CISA’s Emergency Farm Fund, established in 2012, was created to help farmers survive the financial losses resulting from extreme weather events—but we know that an emergency stopgap isn’t enough to prepare our region for the changes to come. In 2019, we convened a Climate Change Task Force made up of CISA board and staff, farmers, activists, and experts. This group set CISA’s three-pronged approach to climate change for 2020 and beyond:

• Increase CISA’s technical support for farmers who want to change their on-farm practices to mitigate or adapt to climate change.
• Advocate for policies that support farmers in addressing climate change, including expansion of funding for renewable energy and on-farm approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation.
• Continue to grow CISA’s expertise on climate change issues and educate the public about how climate change and agriculture intersect.

Astarte Farm, Hadley  Astarte Farm photo

Farms host complex ecosystems, and supporting a healthy range of plant, animal, and insect life is foundational to environmentally friendly farming practices.

The farmers at Astarte Farm, a 6.5 acre vegetable farm in Hadley, have received support from CISA to develop and maintain habitat for pollinators and beneficial predators. This practice supports the farm’s commitment to no-spray, no-till agriculture by increasing yields and reducing pest pressure. No-till farming practices contribute to climate change mitigation by sequestering carbon. Successful experimentation and modeling by small farms like Astarte is vital to the possibility that larger farms may be able to adopt this practice.

Farmer Dan Pratt says, “We’ve been focused on establishing beneficial plants in the organic buffer zone around our field and building the first “beetle bank” in New England! For that, we built a raised structure in the field which is planted with perennial grasses that attract ground beetles that nest around their roots. They come out at night and do a wonderful job as predators. Our cucumber plants used to be eaten alive by cucumber beetles, and by establishing the appropriate flowering crops we now hardly see any cucumber beetles at all.”

A vast new report, Climate Change and Land, from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, lays out in stark detail the impacts of human land use on global warming and the opportunities that land offers for remediation and adaptation to a changing climate. Read CISA’s analysis of this report.

In 2019, CISA established a new partnership with the Massachusetts Migrant Education Program (MMEP). With the help of an experienced English teacher and a wonderful group of volunteer instructors with farm experience, we are supporting English language instruction for 14 farmworkers who would otherwise be ineligible for MMEP’s services.

CISA supports the advocacy effort that would make undocumented immigrants eligible for driver’s licenses. We believe that Massachusetts should take this practical step towards acknowledging our reliance on the 200,000 undocumented immigrants who live in the state, as fourteen other states have already done. CISA staffer Kristen Wilmer presented CISA’s testimony in support of the Work and Family Mobility Act at the State House on September 4, 2019. Read CISA’s testimony.