National Resource Helps More Americans Connect with Local Farmers

USDA Directory Records More Than 7,800 Farmers Markets

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3, 2012 – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today announced a 9.6 percent increase in National Farmers Market Directory listings as the kickoff to National Farmer’s Market Week. The U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s directory, a database published online at farmersmarkets.usda.gov, identifies 7,864 farmers markets operating throughout the United States. The information collected in the directory is self-reported data provided voluntarily by farmers market managers through an annual outreach effort. Last year, USDA’s directory listed 7,175 markets.

“Farmers markets are a critical ingredient to our nation’s food system,” said Merrigan. “These outlets provide benefits not only to the farmers looking for important income opportunities, but also to the communities looking for fresh, healthy foods. The directory is an online tool that helps connect farmers and consumers, communities and businesses around the country.”

The top states, in terms of the number of markets reported in the directory, include California (827 markets), New York (647 markets), Massachusetts (313 markets), Michigan (311 markets), Wisconsin (298 markets), Illinois (292 markets), Ohio (264 markets), Pennsylvania (254 markets), Virginia and Iowa (tied with 227 markets) and North Carolina (202 markets). Together they account for nearly half (49 percent) of the farmers markets listed in the 2012 directory.

Geographic regions like the mid-Atlantic (Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia), the Northeast (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont), and the Southeast (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee) saw large increases in their listings, reporting, 15.8, 14.4 and 13.1 percent more markets, respectively.

USDA has taken several steps to help small and mid-sized farmers as part of the department’s commitment to support local and regional food systems, and increase consumer access to fresh, healthy food in communities across the country. For example,

  • USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), is outfitting more farmers markets with the ability to accept SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly food stamps), announcing $4 million dollars in available funding to equip farmers’ markets with wireless point-of-sale equipment. Currently, over 2,500 farmers markets are using Electronic Benefit Transfer technology.
  • USDA recently released the 2.0 version of its KYF Compass, a digital guide to USDA resources related to local and regional food systems. The updated version includes new data sets to help consumers locate local food resources, such as farmers markets, and plot them on an interactive map.

Many markets will host fun activities to celebrate National Farmers Market Week including pie contests, festivals, cooking demonstrations, events for kids, raffle drawings and giveaways. USDA officials will visit markets around the country between Aug. 5 and Aug. 11, to honor growers and commemorate National Farmers Market Week.

The USDA National Farmers Market Directory is available at farmersmarkets.usda.gov. Users can search for markets based on location, available products, and types of payment accepted, including participation in federal nutrition programs. Directory features allow users to locate markets based on proximity to zip code, mapping directions and links to active farmers market websites. Customized datasets can also be created and exported for use by researchers and software application designers.

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New Agricultural Learning Center to Resurrect Farming at UMass

BEN STORROW Staff Writer  

July 24, 2012

AMHERST – In an effort to give its agriculture students practical experience, the University of Massachusetts announced Monday it is moving forward with plans to open a new Agriculture Learning Center at the former Wysocki Farm in 2014. In a nod to the university’s past and future, school officials said the new center would fulfill UMass’ founding mission as an agricultural land grant college and reflects the growing nationwide interest in agriculture. Approximately 200 students will grow every type of crop produced in Massachusetts, including cranberries, on the 40-acre property, they said.

The project involves moving two buildings to the North Pleasant Street farm – an 1894 horse barn and the Blaisdell House, formerly the original farm manager’s residence. No new construction is planned. Officials pegged the cost of moving the barn and converting it into classroom and office space at $5 million, while costs for moving and renovating the Blaisdell house are still being developed, they said.

Stephen Herbert, director of the Center for Agriculture, said UMass students today graduate with a good academic understanding of agriculture, but with little actual farming experience. “Looking isn’t the same as doing,” Herbert said, noting that the new center will provide students with an opportunity for hands-on learning. The Stockbridge School, the university’s long-standing school of agriculture, is geared toward agricultural research and thus does not provide the same opportunities as those to be offered at the new center, he said.

The barn, among the last remaining agricultural structures on campus, and the Blaisdell House now sit next to the physical plant on Commonwealth Avenue. Officials said the two buildings will be sited in the northwestern section of the Wysocki Farm along North Pleasant Street. Dennis Swinford, director of campus planning, said the project fulfilled several different needs for the university.

