The Hands that Feed Us
As a major agricultural region, Western New York produces fruits and vegetables that reach tables from Michelin-starred restaurants in New York City to school cafeterias in Buffalo. Beyond farm stands...
Farmer Profile
Thorpe’s Organic Family Farm in East Aurora
Establishing Roots of a Generational Farm
Gayle and Mike Thorpe, first-generation farmers and owners of Thorpe’s Organic Family Farm, met, fell in love and married in 1981. With little more than a 4H background paired with some self-training, they moved in with Gayle’s uncle, where they began to grow corn on 1,000 acres in East Aurora.
“Conventional farming with chemicals and pesticides was all we knew,” says Gayle. “We watched our soil become depleted from chemical exposure. In 1999, after considerable research, we went headlong into organic farming.” She admits that the early days of the transition were very difficult.
“Organic farming is more precise than conventional farming and we were just learning,” she explains. “We had lower yields, no crop rotation, and, at the time, corn prices were very low. We didn’t have money to cover the cost of seed, cultivation equipment, etc. It was a big gamble.”
Today, Thorpe’s Organic Family Farm covers 2,800 acres from Elma and East Aurora to Springville. They raise Angus Simmental beef cattle, and finish 50 pigs per year. Vegetables, grains, fruits, berries and flowers are 100 percent organic.
Photo 1: Three generations of the Thorpe family: Gayle, her son Jeremiah, granddaughters Janie and Cedar, and daughter Naomi.
Photo 2: Third generation farm helpers, Odin, Jude, Iyla, Noah, Janie holding Arthur, and Kyleigh.
The Thorpes raised six children, five of whom work full time on the farm. In 2018, Mike passed away after a long illness. Today, Gayle Thorpe has 14 grandchildren—the youngest, Juniper, was born in April of this year. Most of the grandkids help out on the farm part time.
Two-year-old Cedar comes to work with her mom, Naomi, every day. Naomi, who wears a tool pouch at work, has encouraged her youngest to embrace farm life. Now, Cedar is asking for a tool pouch of her own.
Gayle’s oldest sons, Jeremiah and Abe, work in the shop fixing farm equipment. Her daughter, Hannah, cultivates corn, soy beans and organic grains. Gayle’s daughter-in-law, Gabrielle, along with Gabrielle’s three boys, help out in the greenhouses with berries and vegetables.
Abe recalls that his mom sold vegetables off a pickup truck in the early days. Soon, the family built a small farm stand and then a larger open-air stand until in 2015, one of the girls’ husbands built the year-round market they sell goods from today.
The farm store is managed by daughters Naomi and Abigail. The family’s CSA provides fruits and vegetables to over 350 customers with hundreds of regular customers frequenting the farm store.
“The girls handle our CSA and the farm store,” says Gayle. “Naomi is my ‘boots on the ground.’ She is in charge of vegetables for the CSA. Abigail runs our bakery. She introduces new products to customers at the farm store.”
Among those products are baked goods that incorporate organic grains, fresh blueberries and more into muffins, cakes and pies. Farm fresh eggs and butter make the quiche offered at the store a bestseller.
The third generation is quickly gaining farming experience.
“When they are old enough, we start the kids who show an interest in farming with the least glamorous of jobs,” explains Gayle. “For the first task, they’re instructed to take the John Deere Gator out to the middle of the field to collect rocks. Cultivating the fields requires precision when organic farming and rocks can damage farm equipment. They learn early what it’s like to work.”
After some early training, grandkids Levi (17), Janie (15) and Noah (14) now ride tractors to cultivate the soil.
“While we strive to maintain a sustainable business that will feed our families, we believe farming is also a testimony to please the Lord. Do the best you can whatever you are doing,” says Gayle.
Gayle’s son Abe recounts what his father often said, which guides him as he farms today: “God gives you a window of opportunity. Sometimes that window will be very small. You have to be ready.”
Abe, a second-generation member of the Thorpe farm family, didn’t care for farm life when he was young.
“I’d pick vegetables and strawberries when I was a kid but it wasn’t until I was 12 years old, when my father introduced me to farm equipment and planting corn, that I expressed an interest in the farm,” Abe says. “We’d scout out equipment and talk about what to buy. We’d take crop tours together. We drove to Indiana once, just he and I, to buy a tractor.”
When Abe was older, he and his father would plow the fields until midnight, each on his own tractor, talking to one another on the phone as they plowed and planted.
Photo 1: Family friend and helper Danielle, with grandson Odin, fill flats with organic soil for the greenhouse.
Photo 2: Gayle with one of her grandchildren.
Gayle believes the reason her children farm is because she and her husband set an example by finding joy every day in what they did.
“My husband and I loved farming,” she recalls. “We put our whole heart into it. Our children saw that love and chose to continue the tradition.”
One of the lessons Abe has learned from watching his father and mother farm is how important timing is in farming.
“If you are untimely with planting or cultivating, that’s when failure occurs,” he says.
Another practical lesson he learned from his father was the importance of crop rotation in organic farming. Enhancing the quality of the corn crop by planting nitrogen-fixing clover underneath it was another.
The Thorpes have seen their share of hardship. Financial struggles were commonplace when the boys were young. Then, in 2015, the family home was engulfed in fire, making it unlivable.
As someone charged with preserving the small, family-owned farm tradition, Abe is acutely aware of the plight of the family farm.
“In the past five years, we’ve lost 140,000 family farms and 20 million acres of farmland in this country,” he says. “In general, family farming is heading in a bad direction. We need to turn that trend around.”
Gayle and Abe acknowledge their loyal and appreciative farm store and CSA customers, without whom they would not be able to continue this work.
They also rely upon crew members who volunteer to help on the farm simply because they love farming.
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