Finn wants to educate people about food
Says teaching helps build understanding in community

By TRACI GREGORY
Observer-Dispatch

HOLLAND PATENT — Travis Finn wants people to know where their food comes from.

That’s why he spends time showing students and other groups around Finndale Farms, the 400-plus cow operation of which he is a partner.

“I just feel that such a large portion of our population is so far removed from agriculture, they don’t have any source to learn where food comes from and where it is produced,” Finn said.

People can be quick to complain about the down side of farming, such as noise or odor, he said.

“People need to realize if they want an abundant supply of food at reasonable prices, they’re going to have to be tolerant of some of these not-so-nice things,” Finn said.

It was Finn’s commitment to educating people that prompted his mother-in-law, Dorothy Williams, to nominate him for Accent on Excellence.

“He has set out to educate not only children, but he’d love to be able to educate the parents, on what farming is all about,” she said. “He’s never too busy to have groups come to the farm.”

Williams also praised Finn’s managerial efforts, which helped expand the farm from a 70-cow operation to its present size. Finn is partners in the business with his father Harry, brother Troy and wife Deborah.

“I definitely think he has all the qualities of a great manager,” Williams said.

Finn credits much of his management abilities to the education he received at Cornell University, where he graduated in 1991. Farming has become a much more complex business to operate, he said.

“Some of the most important things I learned in college were through the financial and business courses I took,” he said.

Finn also is involved in the Holland Patent Farmers Co-Op, has hosted workshops for other farmers and serves on advisory boards of various farm-related groups.

He is a past recipient of the Farm Bureau’s New York State Outstanding Young Farmer Award and the Junior Chamber of Commerce’s Farmer of the Year Award.