“This is the last barn on our campus,” Swinford said. Moving it up to the 40 acres on Wysocki Farm “saves the barn, starts the agricultural learning center and uses a site near the middle of campus,” he said. Zoning out UMass does not require planning or zoning approval for the project because the school is maintaining the property’s agricultural use, Swinford said.

The plan will require the approval of the Conservation Commission to make sure it is compliant with wetland regulations, he said. North Amherst residents who enjoy walking on the property will continue to be able to do so, he said. All access to the property will be from North Pleasant Street, with a small 20-car parking lot situated next to the homestead and barn and a second access point next to an existing UMass parking lot on the property’s southwestern corner.

Swinford said the introduction of buildings to the Wysocki property, which is in use now as a hay field, should not alter neighbors’ views. Furthermore, there should be no discernible increase in smell or noise related to the farm operations, as livestock will be situated along the property’s southern edge next to a parcel of UMass-owned forest.

A public meeting to present the project to neighbors will be held at 6:30 tonight at the UMass police station. The new center’s operating costs will be paid out of the university budget, said UMass spokesman Edward Blaguszewski, while private fundraising is expected to cover the cost of renovations to both buildings, he said. Money to move the barn has already been secured in the form of a $500,000 pledge from the Massachusetts Farm Bureau, he said. No firm timeline has been set for moving either building, UMass officials said.

Herbert, who grew up on a dairy farm in New Zealand, said he has long thought about ways to make the university’s agricultural course offerings more hands-on. “I said a hay field so close to campus is not the best use of the field,” he said, noting that the plans for the new center have been in the works for around a year.

The center would serve as a recruiting tool for future students and a venue to hold public workshops on agriculture, he said. “I want it to be a showcase learning center,” Herbert said. “I want people to be proud of it.” The vast majority of the 40 acres will be divided among different agricultural uses, Herbert said. There will be pasture space for livestock, an orchard, a small golf green for turf management, as well as areas dedicated to permaculture, vegetable production and growing agronomic crops like wheat and barley.

“This will expose student to many different types of farming,” Herbert said. Food grown at the site will be sold, but where it is marketed will be determined by students and teachers, Herbert said. “Agriculture has become more important on campus,” Herbert said, noting that interest in agriculture courses has increased substantially in recent years. “This will be a great thing for students.”

The center’s projected opening date is 2014. But Herbert said he is hopeful that some aspects of the new center will be up and running by next year to coincide with the university’s 150th anniversary. That would be a fitting tribute to a school whose founding mission was, in part, to enhance agriculture in Massachusetts, he said. “It would be nice, from an agricultural point of view, to have the center started by next year to help celebrate that event,” Herbert said.

Copyright 2012, Daily Hampshire Gazette, All Rights Reserved.

For more information, see: UMass Agricultural Learning Center

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For information on the Sustainable Food and Farming Program in the UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture, see:

  1. 15 credit Certificate Program
  2. Bachelor of Sciences Program
  3. What are our graduates doing now?
  4. Editorial: Return of Mass Aggie

The B.S. degree is quite flexible and you can focus on sustainable farming, permaculture, medicinal herbs, policy and advocacy, urban agriculture, farm-based education, etc.   For details, contact Professor John M. Gerber, Program Coordinator.

Its a good time to be an aggie!

Editorial: Farming’s key place in higher education

FROM: Amherst Bulletin – August 2, 2012

Two Amherst campuses are making major commitments to broaden student awareness of how food is produced. We applaud their timely support for agricultural education and for responding to the community’s interest in localizing the food supply.

The University of Massachusetts expects to open a new Agricultural Learning Center on North Pleasant Street in 2014. This will coincide with the university’s 150th anniversary and remind everyone of its founding as a farming-based institution once known as Mass Aggie.

Meanwhile, Amherst College is inviting proposals for starting and operating a campus farm to provide fresh produce for the dining hall and to connect students and faculty with local food and sustainable agriculture.

There has been a tenfold increase in the past seven years in the number of UMass students majoring in sustainable food and farming. Prof. John Gerber’s class on sustainable living, which drew 35 students seven years ago, now enrolls 300 and would have more if the classroom were bigger.

