The Environmental Stewardship Award, which began in 1991, recognizes outstanding stewardship practices and conservation achievements of cattle producers from across America each year. They are celebrated at a reception at the annual CattleCon event, hosted by NCBA.
The 2024 winner from Region I is no stranger to the pages of Country Folks – it is Angus Glen Farms in Watkins Glen, NY.
Farmer Brett Chedzoy was featured in a video presented to the hundreds of attendees gathered to celebrate winners from seven regions across the U.S. Also a forester with CCE, he described their operation and how he marries cattle production with the trees on his land.
“What we do today as farmers is really thinking about what we want to leave for the next people that are going to be farming this land, and we’ve been slowly and steadily building something that can be in our family for many years to come,” Chedzoy said.
He noted that their farm is in the heart of the Finger Lakes region, bordering Watkins Glen State Park (the second most popular park in New York State) and Watkins Glen International Speedway.
“Thousands of people visit our little community and drive through the middle of our farm every year so there’s no hiding what we do here,” he said, “but it’s a unique opportunity for us to share what we do with the public.”
Chedzoy said New York State is about two-thirds covered with forest land – including his operation – so they had to figure out how to farm within that forest landscape. “We looked at our farm woodlands. They had a lot of issues with noxious, invasive brush and we saw the livestock as a workforce to go in there and deal with these problematic plant communities that were overrunning our farm woodlands,” he said.
About half of Angus Glen’s pastures are treeless pastures and the other half are silvopastures. Chedzoy described the practice: “Silvopasturing is the symbiotic combination of grazing animals, forages and trees. How silvopasturing differs is that we’re continuously moving animals. They’re in an area for a short period of time and maybe weeks or even months before they return to that area again for a short period of time so each time they go in there and graze the forages and the soils have a fairly lengthy period to recover from that experience.”
The Chedzoy family with their award, presented by members of NCBA, award sponsors and NRCS Chief Terry Crosby. Photo by Courtney Llewellyn
Ever the forester, he said one of the benefits he’s seen from silvopasturing is that they’re still growing all of the best trees in the silvopasture areas, but they’ve removed a lot of the lower quality and unhealthy trees. “We’ve allocated that sunlight to the ground surface where we could grow productive forages,” he said. “In addition to that, we’ve been able to rehabilitate and reclaim a lot of our farm woodlands that were overrun with these noxious plants and are now in a much healthier condition.”
Chedzoy added that he firmly believes their land is healthier and more productive today – and more resilient and more sustainable – because of grazing it with their beef cattle herd.
“We want to grow food that people feel good about. Not just the dollars and cents of it or the taste of it but food that really has a story behind it,” he said, “and we’ve never met someone yet who didn’t feel good about the story behind our beef.”
That story is impactful. Terry Crosby, chief of USDA-NRCS, was on hand for the awards ceremony. He said, “I appreciate the opportunity to learn from you all. We can’t thank you enough for what you do.”
“It’s a humbling honor,” Chedzoy said after being handed his trophy. “And we get great help from great friends.”
Any individual, group or organization is eligible to nominate an individual or farm who raises or feeds cattle for this award. Applications for the 2025 award are due soon – by Feb. 17 – so to learn more or nominate someone, go to environmentalstewardship.org.
by Courtney Llewellyn
Hello, where can their beef be purchased?
Thanks.