A couple who immigrated from Mexico to Brooklyn in the 1980s
has built a successful family-run farm that provides produce for
thousands of New Yorkers.
The Angel Family Farm started in 2006 after Ana Angel saw an ad
for farmers wanted in Orange County. She had grown up on a farm in Mexico and had always hoped to
find a way to get back to her roots.
Eventually, Ana and her husband Chrisostomo went on to build a produce farm in Goshen
that is ran solely by them and their children.
"We have been in it together since the beginning, obviously
when we were much younger. I was 14, we had a 1-year-old, a 3-year-old, and my
brother was 13,” says Ana’s oldest daughter, Lizbeth
Angel.
Decades later, the farm continues to grow even at 80 miles
away.
"We're migrant workers but we're city migrant workers,”
says Lizbeth. “In the winter, we
live here in Brooklyn in Park Slope, and April to November, we migrate to
upstate New York to our farm."
During the warmer season, the family wakes up at 4 a.m. every day
to drive down to the city and sell their fresh produce at markets across
Brooklyn and Queens.
"We mainly sell our vegetables through community supported
agriculture, which is CSA, and New York City farmer's markets,” Lizabeth Angel
says.
The Angel family’s next goal is to build a barn and a farm stand
on their farm.