With the help of two Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) grant programs, farmers across Franklin County are investing in new equipment to speed up their operations and strengthen sustainability as they face unpredictable futures.
The two sources of funding, the Farm Readiness Grant and the Farm Viability Enhancement Program, distributed approximately $2.5 million to Massachusetts farms, of which nearly $708,000 came to Franklin County.
Four Franklin County farms got a total of $475,000 through the Farm Viability Enhancement Program and 13 received a total of $232,575 through Farm Readiness Grants, a program that earned its name for its “installation-ready” projects farmers can carry out quickly, according to an announcement from the Healey-Driscoll administration.
“Massachusetts farmers work hard every day to keep fresh, local food on our tables, and we want to make sure they have the tools they need to succeed,” Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement. “These grants will help farms upgrade equipment, improve efficiency and strengthen their businesses so they can continue feeding communities across Massachusetts. We’re excited to support another round of projects that will continue investing in the future of local agriculture.”
With a $23,400 Farm Readiness Grant, Peter Melnik, who runs Bar-Way Farm with his brother in Deerfield, purchased what he calls a “milk taxi.” The machine pasteurizes cows’ milk, kills the “bad bugs” and feeds the milk to the dairy farm’s calves, he described. As the calves grow into cows, their portions increase, adjusting to suit their stage of development.
Like many of the grant recipients, Melnik described a ripple effect of benefits. For Melnik, healthier calves means more calves on the farm and more beef to sell at local stores.
“Because we have the right equipment, it leads to other opportunities,” Melnik said.
Seth Cranston of Cranston’s Tree Farm in Ashfield and Howard Boyden of Boyden Brothers Maple in Conway both bought vacuum pumps to collect sap with their grants.
For the best maple syrup production, Cranston said that sugarers dream of cold nights at freezing or near-freezing temperatures, and warm, sunny days near 50 degrees, which allows maple trees to be in their most productive state. However, with climate change, cold nights are becoming less and less common.
“Relying on traditional gravity systems is difficult at best,” Cranston said.
The pump that Cranston’s Tree Farm had used before receiving the $9,700 grant was nearly 20 years old, and its efficiency had drastically decreased with age. With the new pump, the raw sap yield from the maple trees on the farm has increased from 220 gallons to 640, without harming the trees. According to Cranston, this is because the newer artificial pump can capture the runs of sap from the tree that are otherwise marginal.
At Boyden Brothers Maple, Boyden was already using three vacuum pumps and bought three more with the $5,900 award. According to Boyden, the vacuum pump doubles the amount of sap that would otherwise be collected.
“It’s actually subverting climate change, because we don’t get as many freeze-thaw cycles during the maple season as we used to — it’s either hard froze or very warm, and we’re not getting those gentle cycles,” Boyden said. “When the sap does run, this (vacuum pump) helps it really run.”
According to Boyden, the pump has a two-year payback, a green flag for Boyden when he was applying for the grant.
“The taxpayers can feel good about it, too,” Boyden said. “When I apply for grants, I always look for a good payback, because it’s coming out of our pockets, too.”
Foxbard Farm in Shelburne Falls, another recipient of a Farm Readiness Grant, was awarded $20,000 that went toward the purchase of a no-till drill. Family-owned for three generations, owner Helen Payne Watt said the farm used to seed the pasture and hayfield years ago for its herd of black angus cows. In the past few years, though, the farm was letting the hayfield reseed itself naturally, and the yield has been decreasing.
“We had gotten to the point where we knew that the quality and quantity of the forge on the pasture and the hay in the hayfields was below where it needed to be,” Payne Watt said. “A no-till seed drill … is a way of introducing seeds into the soil without turning it. No-till is a way to plant without disturbing the soil … because tilling, it can really break it down.”
Payne Watt said the farm needed to reintroduce seeds on a large scale, and a no-till drill would be the perfect piece of equipment for this process.
Sage Farm in Bernardston earned $30,700 through a Farm Readiness Grant for equipment that spreads manure across its hayfields, “a piece of infrastructure that was really important for the farm,” said owner Tyler Sage.
Sage said the state invested in the farm’s sustainability through the grant by allowing him to use waste from the farm’s own pigs as fertilizer.
“To be practicing sustainable agriculture is expensive and often the added cost of using sustainable products can’t really be passed on in your price structure,” Sage said, “so having some amount of subsidy or grant or assistance from the state is really valuable.”
“It can be really challenging to stay up to date on advances in technology, changes in agricultural economy, and this type of grant provides a really good way for us to overcome some of the structural challenges of farming in Massachusetts,” echoed Jesse Robertson-Dubois of Finicky Farm.
In Northfield, Robertson-Dubois and his wife, Desiree, installed a system that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) through ear tags to weigh, sort and check the health of their 450 sheep and goats. The $8,800 grant allowed them to “optimize” this system and run the hundreds of animals through it more efficiently with “livestock handling equipment.”
“One of the first warning signs if an animal isn’t doing well is they’ll stop gaining weight or they’ll start losing weight,” Robertson-Dubois said. “This lets us do the routine checks more easily so we can really stay ahead of any potential health issues, but then also make sure that everybody is growing as well as they can.”
Before the new equipment, it took the farmers two days to move the 450 grazers through the RFID system. Now, it takes four hours.
“It’s a real game-changer,” Robertson-Dubois said.
With a $14,800 Farm Readiness Grant, Thomas Farm & Dairy co-owners Jim Thomas and Laurie Cuevas bought a trailer to carry the goats’ manure from the barn to the hayfields.
Cuevas described the trailer as one stop in a “full circle” of sustainable operations at the Sunderland farm.
“The whole point of sustainability is being able to take care of what you have. It’s almost like a full circle,” Cuevas said. “If we can make high-quality hay and it’ll grow better because it’s been fertilized … then we can feed the goats a high-quality diet, which in turn helps us create high-quality milk, which adds to our benefit as far as high-quality cheese. … It lends itself all the way around.”
Between the cost of equipment, tractors and even smaller expenses like the goat cheese containers, earning a living as a farmer is “really challenging,” Cuevas said.
“It’s so much more than just a handout … when you start to look at the big picture,” Cuevas said, “and how much it actually costs to produce a little bit of food.”
Other Franklin County farms to receive funding are Atlas Farm in Deerfield, $50,000 for a speed disc and harvest bins; Fern Hill Farm in Buckland, $4,380 for wash/pack and compost equipment; Kitchen Garden Farm in Sunderland, $24,600 for a strip tiller; Knechtel Farm in Orange, $1,695 for a maple tank and a vacuum pump; Lombrico LLC of Whately, $20,600 for a stone burier; River Maple Farm of Bernardston, $18,000 for milking parlor upgrades through the Farm Readiness Grant and $100,000 through the Farm Viability Enhancement Program for a barn renovation and farm equipment; Bysiewski Farm in South Deerfield, $125,000 for construction of a retail farm stand; Foxtrot Farm of Ashfield, $100,000 to purchase deer fencing, and make road and parking improvements; and Woodslawn Farm of Colrain, $150,000 for a mower, skid steer, truck and to repair infrastructure.
