2010

Goldfarb Brothers

This year, the Farm Institute will lose two of its key leaders: brothers Rob and Matthew Goldfarb. Rob, development director, leaves today. Matthew, executive director, will depart at the end of this summer, after being at the reins for five years.

This week, the two sat down to talk about the Katama-based farm, its past and its future. For them, the Farm Institute is a classic community success story, with a beginning, a hardworking present and a future they feel will remain strong, well after their departure.

pig

“We let pigs live like pigs,” says Matthew Goldfarb, executive director of the Farm Institute, the nonprofit that runs the Edgartown-owned Katama Farm.

It’s an allowance that benefits animals and farmers alike: by the time the pigs leave the paddock later in the spring, the soil will be ready for reseeding. Meat-eaters benefit as well. Pigs free to trot and root, pigs fed corn grown in an adjacent field, provide guilt-free bacon.

Farm Leadership Change

The Farm Institute announced this week that executive director Matthew Goldfarb and development director Rob Goldfarb, the dynamic sibling team that has helped put the institute on the map of rural agricultural teaching programs on the Vineyard and beyond, will leave the institute this summer to pursue new professional and family pursuits.

2009

goat

Behind the white clapboard house in prime Edgartown real estate, around the back fence — high steel fencing, covered in turf and topped with razor wire — a patch of grass has been turned over to a garden. Like other gardens in the neighborhood it is dormant and frozen over now, but soon it will be carefully tended by a crew who will pull its weeds, plant and harvest its vegetables, more than willingly and for no pay. Indeed, each man must earn his time there.

2008

The Farm Institute invites Island residents and visitors for family and community chores on Saturday, July 26, at 9 a.m. with author Norman Bridwell reading two of his beloved Clifford The Big Red Dog stories at noon.

Lend a hand big or small in collecting eggs, milking the goat, feeding and caring for the cows, sheep, pigs and baby chicks, and there are garden chores to enjoy as well. Dress for the weather — and to get dirty.

This is a free community event and no registration or experience is necessary. Donations are welcome.

Goldfarb brothers

They are their own Jewish farm parable of sorts — one cast in the role of Moses, the youngest brother and prophet, the other cast as Aaron, the elder brother who speaks for them both. Rob Goldfarb, development director for the Farm Institute in Edgartown, is the older brother. Matthew Goldfarb, executive director, is the younger one. The Goldfarb brothers came to the Vineyard in 2005 sight unseen and took the reins at the fledgling Farm Institute, an educational, working farm in the rich Great Plains of Edgartown.

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