This increasing desire by students to learn about food may be motivated by concern over pesticides used in industrial agriculture, worry over climate change or interest in local food. Students tend to find that working on farms can give meaning and purpose to their lives, as well as create products that are useful to people. Graduates of Gerber’s program are managing farms, teaching and marketing food products.

The new center will enable UMass students to easily apply what they’ve learned in a classroom to the cultivation of crops within walking distance of their dormitories. The university has also shown support for agricultural education by recently restructuring the Stockbridge School so that it now offers four-year and graduate programs and incorporates fields such as plant and soil science, entomology and animal programs.

The new Agriculture Learning Center will harken back to Levi Stockbridge’s pioneering work 140 years ago in combining classroom lectures with practical agriculture experience at a time when small farms dotted the landscape in Massachusetts and helped define the social and economic order.

Elsewhere in town, Hampshire College has had a farm center for many years and now Amherst College is planning one on four acres near the campus. Other small colleges in New England, such as Bowdoin, Middlebury and Colby, have done the same.

Amherst plans not just to grow fresh food for students to consume, but to create a partnership among the farm’s operator, students, faculty and staff. It wants to provide them with an opportunity to interact not only with books but with soil.

Amherst College owns hundreds of acres of open farmland. Some of these fields are leased to farmers for crops like hay, but none is used for sustainable agriculture. The college plans to lease four acres, and possibly up to seven more, to the farmer who is selected and will guarantee the purchase of produce for its dining hall. The goal is that by the third year of operation, the farm will be financially self-sustaining. The college will even provide the farmer with a tractor.

Amherst’s town seal displays both a book and a plow. Its campuses are putting that emblem into practice by elevating agriculture to the central role it plays in all our lives.

Daily Hampshire Gazette © 2011 All rights reserved

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For information on the Sustainable Food and Farming Program in the UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture, see:

  1. 15 credit Certificate Program
  2. Bachelor of Sciences Program
  3. What are our graduates doing now?
  4. Introducing the new Ag Learning Center

The B.S. degree is quite flexible and you can focus on sustainable farming, permaculture, medicinal herbs, policy and advocacy, urban agriculture, farm-based education, etc.   For details, contact Professor John M. Gerber, Program Coordinator.

Its a good time to be an aggie!

Amherst to organize mass harvesting to feed the hungry

Published: Monday, July 30, 2012, 10:57 PM

AMHERST – A group of people interested in growing more food in town is looking for some volunteers to help plan and implement a community-wide gleaning event this harvest to help feed the hungry here.

On Tuesday, members will be holding a planning meeting at 7 p.m. in the Bangs Community Center.

This gleaning – which is a gathering of crops that would be left in the field – is part of a larger resident-led initiative to grow more local food, said Stephanie Ciccarello, the town’s sustainability coordinator.

The town is offering help by providing meeting space “and getting information out there to get people more connected with the food they eat.”

This all started with a meeting that involved Ciccarello, W. David Ziomek, director of conservation and development, and John Gerber, a University of Massachusetts professor involved in a variety of local food endeavors.

The gleaning initiative is called Feed our Neighbors and the plan is to stage a gleaning at the end of the harvest at a few town farms to collect what’s not harvested by farmers. Then the food would be given to the Survival Center and other groups and families, she said.

“The reality is there are people that need food. This is a way to have the community get it out to them,” Ciccarello said.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2010, more than 34 million tons of food waste was generated, more than any other material category but paper.

The gleaning, though, “It’s a part of something bigger.” Called Growing Food in Community, the group is “looking beyond the community garden (model) to grow more food in town,” Ciccarello said.

She said there are just two community gardens and they have accessibility and water issues.

The group wants to create a website where they can pair people looking to farm or garden with people who might have land or need help farming or gardening. They would be able to use the website to find a match. The helper would be able to keep some of what is grown and the farmer would be able to cut down on waste.

For more information, contact Ciccarello at (413) 259-3149 or by email at ciccarellos@amherstma.gov.

