Farms across Franklin County receive $351,000 in state grants to address food insecurity

Farms across Franklin County received approximately $351,000 from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR)’s Food Security Infrastructure Grant Program, the Healey-Driscoll Administration recently announced.

The grants will help bolster the roles of Greenfield Community College [GCC] and Franklin County food access organizations and farms in their local food systems.

“The program is designed to support food security initiatives that provide more equitable access to locally grown, raised, harvested, and caught foods by strengthening the local food supply chain,” the state announcement reads.

According to MDAR Commissioner Ashley Randle, the grant program started in 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption of local food systems.

“At the time, it was really meant for short-term, quick turnaround infrastructure investments, so that farms, schools, food pantries, fisheries could pivot to meet the moment,” Randle explained.

In its fifth year, the grants now targets long-term projects, such as distribution, “processing for value-added production,” season extension and climate resiliency, Randle said.

The Franklin County Community Meals Program, a food access organization with meal sites in Turners Falls, Orange, Greenfield and Northfield also received a $21,695 Food Security Infrastructure Grant from MDAR.

New greenhouse on the horizon at GCC

GCC received the highest grant in the county, $370,848, to build a new greenhouse, a project led by the school’s Farm and Food Systems program in partnership with its Corner Market Food Pantry. Slated for completion by early summer, the greenhouse will have space to grow, wash, process, store and organize the distribution of fresh produce for the food pantry.

According to Food Security Special Programs Coordinator Cynthia Rebelo, the pantry served produce grown on and outside campus to about 300 students’ families over the last academic year, equating to about 800 people. About 40 visitors stop by the food pantry each day, mostly students bringing food home to their families, Rebelo said. Over the last two weeks, 40 more students signed up to receive food from the pantry, a roughly 10% increase.

“This is unusual,” Rebelo noted. She added that many new participants cited the recent federal cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as their reason for signing up to fill the gap in food assistance.

Rebelo said the new greenhouse may allow the food pantry to expand its fall Free Farmers Market into a regular “weekly walk-through” service similar to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program for those in need to access fresh fruits and vegetables.

Instead of cans, a staple of many food drives, fresh produce packs more nutrients and flavor, said Anthony Reiber, senior special programs coordinator for Natural Resources at GCC.

“Depending on your socioeconomic status, it shouldn’t mean that you can’t get fresh produce,” Reiber said. “It’s more of a right as opposed to a privilege.”

Depending on your socioeconomic status, it shouldn’t mean that you can’t get fresh produce. It’s more of a right as opposed to a privilege.

anthony reiber

Reiber, who teaches horticulture at the college, said the greenhouse will also serve as a classroom for horticulture, botany and environmental science classes, one-credit courses on four-season farming, organic gardening and permaculture design, and workshops for students and visitors. He even mentioned the possibility of local farmers coming in to speak at the workshops.

“We can educate students on how to grow, but also, we can share what we produce for the greater good,” Reiber said.

Local farms receive grants to support outreach

Three Franklin County farms received funding to cover 80% of the costs for projects designed to provide more local residents with fresh produce.

When asked about the grant, Hugh Manheim, owner of Manheim Farm in South Deerfield, immediately hollered, “Yay!” over the phone. The farm plans to use its $228,697 grant to update its refrigeration system, a project Manheim said is 20 years overdue.

The farm’s current, more than 30-year-old refrigeration system lacks an electric defrost option, leading the farm to struggle with setting a temperature cold enough to store parsnips for long periods of time.

“Finally, after all these years, we can afford to change it around and have long-term storage,” Manheim said. The airtight storage will help prevent risks like listeriosis, salmonella and other foodborne illnesses while lengthening the seasons of crops like parnsips, sweet corn, squash, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, turnips, eggplants, green pepppers and asparagus. Manheim also expects extra space in the coolers for other farms to stop by and store their produce.

“It’s everybody’s job to pitch in,” Manheim said.

Diemand Farm in Millers Falls received $68,637 for the purchase of a new van. With a more reliable vehicle, Bucci hopes to expand the farm’s reach farther east.

“I feel like we’re just hanging on,” owner Anne Diemand Bucci said of their current 11-year-old van. “It’s going to be a huge help.”

For Bucci, when farmers join the effort to address food insecurity, it cuts out the middleman.

“It goes from producer to the customer,” Bucci said. “We know that it’s hard work at times and very rewarding… We know how to grow food, whether it’s vegetables or meat.”

Diemand Farm also donates to Stone Soup Café’s Harvest Supper and Day of Mourning & Giving Thanks.

“I am a firm believer in volunteerism and anything we can do to help each other up, we’re helping ourselves,” Bucci said. “If we have enough, of course we’re going to want to share.

“It breaks my heart with what’s going on with the food insecurity and what this administration is doing to our population, it breaks my heart,” Bucci said. “If we can help our community and our neighbors, that’s what we’re here for.”

Jono Neiger, owner of Big River Chestnuts in Sunderland hopes to use its $54,317 to reintroduce chestnuts from a “niche specialty crop” to a staple crop in the area.

The award will help fund both a new cooler to replace the current 20-year-old cooler and an upgrade to the farm’s electrical service to power “sophisticated equipment” on the horizon, such as a washing and heating system, nutsizer, grating machine, filling machine, hammer mill and grain mill.

“It’s really going to support this big increase in production that’s coming in the next few years,” Neiger explained over the phone.

With these machines, Neiger plans to make Big River Chestnuts a hub for farmers across Massachusetts and nearby states to access the equipment and process and market their chestnuts. According to Neiger, farmers in New York, Carr’s Ciderhouse in Hadley and other Pioneer Valley farms have already reached out.

Rich in vitamins and fiber, chestnuts are a “healthy alternative to imported wheat,” Neiger claimed.

“Creating resilience in our food system means that we’re producing our own staple crops within the region, within the state; we’re feeding ourselves,” Neiger explained.

With more financial support and new equipment, Neiger hopes to integrate chestnuts into the food system at affordable prices. He claimed collaborating with other chestnut farmers and establishing chestnuts as a staple crop in the area will strengthen the local food system and help reduce food insecurity as a result.

“We’re showing that we’re actively part of the food system, we’re part of the local community, we’re showing that we’re building more trust with some of these agencies and organizations that do the funding and grants, and we’re showing that we’re doing good work and making a difference in the community,” Neiger said.