A RETURN TO EARTH

In Hudson Valley, the bucolic north of New York, Sky High Farm has been dedicated to food sovereignty since its inception over a decade ago. Together, with its sister organization, the brand Sky High Farm Universe, the Sky High ecosystem injects creativity into the agricultural sector and brings together farmers, fashion figures, and artists, to generate justice and social changes. Semaine went to meet them in the open fields.
 
When the artist Dan Colen moved to the Hudson Valley in 2011, he didn't know at the time that food sovereignty would become his mission. Nothing predestined him to life on a farm: he spent his formative years in New York City, navigating between his artist studio in Tribeca, and his apartment in Chinatown. You probably know Dan: a 40-something artist who is well-known for a subversive past alongside artists like Dash Snow. His organic works, which use so-called “non-noble” materials, bring together elements of pop culture to create an exquisite corpse eye of our contemporary society, and to question the frontier between popular and elitist art. Very quickly, when he acquired a property, what is now Sky High Farm, located on 40 acres in Ancramdale, he understood that if he wanted to be connected to the place, he had to start cultivating it. He wondered, with his childhood friend Josh Bardfield, what they could do with it that would respond to pressing societal needs. “It was really step by step. An idea germinated, then there were discussions with Josh to change this space into an agricultural place, and then the team was really created around a dialogue.” Their idea, from the start, was to redistribute what was produced and reared on the land. 

The farm initially operated as an extension of Dan’s art practice. Like many creatives today, it also reflects a desire for proactivity, while the world is in the midst of crisis. When Dan left New York City, his loved ones were dying of overdoses; no doubt he wanted to heal society, in his own way. His collaboration with Josh is no coincidence. Josh worked for years in the public health system, among other things, on capacity building and quality of care issues for global HIV care and treatment programs, Their partnership immediately indicates how their project is anchored in a real reflection on care, on human and social questions, and not on a marketing stunt.

And thus, Sky High Farm was born. Twelve years later, Sky High Farm is now a beautiful farm situated amidst rolling hills and fields from which young fellows in workwear overalls come and go, being offered the opportunity to learn how to cultivate and care for the land. What sets this 501(c)(3) non-profit organization apart is its distinct socially-driven mission: 100% of its farm produce and proteins are distributed to communities that do not have access to healthy food. Dan is the Founder and Board President. The non-profit is led by Josh Bardfield and Sarah Workneh (Co-Executive Directors), alongside five other people: Ellie Youngblood (Associate Director), Phil Haynes (Director of Farm Operations), Julie Miller (Livestock Manager), Nina Tucker (Programs Coordinator), Deborah A (Development Manager). The team wants to raise awareness about a totally unequal and inconsistent American food system. Understanding the importance of sustainable agriculture in the United States is crucial. Healthy food is a privilege, in a country where the culture of agriculture is industrial and massive. In 2022, a study led by the Food Research and Action Center showed that 44.2 million people in America suffer from food insecurity, or do not have access to a healthy diet. “Access is one part of many structural issues that divide up the US: if you’re from an ethnic group and social group which has been segregated, politically and economically, there are all these barriers to having access to food, but also, to housing” comments Sarah Workneh. The food that has been cultivated answers directly to the needs of the communities - they help to re-think the model.

Using his experience, Sky High Farm was envisioned to be a perpetual dialogue. Numerous movements of young farmers have emerged in the United States; they advocate small farms without pesticides and short-circuit sales. “The challenge is that we live in a system that is highly mechanized, the companies can do it on a large scale, at a very low price, but there are more and more communities that reclaim that food system and collaborate to help small-scale farming,” analyzes Josh Barfield.

But sometimes, the farmers can’t even afford the food they grow. So, precarious and under-resourced farmers are also at the heart of the Sky High Farm project. The organization wants to reinject funds and a little justice throughout the food chain. It gives 20% of its annual budget to organizations, individuals, and community programs through its grants program.

