Guy McKay's heart has two lobes--one that loves self-sufficiency, as in making his own potting soil and saving his own winter rye cover crop seed, and one that works for cooperation and sharing among growers, suppliers and retailers. "I'm trying to team with people who are like me, to share the lessons we've learned," says the energetic market gardener and former engineer. "As farmers, we've got to reach out, and not compete. There's not a lot of us left!"
He and his wife, Cheryl, grow herbs, seasonal field veggies, starts, winter rye seed, greenhouse tomatoes and even flowers organically on their NOFA/Mass-certified five acres on Rt. 27 in Acton. "A lot of people ask us why we grow flowers organically," Guy said. "We answer, 'Because we can!'" They do events like local fairs and hire summer help, including their children--a son and a daughter in their late teens and early twenties. They sell their output to Bread & Circus, restaurants, and farm markets.
They supplied almost all the starter sets to the Food Project farm last year, with which the farm "grew over 120,000 lbs.of food for South Boston," Guy said. "We think that's an important part of what we're doing. Everything isn't based on the dollar bottom line."
The McKays have two greenhouses and are planning to put up a third. They sometimes sell directly to the public at their farm location. They hope to do more when they build a structure there for refrigeration, storage and retail. They want to build a small chicken house for "our own eggs and meat." They also plan a pond on the site, now level fields on two tiers.
It's a former gravel pit in a partly-abandoned industrial area, and Guy is proud of having reclaimed it and restored it to productivity.
Compost has aided them mightily. Not only is the soil in the fields like coffee grounds, there are dozens of yards of compost windrowed and in all stages of "making." "A horse farm delivers to us three times a week, and I mix it with poultry manure," Guy said.
That's the style of their farming operation: save and use. "This was all woods here," Guy gestured as we walked around. "We harvested the logs and sawed them into lumber. We'll use it to build." He and his son drilled one well themselves and traded potted plants for another. Guy loved getting straw as well as seed from the combine he drove to harvest the winter rye crop this year.
Guy's grandfather had greenhouses "and 10,000 chickens" in Lexington, the town ten minutes away where he and Cheryl now live. It was a conventional farm, and it taught him something about growing indoors. "For organic there wasn't a whole lot of data," he said. "We kind of pioneered."
The McKays are NOFA members. Guy is also a past member of the NOFA/Mass Certification Committee. He and Cheryl get together with nearby farmers and their trainees and apprentices like those from Drumlin Farm, Land Sake, the Food Project, Codman Farm, and organic CSAs, both certified and uncertified, to talk about what's on their minds.
Like the organic produce calling. Guy's is the kind of imagination that lets him visualize organic becoming organic right down to the business plans of food retailers. He envisions them working mutually with farmers to restore community and a level of sanity to the food system. He recalled once a local chain dumping him for $1 a case for lettuce--"Four cents a head!" He's polite in his consternation. "But we've got to be a team!"
When you think of Butterbrook Farm, think self-sufficiency and storing several thousand pounds of winter squash in the garage and doing their own bulldozerwork. Think passion for cooperation, too, and that expanding community of growers and retailers.
This page was last modified on January 14, 2008 at 12:25:33 PM.