Alissa Martin’s Small Farm stand taking root in Deerfield

By Daily Hampshire Gazette
Created 07/24/2012 – 5:00am

DEERFIELD – On a half-acre plot at 477 Greenfield Road, Alissa Martin has opened her first farm stand, called, appropriately enough, The Small Farm. Yet despite its name and size, The Small Farm grows and sells over 80 varieties of vegetables.

The vegetable farm springs from unexpected roots.

Martin had studied documentary film production at Emerson College in Boston when she landed her dream job working for the public broadcasting station WGBH in Boston.

But as she began her new job, she found herself wishing she could work outside. In 2008, Martin volunteered at a friend’s farm in Dover in exchange for vegetables. She fell in love.

Finding her new calling in the farming industry, Martin enrolled in the University of Massachusetts Amherst to receive her second bachelor’s degree in sustainable food and farming.

After reading about maple sugaring, Martin visited the Williams Farm Sugarhouse on Routes 5 and 10, where she met her fiancé, Chip Williams.

Martin then began growing vegetables in preparation for their September wedding.

“I worked on farms for the past four summers,” Martin said. “I couldn’t bear the thought of buying vegetables when that’s what I love to do. I got carried away and Chip encouraged me to have this little stand.”

Martin set up her stand beside the former Old Deerfield Landscaping and Garden Center in what used to be a bird seed shed.

Wanting to reflect simplicity, she chose the name The Small Farm, and feels it fit perfectly.

“Things keep falling into place,” Martin said.

It has been one month since Martin began her farming venture, but the Small Farm is already attracting new and repeat customers.

“Each week it’s getting better and better. It’s amazing,” Martin said. “Being out here, people will come by and chat. I’ve met a ton of new people in Deerfield.”

Part of the appeal, Martin said, is she grows the produce right beside the farm stand. If a customer wants an herb, berry or flower not yet on the stand, Martin can walk over and pick it.

The Small Farm grows many different types of vegetables, including Walla Walla sweet onions, Derby Day cabbage, Bright Lights Swiss chard, Red Ace beets and Super Red 80 cabbage. The farm offers three varieties of onions, two of carrots, three types of kale, five of peppers, 18 kinds of heirloom tomatoes and much more.

Martin follows organic practices, but the farm is not certified organic. Whether she will apply for the certification in the future, she said, depends on how this season fares.

“I’ll see how this summer goes. I’m taking it day by day,” Martin said.

The Small Farm is open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 2 to 6 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/thesmallfarm [1].

Daily Hampshire Gazette © 2011 All rights reserved

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While at UMass, Alissa studied sustainable farming by taking the Student Farming Enterprise  class, which plans, plants, grows and sells organic vegetables.  Students can earn up to 10 college credit and gain summer employment in this innovative course.

See Sustainable Food and Farming for more information on the UMass major.

UMass in the city – training new gardeners

UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture professor Dr. Frank Mangan and graduate student, Zoraia Barros, conducted a gardening clinic at the East Boston Wellness Community Garden on May 31.

There were about 40 gardeners, including “future gardeners” (kids).  Two were native Portuguese speakers, two native English speakers, and the rest were native Spanish speakers.  Frank did a presentation on soil fertility and pest management in Spanish and then they both worked with the gardeners on specific questions related to their garden plots.

Frank speaking on plant care in Spanish

The UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture donated about 400 transplants of vegetables popular in Latino and Brazilian cuisine to the gardeners.  Fact sheets for five of the crops were developed by Dr. Mangan’s students considering language, culture and horticultural levels/skills of the target audience.

 

Some of the factors considered were:

  • they wanted to put together fact sheets that would be appropriate for multiple audiences, including staff who work for the gardeners
  •  the use of color pictures, in particular since there are many names in multiple languages for these crops
  • the literacy levels of the gardeners, which in the case of the gardeners at this community garden ranges dramatically

Zoraia working with the gardeners

The gardeners were extremely attentive and appreciative of the efforts of the UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture to bring gardening expertise to the city.

See more information on Dr. Mangan, and please check out this short video on Raising Ethnic Vegetables in Massachusetts.

 

 

Valley Green Feast delivers fresh food to low-income people

By Scott Merzbach
Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette; May 22, 2012

HADLEY – Inside a small barn at the Kitchen Garden Farm on Rocky Hill Road four women have formed an assembly line to pack cardboard boxes and plastic containers with groceries, everything from potatoes and salad greens to breads and meats, all purchased from area farms and bakeries.