“There are farmers doing special work and supporting communities but they’re largely unseen by the system, they don’t benefit from any subsidies like the big agro-industrial complex does. Sky High Farm is granting them funds. What the Farm has done is pretty revolutionary: it’s putting money in the hands of those who have been left behind and oppressed, they’re attacking the problem through the actual distribution of food but they’re also trying to redistribute wealth as well.” Explains Daphne Seybold, Sky High Farm Universe Co-CEO and Chief Marketing Officer. 

Daphne Seybold formally joined the project in 2022, after joining the founding board of the nonprofit, playing a pivotal role in helping launch the lifestyle brand "Sky High Farm Universe". If fashion is part of the equation, it's mostly because it was necessary to make this project viable. In a capitalist world, everyone is forced to use the system to catapult it or derail it a little to create new models. From this realization, Sky High Farm Universe was born: a separate brand, to support the farm work by generating advocacy and revenue for its mission. Flashback to 2019; Dan approached Daphne, then Head of Marketing and Communications for Dover Street Market–a world famous multi-brand store known for its support of the emergence of young fashion brands. The timing was right. It was then, in the middle of a pandemic but also of the Black Lives Matter movement, when “everyone felt the urgency to do something, but they missed an avenue to get involved,” Daphne tells us. “There was space for a brand that, through the power of pop culture, could galvanize people to participate in the solution on social and global warming issues through the way they consume goods.” Daphne was also shaken by the world’s collapse.

She and Dan did not want a classic philanthropic model, in which brands and large industries invest just to have tax advantages or grow their wealth. Dan and Daphne organized a charity event for the farm, selling vintage goods, and saw people responded to the idea, and suddenly it became a certainty: they could finance the farm through selling products.

Through leveraging her experience, and partnering with Dover Street Market Paris–Dover Street Market’s brand incubator to produce a seasonal collection–Sky High Farm Universe emerged as a brand that encouraged people to think about what they buy, by activating them as agents of change. Through buying Sky High Farm Universe’s products, customers immediately become donors with a percentage of proceeds donated to Sky High Farm. “They now know that they can invest in products that embrace their values ​​and serve a cause. It’s a unique approach in fashion,” comments Daphne. She also managed to rally brands like Balenciaga around special projects, and brought together players from the sector as different as Nike, Chanel, The North Face, and Tata Harper, for donations around the subject of inequalities related to food access. She tapped into her own network, along with the team’s to invite people to contribute their time and talents–whether in photography, or other creative fields. From Ryan McGinley to Mario Sorrenti, creatives across the board stepped up for the cause.

The idea behind Sky High Farm is not only to feed people in need, but also to educate people in different practices of other ways of consuming and producing. The non-profit invites everyone to question these subjects: from large corporations, from the luxury industry, to younger generations. Sky High Farm is also training burgeoning farmers through a formal nine-month training and mentoring program. The farm practices regenerative agriculture-it means the antithesis of the big industrial monocultures. It’s a method that helps reverse climate change by restoring organic matter and biodiversity to degraded soil. Key techniques include cover cropping, soil conservation, remediation, watershed protection, and biodiversity enhancement. It also implements regenerative pasture management and rotational grazing, where animals are strategically moved to improve soil, plant, and animal health. “The regenerative farm means many things to many people”, said Julie Miller, who oversees the livestock. “For me, it's aligning your values ​​with the ecosystem instead of degrading it, and creating a cascade of positive elements, which impacts animals, land, people, which regenerate the soil and radiate on communities around,” she says, surrounded by cows with whom she says she “collaborates” with.

Sky High Farm also provides these different programs to groups including minorities such as LGBTQIA+, to raise awareness among young people and make them understand the interconnection of nutrition, security, economic and health disparities, and the history of structural, racial, and educational injustice. And the place is only expanding. In 2023, the non-profit organization purchased a 560-acre former dairy farm to transition the property from conventionally-managed corn & soy, using conventional practices, synthetics, and fertilizers, to perennial pastures for the farm’s growing herd of beef cattle and to establish a new vegetable garden.

