Sarah Dressel, the youngest person to lead the New York Apple Association, is in the vanguard of a generation that is coming back to the farm and securing her family’s –and the state’s– agricultural heritage.
Dressel’s studies in agricultural sciences at Cornell University and internship at the grower-supported Hudson Valley Research Laboratory in Highland only reinforced her decision to return home. Since her graduation in 2011, she has shared in the operation and management of Dressel Farms with her brother Tim, their parents and their grandfather.
“We all do a little bit of everything, but basically each of us plays to our strengths,″ said Dressel. “Among other things, for example, I’m the family’s Spanish speaker.”
The farm has grown to 400 acres from the 60 that Rod Sr.’s father, Fred, purchased in 1957. About 300 acres are planted in roughly three dozen varieties of apples and the rest in peaches, pears and strawberries. Its year-round roadside stand on Route 208, five minutes from downtown New Paltz, is a local landmark. But the bulk of the business is wholesale sales to supermarkets through Hudson River Fruit Distributions in Milton.
Dressel said an interest in promoting the state’s apples flowed from her work on the farm, and she welcomed her appointment to the 15-grower board of directors of the New York Apple Association. Now, in her fifth year, she has been elected to a one-year term as chairperson.
Source: recordonline.com