Every Friday morning, throughout the cold of winter and the heat of summer, they prepare orders of locally grown, organic food that they will load in four vehicles for delivery to 300 households in the Pioneer Valley and northern Connecticut.

This worker-owned cooperative, known as Valley Green Feast [1], has been around for five years. But its current owners and employees, Rebekah Hanlon, Molly Merrett, Maggie Shar and Bekki Szlosek, are widening its reach, trying to get fresh food to low-income people and city dwellers, too. They are doing that by giving discounts to qualified people and tapping into the Holyoke YMCA for new customers.

“Our mission is to get the produce out to the people,” said Hanlon, the cooperative’s marketing manager. “We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for people to access the food systems around here.”

The number of weekly farmers markets has grown exponentially in this area, along with Community Supported Agriculture operations where members can purchase shares and make weekly pickups.

But there is still a need to improve nutrition among low-income families and promote the vitality of local farms, Hanlon said.

To make access to their food easier for people of limited means, Valley Green Feast began accepting EBT/SNAP – the federal food assistance program – this year. Those who are eligible receive a 20 percent discount on their fruits and vegetables.

Unlike many of the farmers markets that accept EBT/SNAP payments, though, Valley Green Feast is not depending on federal or state grants to reimburse it for the discount. Instead, it is reducing its own profits.

 

“It already feels right. It doesn’t feel like we’re stretching ourselves doing this,” Hanlon said.

“We’re making available things that are not necessarily available to them,” said Shar.

John Gerber, a professor at the Stockbridge School at UMass who teaches a course in sustainable living, praised the women’s willingness to focus on low-income customers without relying on government subsidies. “They are truly committed to helping limited-income families have access to fresh, healthy and local food,” he said. “This is truly a unique business and these are truly remarkable young women.”

A cooperative forms

Valley Green Feast was started in 2007 by Jessica Harwood as a one-woman farm food delivery service in Northampton, and it was based there until it moved to Hadley last year. The service had about 25 customers in Hampshire and Franklin counties.

When Harwood decided to move on, she found Merrett, 30, a co-owner and employee of the Pedal People Cooperative hauling service in Northampton, and Shar, 30, program coordinator for Fertile Ground, a Williamsburg-based teaching garden project for area schools. Both women were interested in continuing the business as a worker-owned cooperative, and by January 2010 they had worked out a transition plan. That summer they hired Hanlon, 24, the youth and family coordinator for the Greater Holyoke YMCA. Szlosek, 29, a personal chef, was the last to come on board, joining the group in January.

Their headquarters is the barn that owners of the Kitchen Garden Farm, Caroline Pam and Tim Wilcox, allow them to use on Fridays.

The women do most of the Valley Green Feast work themselves, though volunteers periodically help out. All four use their second jobs to promote Valley Green Feast through word-of-mouth. In addition, Merrett’s Pedal People Cooperative makes deliveries for Valley Green Feast in Northampton using its cargo bicycles.

“We consider ourselves a mobile farmers market,” Szlosek said.

Veggies to beef

By each Tuesday, customers have placed their orders via Valley Green Feast’s website, www.valleygreenfeast.com [2], ordering seasonal fruits and vegetables in containers that range from a mini box for $18 to a gathering box for $55. Customers pay a $4 delivery charge for standing orders and a $7 delivery charge for one-time orders.

The women collect the information in a database overseen by Shar. Merrett then places the orders at farms and other outlets which she has identified as using healthy food production methods, such as growing fruit without pesticides.

“We try and do local and seasonal as much as possible,” Hanlon said.

Customers can also request items like beef and pork from King Creek in Ware, beef from River Rock in Brimfield, poultry from Diemand Farm in Wendell and fish from Port Clyde, a Maine seafood cooperative. The women keep supplies of these foods in a freezer in the barn.

This month selections include salad mix from Red Fire Farm in Granby and Montague; cherry tomatoes from Enterprise Farm, which runs a regional food shed in Whately; cupcakes and breads from Woodstar Bakery in Northampton; corn meal from Four Star Farm in Northfield; yogurt from Side Hill Farm in Ashfield; and fresh bake-at-home pizza from Hillside Pizza in Hadley.

