Eat the Water

We invite you to support the farmers that care for the land surrounding New York City's reservoirs. By using sound environmental practices, Catskills Region farmers provide food that is healthy and water that is pure. Buy from a Pure Catskills farmer and contribute to the future of our food system.

Why Fresh, Why Local?

It tastes better.
Food that is grown closer to home has spent less time in transit and in warehouses so that it is fresher and tastes better.
It is better for you.
The farther that food has to travel, the more nutrients it loses. Locally grown food has more nutritional value.
It creates accountability.
Farmers take responsibility for food that they sell directly to consumers. Consumers take comfort in knowing the source of their food.
It supports the local economy.
Buying from local farmers is a way to sustain rural economies and make sure that small farming communities survive.
It protects the environment.
Well-managed farms must have fertile soil and clean water. They maintain ecosystems that plants, animals and humans inhabit.
It preserves the working landscape.
The sustainability of farming prevents development from consuming all of our open spaces. Supporting local farmers is the best way to address the encroachment of excessive development.
It's part of our culture.
Our culture is rich with music, art and literature that have drawn from the values instilled through farming. Losing our farmers would compromise an essential part of our cultural heritage.
It is an investment in the future.
This year, our agricultural imports exceeded the value of our exports. A safe food system supports local farmers so that we can feed ourselves, as a nation, for generations to come.

About Pure Catskills

Pure Catskills, a branding and buy local campaign, is sponsored by the Watershed Agricultural Council in collaboration with farmers and purveyors of fresh food across Delaware, Greene, Otsego, Schoharie, Sullivan and Ulster in New York state. Support for this project comes from Pure Catskills members, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Catskill Mountain Foundation, and New York City Department of Environmental Protection. When farms thrive, our communities benefit in many ways. Pure Catskills farms are located on farmland that protects clean drinking water for 9 million New Yorkers. These farms grow and harvest crops as part of a world-renowned innovative partnership focusing on healthy, working farmland and the water protection practices it takes to keep streams and reservoirs safe.

In the early 20th century, farmers in the Catskills Region were frequently photographed holding two large heads of cauliflower. They were proud of the crop that could send their children to college, pay off the mortgage and supplement the family farm. Mineral-rich soil and a moderate climate with warm days and cool nights that encouraged slow and solid head development made this region famous for its premium quality cauliflower. Almost every farm in the region planted some of this "white gold" to supplement its income. From the 1920s to 1940s, local cauliflower was shipped in huge quantities via rail and highway to ready markets in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, making the Catskills synonymous with fine quality produce.

Marketing cooperatives, working together to increase efficiency and maximize profit, created distinctive labels for their wooden cauliflower shipping crates. We chose a label representing the Walton-Hamden Cauliflower Growers Cooperative as the symbol for the Pure Catskills local marketing initiatives because it exemplifies the long tradition of quality products from a working landscape here in the Catskills Region.

The Pure Catskills name and logo are registered trademark of the Watershed Agricultural Council.