acknowledging the difficulties urban and suburban farmers have with the change of neighbors, SWPP has developed and utilizes in its farming operations a new concept for farming which permits continuity in the farming family while retaining a national asset for the public at large.

The American Farmland Trust has made major strides in attempting to preserve farmland threatened by urban sprawl. SWPP has developed its own private enterprise solutions working closely with Ticonderoga Farms, which allows farm families to stay together on the family homestead while still being able to make an adequate living, without public or charitable assistance.

The secret is in changing the way one farms - producing crops based on the demand of the neighborhood, (those who live within a 20 mile radius) as opposed to "doing it like Dad did".

As urban sprawl moves forward due to the limited vision of county and city planners and politicians, who in a majority of cases encourage developers to sprawl rather than to intensely develop small areas as has been done in Europe for centuries, and is now being done on the west coast, farmers can either sell out at high prices, or adapt. A degree in political philosophy and government often might be more useful than a degree in agriculture for these new farmers. Growing for an urban market is much simpler than growing for the highly competitive world market for wheat or soybeans. Christmas trees, pick your own vegetables, organic meat, greenhouse and nursery production - all of these, on a small scale are far easier to manage than the large expanses of acreage required in "traditional" farming. Irrigation is far more feasible as acreages are smaller, pest control is simpler, and prices are far more stable.

But the biggest problem is ignorance, from the neighbor who has perhaps never seen a cow and decides to move in next door (and finds the odors of livestock or silage to be unusual if not annoying), to the politician and tax collectors who see their well put together plans for more and more people under their "control" being skewered by those obstreperous souls who insist they were there first and have a right to remain. And as so often happens, the politician listens to the squeaky wheel, thoughtlessly. They almost never ask why the people moved in knowing that there was a farm next door if they did not want to have a farm there. After all, there are places where people can live which do not have farms next door.

SWPP, in its outreach program, has tried to educate the upcoming generation, our children, to the benefits of open land, native plants and agriculture, teaching them about "where it all comes from" and the importance of maintaining a viable agricultural base and genetic reserve for the future - both for the quality of the air, water and preservation of open spaces. What has to be remembered is that the finest farmland is almost always located around the major urban centers as that is where towns first grew up.

SWPP grows a wide variety of nursery trees, has a cattle breeding operation, raises hay and helps support the horse industry by renting out pasture and trails. This is done almost entirely organically using compost it makes from leaves and grass clippings, recycled Christmas trees and land clearing material from the new neighbors - by turning pigs' ears into silk purses!

For more information on how to farm profitably in an urban environment and possible help in fending off over-zealous politicians and bureaucrats, be free to email us at Farm@Ticonderoga.com, tfi@justice.com with your questions, or hopefully stories of successful endeavors of others who are fighting to preserve a vital piece of America.