The Chequit Inn, a Shelter Island landmark built 148 years ago, was sold at auction last Tuesday to Stefan Soloviev, who owns Crossroads Agriculture, one the nation’s largest agriculture companies, and who has purchased more than 1,000 acres on the North Fork for agricultural uses.
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The Solovievs also plan to bring cattle to the North Fork.
“We plan to grow all our own food and raise all of our own meat,” she said.
Hemp or food?
Mr. Soloviev has purchased numerous farms on the North Fork, stretching from Orient to Wading River.
He plans to run them under the supervision of his Colorado/Kansas-based company, but local people will do the work. He has already installed deer fencing on 1,100 acres of farmland at a cost of $35,000.
Crossroads Agriculture, founded in 1999 in Kansas, now has 15,000 acres there and 100,000 acres of cropland in Colorado. It also owns 300,000 acres of grassland and 38,000 acres of cropland in New Mexico.
Mr. Soloviev says the wheat they grow in Colorado is ready for human consumption, and is not used for ethanol or animal feed.
“It goes right into the food system,” he said.
But the impact of the coronavirus pandemic has prompted him to consider changes for the use of the North Fork farmland. He originally planned to dedicate a large percentage of that acreage to growing hemp.
“My gut is telling me that we should be planting a lot more food crops than hemp if there’s a food shortage,” he said. “Long Island will be in a better position with more food at this point and not hemp. But hemp is still very important, though.
