SOUTH DEERFIELD — On Friday morning, a handful of University of Massachusetts student farmers dressed in dusty shorts and T-shirts, were busy harvesting yellow squash, zucchini and eggplants that would soon be on the shelves of two Big Y World Class Marketstores.
This is the first summer the students from the UMass Student Farm have been supplying summer crops to the Springfield-based chain. In the past two years, they sold fall crops there, said farm manager Amanda Brown.
But the partnership with Big Y has grown and both hope it will continue to flourish.
Kevin Barry, Big Y produce manager, said the crops come in and are gone in hours.
Right now the produce that includes broccoli and cantaloupe as well is delivered Friday afternoons in Amherst and Northampton Big Y stores. Barry hopes it will soon be sold in Greenfield. He said with 61 stores, the chain will take as much as the students can grow.
He said the farmers are "supplying (the stores) with locally grown organic produce, the quality is just outstanding," he said.
Having the relationship with a retail-market gives them confidence, Brown said.
Before, the students in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture had been selling their crops at UMass and farm shares to members but now are able to bring them to a large retail market.
They meet with Barry to talk about what crops to grow and about pricing, Brown said. "They see aspects of the food system (they wouldn't) see."
They have 12 acres of land here, six of which are farmed at a time, she said.
Selling summer produce "enables them to get much more experience growing other crops," Brown said.
"It's good to sell to a big supermarket," said Eli Boch, a 21-year-old junior from Brookline. "It's a different customer, the people who shop at Big Y."
And he said, "it's good knowing someone is going to buy our produce, it takes the stress off." The students have to earn a profit on farm so there is money for the next group of farmers.
Big Y, meanwhile last year committed to providing $150,000 to the farm over five years.
Barry said Big Y is happy to collaborate. "You can plan, plant cultivate, to be successful (we give) them the retail perspective. They get the going to market perspective."
Selling to the market is also valuable because the famers have to learn not only to pick the crops but to sort and pack them for transport as well, Bloch said.
Anyone wishing to donate to the farm or purchase a farm share can do so on the farm's website.