Great Gardens: Springfield resident continues farming tradition
Dennis Luckey grows corn, cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, okra, beans, collard greens, cantaloupe and squash in his 700 square foot garden.
The Massachusetts Food Policy Council has voted unanimously to accept a plan to promote locally grown food. State officials plan to announce the acceptance at a Friday event in Greenfield. But what impact the plan will have on Massachusetts agriculture depends on how it is implemented.
"There's hundreds of recommendations contained within the plan," said Department of Agricultural Resources Commissioner John Lebeaux, who chairs the Massachusetts Food Policy Council. "There has to be some ordering of what recommendations will be taken up first, what resources can help develop them and push them forward."
State officials released the 357-page plan in October, the first comprehensive food system plan released in the state since 1974. The study cost $300,000, paid for by state and private money. After allowing time for public comment, the Food Policy Council, a group formed in 2010 to address local food policy, last week unanimously agreed to adopt the plan and move toward implementing it.
The plan includes a huge range of items. For example, the report suggests conducting marketing campaigns around locally grown food and providing technical assistance to farmers to help them remain competitive. It recommends improving infrastructure for processing food by developing shared-use kitchens and providing flexible financing for small food businesses. It recommends ensuring that regulations do not hinder the growth of the agriculture industry in areas ranging from slaughter to building codes.
Other proposals relate to lowering taxes on farmers, preserving farmland and making public land available for farming. The report proposes supporting urban agriculture and mobile farmers markers, while increasing the availability of healthy food at food pantries and hospitals.
Lebeaux said the council will begin a discussion in March about identifying 10 or 12 initial recommendations to prioritize. While some recommendations could be implemented through private organizations, others are likely to require legislation and state funding.
"It's simply now prioritizing and targeting what we think should be done first," LeBeaux said.
There is already a new collaborative being formed to figure out which projects will be prioritized and to advocate for the plan before the Legislature and other interested groups.
"What needs to happen now is the various players in the food system in the state ... need to go through the plan and figure out what their focus is going to be, which items are going to rise to the top and be projects for the coming year, which are going to be a little more long-term," said Winton Pitcoff, the project manager overseeing the plan and a Plainfield resident.
State Rep. Stephen Kulik, D-Worthington, vice chairman of the Food Policy Council, said the chairmen of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture are planning to put together an omnibus bill next year related to agriculture. This is likely to include proposals that were already filed with the committee and recommendations from the report.
Kulik said the report links diverse topics such as farming, conservation, food distribution, fisheries and the lack of healthy food in low-income communities. That provides an opportunity for a range of lawmakers and industries to support the proposals. "There's a lot of momentum right now with the release of the report, and now we have people around the state in these different sectors who want to help turn it into reality," Kulik said.
Some of the suggestions in the report, such as improving job training in agriculture, could take years to implement. Kulik, who is also vice chairman of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, said it may be difficult to get state funding for any major new initiatives in next year's budget, which is expected to be tight. But Kulik said there are low or no-cost recommendations that could be easier to implement.
LeBeaux and Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton plan to formally announce the plan's acceptance Friday afternoon at the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center, which is run by the Franklin County Community Development Corporation.
The Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center, which opened in 2001, has a commercial kitchen, which companies can rent, and also manufactures products for customers. It buys vegetables from Pioneer Valley farmers, freezes them, and distributes them to local schools.
John Waite, executive director of the Franklin County Community Development Corporation, said while there has been a local food movement in Western Massachusetts for years, he hopes the report's recommendations can expand that statewide.
"A lot of it is connecting the food grown here with mouths to feed, many of which are in the eastern part of the state," Waite said.
Waite said better infrastructure is needed for both processing and distributing food - which the state can help promote. The food processing center, for example, was started with a $500,000 state grant.
Today, Waite said a Hadley farmer who wants to sell food to a Springfield school must bring it to an aggregator in Hartford, Connecticut, who sends it to a warehouse, which ships it to the school. "Wouldn't it be great if it could go from Hadley to Springfield?" Waite said.
Matt Barron, a Williamsburg-based Democratic political consultant who focuses on rural policy, said the first state food plan in the 1970s led to the preservation of farmland across the state and the proliferation of farmers' markets. "Hopefully, the new plan will break some new ground," Barron said.
Barron said he was dismayed that the state's recently released economic development plan had no mention of agriculture, an example of what he called a "metro-think mindset."
Like Waite, Barron said the biggest need today is for processing facilities, ways to turn fresh food into consumer products. "We're not like Iowa where we sell live hogs to big slaughterhouses. We have to take our products and create the value added step," Barron said. "If they can prioritize that glaring need, that would really do a lot to not only increase employment but help this critical agriculture infrastructure piece that we're so lacking."