Dawn Hoyte

project manager

ever-growing family farm

State: NY

(w) (845) 633-4105

About

Ever-Growing Family Farm is a small farm in the Hudson Valley of NY owned by Dawn Hoyte, and husband Nfamara Badjie. In 2014 EGFF began growing vegetables and rice and raising livestock. While organic certification has not been pursued, those principals are adhered to. Since 2015, together with cousin Moustapha Diedhiou and son Malick, the family ran a CSA and grew commercial rice. Since 2018 EGFF's focus has been on rice due to its popularity. Currently 18 paddies are established and more are under construction. Chickens are raised for manure. In 2018 ducks were introduced to weed select paddies. Rice is sold from the farm; packaged by early December, it sells out by early spring. Nfamara, Moustapha and Malick, assisted by Modou (17) and Abibou (15), are all members of the Diolla tribe of the Senegambia region, grew up as subsistence farmers. Rice is intrinsic to Diollla culture and they bring that love, respect and knowledge to their work as they carry forward their cultural legacy.
Advisor, Erika Styger, PhD and Director of the Climate-Resilient Farming Systems Program at International Programs, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University is the advisor to this project. Erika has more than 25 years’ experience in agro-ecological research and extension in small-holder African farming systems. For the past 11 years, Erika has been concentrating on climate-smart rice production in the tropics based on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). She was initiator and technical lead on the 13-country SRI project in West Africa. Erika participated and presented at the northeastern rice growers conference at the Akaogi farm a few times, and was the initial technical advisor to Blue Moon Acres farm in New Jersey in developing a completely new and highly productive upland rice production system.