By Ben Groscup
Community Farm Organizer
This year’s NOFA/Mass Winter Conference
(Jan. 17) includes a track of three consecutive
workshops on community farms.
Presenters include people from around the
state who have extensive experience in starting
and running community farms.
Community farms are farms that are
open to the public and explicitly driven by a
mission to serve the needs of the local community.
A community farm is not defined by
its method of distribution; indeed they use
a variety of methods such as CSA’s, farmstands,
community gardens, as well as freely
giving produce to food banks.
A community farm ideally not only produces
quality farm products in an ecologically-
sound way, it provides transformative
experiences for the people who work on it:
farm managers, apprentices, day volunteers.
Key to the education provided is that it
directly involves people in doing meaningful
and productive work. These farms offer
people in suburban communities a too-rare
connection with the land, leading more people
to support public resources for expanded
conservation. They can also inspire and facilitate
improvement in the local food system
in the face of increased food insecurity due
to economic and climatic instability. The
community model can also help people gain
expanded rights to participate in and make
decisions about their food system.
Community farming in Massachusetts is
a significant but still small part of the agricultural
economy. Establishing new community
farms in the future involves confronting development
pressure, stressed town budgets,
and economic inequality. NOFA/Mass is
nonetheless developing strategies for having
a community farm in every town in the commonwealth.
First, we are identifying the groups
that are already organizing for new community
farms, seeking to partner with them to
popularize the idea and get still more groups
mobilized.
Second, we’re identifying neglected
conservation land and introducing the community
farm model as a way to help make
that land become more productive. We are
lucky in Massachusetts that many towns
have conserved farmland, but its food production
and educational potential can be
improved through organizing. Through new
community farms, we can preserve the historical
and ecological character of sites that
historically produced food for local populations,
while giving the community a direct
stake in their preservation.
Lastly, we’re providing educational resources
for people who want to bring local
decision makers on board to support their
proposals for a community farm. The kickoff
event for the NOFA/Mass Community
Farm Initiative will be the Winter Conference
workshops. These will appeal to community
activists and local government officials looking
for innovative models for agricultural
conservation, as well as parents who want
meaningful educational experiences to be
more available in their community, private
farmers interested in exploring the integration
of educational programming with their
farming operations, and teachers looking for
farm-based education resources. Registering
for the NOFA/Mass Winter Conference provides
entry to this track of workshops.
Workshop 1. Organizing a Community
Farm in Your Town
Lynda Simkins, director of Natick Community
Organic Farm for 30 years, highlights
public needs that community farms fulfill and
tells how to mobilize latent desires for these
institutions. Greg Maslowe addresses how
he has managed community involvement,
political tensions and competing demands
as Newton Angino Community Farm’s first
farm manager. Heather Scott, leader of the
Medway Community Farm Initiative, offers
tools for starting a community farm, based
on recent progress.
Workshop 2. Financing Community
Farms
Jed Beach covers basic business planning
principles—legal structure, marketing,
finances, and staffing—for community farms,
using case studies and personal experience as
assistant director at Natick Community Organic
Farm. Amanda Cather, farm manager,
demonstrates how Waltham Fields Community
Farm finances its mission through
earned income. Verena Wieloch, farming
coordinator, explains strategies to foster deep
support—both financial and volunteer—of
Gaining Ground’s (Concord) mission to give
its produce for hunger relief.
Workshop 3. Educational Programs on
Community Farms
Regina Fritz and Ursula King of Natick
Community Organic Farm trace their path of
building a learning community that engages
the public in farming. Participants are invited
to think about their communities and consider
latent educational opportunities there.
Brooke Redmond of the Farm-Based Education
Association presents a recently completed
national survey of farm-based education
projects. Participants will gain inspiring
ideas based on best practices and affirmation
of their commitment to this rewarding and
fast-growing field.
For more information on these workshops
or the Community Farm Initiative,
contact me,Ben Grosscup, at ben.grosscup@
nofamass.org, 413-658-5374.
Back to the January-February, 2009 NOFA/Mass News
This page was last modified on July 27, 2009 at 10:38:19 AM.
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