Penns Valley farm focusing on health, environment a ‘dream come true’ for local couple

If you’ve dined at some of central Pennsylvania’s most popular restaurants, you may have enjoyed local produce sourced from Strong Roots Organic Farm in Woodward. Counting Webster’s Bookstore Cafe, American Ale House, Gigi’s Southern Table, Centre Hills Country Club, Central Reservation, Carnegie Inn and Spa, The Field Restaurant & Tap and Rusty Rail Brewing Company among its list of clients, Strong Roots Organic Farm’s reach is nothing to scoff at.

The reach — which also includes Bonfatto’s, Elk Creek Cafe, IngleBean Cafe and Allen Street Grill — is even more impressive when you consider the size of the farm, which is a full-time endeavor for founders Ethan and Siobhan Davis.

“We’re still very small by farming standards,” Ethan said. “We’ve got roughly one acre, maybe a little less, in field crop, and then we’ve got five greenhouses. We’re able to use the greenhouses to offer microgreens, pea shoots and sunflower shoots throughout the year. ... That’s the scale of the farm. The total footprint is about 13 acres.”

But for the Davises and their family, the small farm is a little piece of paradise.

“We have a beautiful creek running through (the farm). It’s a Class A trout stream. We have endangered wood turtles. We’re right across from Poe Valley State Park. It’s a dream come true,” Ethan Davis said.

Before founding Strong Roots Organic Farm, Ethan studied ecology, sustainable agriculture, soil science and agroecology at both Cornell University and Penn State, while Siobhan’s background is in environmental and conservation education. Now, they’re using their backgrounds and the help of several grants to focus more on what Ethan calls “regenerative organic” farming, an ideology that Regenerative Organic Certified explains can “create long-term solutions to the climate crisis, factory farming and fractured rural economies.”

“ ’Organic’ is a seal of approval that lets you know how something was produced and that that production did not include certain prohibited substances, but it doesn’t say that the management helped restore the water or sequestered carbon in the soil or that the farmers are growing your food in a way that maximizes biodiversity,” Ethan said. “That’s really what I want to do.”

Plans for the farm include riparian buffers, a planting practice that helps to increase water quality, decrease pollution and erosion and protect habitats; removing invasive plant species and replacing them with Pennsylvania native plants that double as food sources, such as elderberry and paw paw trees; and creating habitats and protection for the farm’s important species, including its population of endangered wood turtles.

“We’re going to time everything so we don’t disturb the nesting of the wood turtles. We do everything to compliment their habitat,” Ethan said.

The farm will also use a grant to put in an integrated pest management plan to help create habitats for pollinators.

“There’s a rusty-patched bumble bee that we want to create a habitat for and that grant will help us do that. Lastly, we’ll be putting up some bat boxes to give the bats a nice place to call home, too. We love where we live and we love being able to connect to nature and have our farm be part of that and help regenerate things.”

But as idyllic as Strong Roots Organic Farm’s setting is, the last year hasn’t been entirely easy for the family. As restaurant dining declined over the last year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Davises pivoted to focus on farmers markets, noting that it was too late for them to start a CSA by the time the restaurant shut-downs were in full force. Now, you can still find their wares through Centre Markets, and at Millheim Farmers Market and Burkholder’s Market. For the 2021 growing season, the farm launched a CSA, which is currently sold-out.

“It was brutal at times, but we ended up having a strong year. We came back and were able to have tremendous success, but it was very uncertain and really a lot of hard work,” Ethan said.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, he and Siobhan anticipate welcoming a new child to the family, but Ethan calls his overall goals for the farm “pretty simple.”

“I think the most important decision we make as people ... in terms of our impact on this earth and the environment, is what we eat. Agriculture is the biggest driver of habitat loss, land use change, extinction. ... It’s the biggest cause of climate change, but people don’t realize that. … I just want to do my small part to give people the option of food choices that are healthy for them and good for the earth at the same time.”

This story was originally published May 15, 2021 at 7:00 AM.