News & Events In Common Newsletter Fall 2009 Agricultural Innovation Sprouts Again at Waltham Experiment Station
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Volume 8 • Number 1 • Fall 2009
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 seven-acre Waltham Fields Community Farm occupies a piece of a 56-acre parcel that has long stood out as an anomaly, and as a focus for innovation, sitting amid the adjacent suburban hubbub. Donated in 1921 by dairy farmer and philanthropist Cornelia Warren, the site became the home of UMass Amherst’s Suburban Experiment Station, which counted among its many accomplishments the development of the butternut squash that carries the Waltham name. The World Crops Project builds on work pioneered by UMass Extension’s Frank Mangan to grow and market non-native vegetable varieties favored by New England’s newest ethnic communities, according to WFCF Executive Director Claire Kozower. “The World Crops planting brings together the Boston market’s growing demand for ethnic produce and the skills of recent immigrants, who have had a substantial amount of contact with this kind of farming – it’s what they know and what’s important to them,” Kozower noted recently. Public reaction to the world crops has been glowing and CSA shares are currently sold out. Credits:
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