Merrett also includes recipes in a weekly newsletter she distributes to encourage people to use all of the produce in their orders.

Once the vehicles are loaded, the women head out. Merrett takes off for Northampton, where she coordinates the Pedal People deliveries, and the other three women divide up the remaining routes. One car goes north into Franklin County, another to Hilltowns and the third to the southern region. One of the newest drop-off points is the YMCA in Holyoke.

Hanlon has worked with YMCA associate executive director Jennifer Gilburg to establish the Valley Green Feast drop-off point at the Y building. As part of the arrangement, customers don’t have to pay the usual delivery fee.

The Y, which serves Holyoke, Granby and South Hadley, has promoted the effort through its healthy living initiative. “This really fits in with our goals at the Y,” Gilburg said.

So far, about 15 families have received deliveries there.

“The reaction has been very positive,” said Gilburg, who also has her own standing order.

Valley Green Feast has become part of the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives, an organization that focuses on building partnerships between cooperatives. VAWC members include the Pedal People, Collective Copies, Pioneer Valley Photovoltaics, which promotes solar and hydropower, and website design firm Gaia Host Collective.

Adam Trott, staff developer for VAWC, is one of Valley Green Feast’s subscribers.

“I feel as a customer that you have a set of experts doing your shopping for you,” he said.

Valley Green Feast is beginning to work with traditional farmers markets as well. It was recently asked to bring a selection of meats and cheeses to the Holyoke Farmers Market each week.

“It’s an honor to be asked to be part of it,” Szlosek said.

“Our work is empowering, inspiring and nourishing, just like the food that we deliver,” Merrett said.

Daily Hampshire Gazette © 2011 All rights reserved

And for a follow-up Editorial in the Amherst Bulletin, see: Mission Possible – Produce to the People

A young farmer from Columbia in the Pioneer Valley

This is my friend Juan Mendez from Enterprise Farms in Whately Massachusetts.  Juan was born in Columbia in a farming village.  He made his way to America to continue farming here and pursue education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  Juan is a friend of mine, and a wonderful person.  He LOVES farming.  Always coming home with a bag of freshly grown vegetables for all of us to enjoy.  Juan has a background in permaculture and soil building, and he applies his knowledge every day at Enterprise Farm.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGloGa26mE4&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

It’s awesome to hear someone who’s traveled far to take up farming in the Pioneer Valley which he thinks is the best place for farming in America.  Special thanks to Juan for letting me interview him.

Gregory Connor gregular77@gmail.com

The Meadow Street Farm and Craft Market (at the big blue barn)

In North Amherst Massachusetts there is a small, community market where people come together to buy local food and crafts, and meet their friends and neighbors.  Please be sure to stop by the Meadow Street Market on:

  • Saturday 9:00am – 2:00pm
  • Tuesday 3:30pm – 7:30pm
  • Friday 3:00pm – 7:30pm

This is a fun market to visit and a safe place to bring the kids!

Bread delivered by bicycle!

Buy your local milk and eggs

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clothing and crafts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the video introducing some of the vendors:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKU9X8U9y_8&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

 

Please help us spread the word about this wonderful market by “liking” the market on Facebook.  Thanks…..

 

An interview with Adam, a young farmer in the Pioneer Valley

Adam Dole is a hard working farmer here in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.  I had the pleasure of taking classes with Adam as we were both working towards our B.S. degrees in the Sustainable Food and Farming program at UMass Amherst.  Adam’s interview, tells us a little bit about himself, his path and how he started his projects at “Solid Ground farm” located at the New England Small Farms Institute in Belchertown, MA.  He has a background in sustainable agriculture, and follows permaculture principles coupled with Japanese farming techniques.  Adam is growing local grain through his business known as White Oak Grains.  He is working towards getting more and more vegetable CSA shares sold and often distributes products at local farmers markets.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39UpmTrquWE&list=UU4tjLAyqRD1ROhXVPaohbuw&index=1&feature=plcp&noredirect=1[/youtube]

Adam is a great young man and a hardworking local farmer and I wish him the best in his endeavors.

Gregory Connor gregular77@gmail.com