The idea is not to grow, just to be bigger, but to be more useful. “We’re not only waiting to transform the land, we want to do it in a really thoughtful way, with scaling the organization, scaling its work. We’re doing research with our partners, specialists, neighbors…” adds Sarah. It’s an ecological transition and a challenge in itself. 

The organization continues to create a network between all rural actors and actresses of change. It chose to merge organic farming with the quintessence of avant-garde fashion, an almost unexpected cultural clash.

Sky High Farm Universe’s aesthetic of clothing draws inspiration from outdoor style and the rich history of workwear culture. Its uniquely designed pieces are a little psychedelic often with a playful and 90s childlike nostalgia. The silhouettes and accessories are marked with a Sky High Farm’s logo in the shape of a strawberry and smiling moon, or puffy clouds, drawn by the renowned illustrator Joana Avillez, whose funny but erudite drawings adorn the covers of the New Yorker or Penguin’s editions. Each collaborator of the brand such as Tremaine Emory, Quil Lemons, Mel Ottenberg, and Alastair McKimm is carefully chosen for their iconoclastic, intelligent vision of creation and storytelling. Samira Nasr, the first woman of color to become editor-in-chief of Harper Bazaar, also designed a line. But more importantly; the clothing is made from deadstock and upcycled fabrics. It all fits perfectly with the desires of a generation focused on social and eco-friendly ideas, yet eager to inject a contemporary and avant-garde touch. Sky High Farm Universe has also launched into beauty and care products, offering its “All-Purpose Balm,” made from 100% organic grass-fed beef tallow.
Somehow, it can also be seen as a desire to ignite social issue discourses through fashion. “We are tapping into pop culture: what people want, to accomplish something else,” says Daphne. Awaken desire, the desire for a beautiful product and to lead to deeper questions; other brands have been able to build this philosophy like Patagonia, which Daphne has studied a lot even if here, the model is completely particular. Sky High Farm Universe serves as a fascinating laboratory that weaves together diverse fields and topics, pushing creative boundaries and engaging with contemporary issues.

On the board of Sky High Farm, among Dan, Daphne, Eric Costello, Carolina Saavedra, Yemi Amu, and Catie Marron, is Jon Gray, the head of Ghetto Gastro, a collective that nourishes young entrepreneurs from the Bronx and addresses questions of inclusion, race, empowerment of precarious communities through not only food, but also music, or video art.

In two and a half years, through donations, special projects and the brand, Sky High Farm Universe generated donations totaling 1.2 million dollars. Taking from the rich to give to the poor:  there is a Robin Hood dimension in their philanthropic model. 

But one of the downsides of it is that this clothing brand, distributed in Dover Street Market and online, positions itself as a luxury brand in its prices and remains inaccessible. One might question whether it is paradoxical for consumerism and anti-capitalistic charity to coexist. Is a brand sold in 50 locations worldwide truly sustainable? We can also ask ourselves the question of producing meat, at a time when the defense of animals is central. Daphne Seybold responds that the project is not political, that it tries to be pragmatic, in the service of the urgency of the needs it’s trying to meet. Is such a community, with such an impact, really apolitical? These questions linger. But it's better to avoid simple critiques. The project has undoubtedly been misunderstood on its use of pop culture or fashion: in the past, some journalists fixated solely on the trendy side, without seeing what is produced behind it, and the truly social scope of the approach.

It is certain that like all models, this one has its imperfections. For things to change, everything would need to be examined at the root, and capitalism should be deconstructed, and challenged. However, there are far more positive aspects than negative ones.

Sky High Farm & Universe contribute to changing minds, within sectors such as fashion and luxury, which are often completely disconnected from climate or social issues. It can also make the rural environment, often neglected by young people, more attractive. The novelty in this initiative is that it places art at the service of a greater cause. Creation becomes a conduit, a tool, that adds a layer of humility to the endeavor. The truth behind it is that there is a community of people wanting to use their power and often their skills, to do better. This should be encouraged, in this time of absolute urgent need.

While we wait for a real revolution to arrive, who can genuinely claim to harness capitalism to nourish so many communities? In truth, very few can.