Volume 8 • Number 1 • Fall 2009

There are many ways to look at agriculture in Massachusetts: one is to look at the statistics. While it can seem more rewarding to visit with farmers, stop by a farmers market or CSA or eat a meal made of Massachusetts-grown food, the numbers tell an interesting story.

Farms Rooted in Communities

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE 2009
Agriculture is thriving once again in Massachusetts, nourished by a trend toward smaller farms, niche marketing, direct sales and a growing awareness of the impact of local sustainable agriculture systems on the health of people, communities and the environment.

The latest USDA Agricultural Census indicates that from 2002 to 2007 the number of farms and the value of farm products both jumped by about 27 percent, led by direct sales and organic produce. Organic sales topped $17 million. By contrast, the period from 1997 to 2002 had seen a troubling 20-percent drop in the number of farms in Massachusetts, in acreage under cultivation, and in the market value of agricultural products.

Sharing the Wealth of Research

The cutting edge is nothing new to Tim Nourse, owner and CEO of Nourse Farms – even if that term is not typically applied to growing berries.

Nourse has long been at the forefront of advanced growing techniques at the 75-year-old farm headquartered in Whately, and now heads one of the largest nursery farms in the country, thanks in part to the tissue lab built there two decades ago when that technology was very new. From tissue, plants now can be reproduced virus-free.

Nourse Farms has been a pioneer in plasticulture – a technique where strawberry plants are set into plastic-covered rows with built-in drip lines that provide nutrients and water. This system, more commonly seen in California and Florida, reduces the need for herbicide applications to strawberry land. Nourse Farms has helped adapt this system to more northerly growing regions, where 95 percent of berry growers still use the old “matted row” technique.

All Ears for Research on this Sharon Farm

As a commercial grower, Jim Ward isn’t about to fool around when it comes to dealing with pests like the European corn borer or the corn ear worm. He knows the kind of damage they can cause to the fifty acres of corn he grows on his family farm in Sharon.

That’s why he makes sure to keep up with the latest research from his alma mater, UMass Amherst.

Ward and his brother, Bob, are co-owners of Ward’s Berry Farm, started by their father in 1981 primarily to grow blueberries (the farm still has a stand of majestic, 25-year-old blueberry bushes). Now the farm ships berries, as well as a long list of vegetables including corn, to farm stands and restaurants in Boston and around the region.

Harvest Bounty for 4-H Green Giants

At their August meeting, the Green Giants 4-H club enjoyed homemade, garden-fresh salsa – tomatoes, garlic, green peppers, cilantro and onions – made all the more satisfying by the fact that this bounty was from their own garden.

Carissa Hartman-Wozniak, Stephanie Carpenter and several other Worcester County parents formed the club last winter to focus on “green and the environment,” according to Lynne Hartman, Carissa’s mother and a force behind getting Green Giants off the ground.

A Little Brazil on the Vineyard

Locally grown tropical Brazilian vegetables were a big hit on Martha’s Vineyard in 2009. The UMass Extension’s Ethnic Crops Team has been working with farmers and markets on the Vineyard since 2008, introducing crops such as taioba, okra and maxixe to the island. Taioba is a leafy green and maxixe is a spiny cucumber.

Frank Mangan’s graduate students Zoraia Barros, Celina Fernandes and Renato Mateus promoted these vegetables at Brazilian and non-Brazilian markets on the island in 2009, and they were especially popular at Cronigs Market in Vineyard Haven. Customers at Cronigs were allowed to taste traditional Brazilian recipes with taioba, maxixe and okra, and then were given surveys to evaluate market demand.

Agricultural Innovation Sprouts Again at Waltham Experiment Station

New ground is being broken once again at the birthplace of Waltham Butternut Squash, as the Waltham Fields Community Farm (WFCF) and UMass Extension have teamed up to launch the World Crop Planting Project on UMass property just outside Boston.

Beginning in 1995, a small group of farmers, educators, and volunteers created Waltham Fields Community Farm using a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) – or farm share – model, where local community members act as shareholders, paying in advance for a portion of the produce, and sharing in all of the usual risks of farming. This model, borrowed from organizations in Japan and Europe, provides the farmers with early income and the community with quality fruit and vegetables, delivered direct, unpackaged and fresh to farm share members, and often to food relief organizations, throughout the growing season.

The Wealth Underfoot

The soils of Massachusetts tell a fascinating and complex story about the history of the state’s land, about the current health of its agriculture, and about some choices for the future.

“We have a tremendous range of soils in Massachusetts,” notes Peter Veneman of the UMass Amherst Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences. “Much of our soil is quite young, no more than about 15,000 years old.”
A cursory survey, says Veneman, might begin in the western Berkshire hills, where there is abundant limestone in, and cropping up through, the soil. That limestone, used in manufacturing antacid pills, is fine for the soil – up to a point, that is.

Wheat on the Way Back in New England

In addition to the locally grown vegetables, fruit, dairy and other farm products that we routinely find in our grocery stores, wheat and artisanal flour may soon find their way to the "made in Massachusetts" section of our local markets.

When most of us think of wheat, we think of “the nation’s bread basket” – massive, uniform fields in the Midwest. That very uniformity poses a threat to the heritage wheat varieties of the world, which were selected by farmers and adapted to local conditions, according to Eli Kaufman of Northeast Organic Wheat, a multi-state consortium of organic farmers, artisan bakers and Extension specialists working to bring wheat back to the farm fields of New England.

Sharing Secrets to Success, Web 2.0 Style

In addition to the locally grown vegetables, fruit, dairy and other farm products that we routinely find in our grocery stores, wheat and artisanal flour may soon find their way to the "made in Massachusetts" section of our local markets.

When most of us think of wheat, we think of “the nation’s bread basket” – massive, uniform fields in the Midwest. That very uniformity poses a threat to the heritage wheat varieties of the world, which were selected by farmers and adapted to local conditions, according to Eli Kaufman of Northeast Organic Wheat, a multi-state consortium of organic farmers, artisan bakers and Extension specialists working to bring wheat back to the farm fields of New England.

Best Management Practices

In addition to the locally grown vegetables, fruit, dairy and other farm products that we routinely find in our grocery stores, wheat and artisanal flour may soon find their way to the "made in Massachusetts" section of our local markets.

When most of us think of wheat, we think of “the nation’s bread basket” – massive, uniform fields in the Midwest. That very uniformity poses a threat to the heritage wheat varieties of the world, which were selected by farmers and adapted to local conditions, according to Eli Kaufman of Northeast Organic Wheat, a multi-state consortium of organic farmers, artisan bakers and Extension specialists working to bring wheat back to the farm fields of New England.