Indigenous people have been growing food, hunting, and fishing in the Adirondack region for over 10,000 years. Many different groups of people lived in and used the region as hunting and gathering grounds, making up the  Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy including the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, and Mohawk nations. After the French and Indian War during the 1770s settlers began to make the Champlain Valley home, first in what is now Essex County. During the early 1800s, most farms in the region were sustenance farms and primarily served to feed families and produce a few products to be sold for income. They generally had a milk cow, pigs, chickens, and large garden that focused on short-season plants like peas and lettuce, and storage crops like potatoes, beets, and carrots.

Due to the availability of crops from all over the country in large markets and the rise in farming technology in the late 1800s Adirondack farms followed the national trend and shifted from subsistence farming toward more economic models. Through the 1860s increased demand for dairy cattle from British landowners sparked a rise in the dairy industry in New York State, which still is the dominant agricultural industry in the region today.  

During the “Green Revolution” after World War II farms across the country started to focus on production and use new technology. In the Adirondacks, farms started to utilize hoop houses, row covers, and drip irrigation to extend the growing season and grow crops more efficiently.