Monica Hernandez and Riley Gilroy of Go Fresh Mobile Market. Stephanie Craig Photography

The Go Fresh Mobile Market, which is operated by Wellspring Cooperative, brings fresh, local produce to over 20 sites around Springfield and serves as an essential HIP and SNAP access point for the communities they serve.

The Go Fresh Mobile Market is now in its 13th year. It started out as a project of the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, and then was run by the Springfield YMCA, which is when Market Manager Riley Gilroy and Assistant Market Manager Monica Hernandez both came on, and it finally landed with Wellspring two years ago. This history speaks to the fact that this market exists because of the input, labor, and support of many people and institutions over many years. And that continues to be the case: while a mobile market is such a straightforward solution to many of the specific challenges that many people face in accessing fresh produce (whether that is mobility challenges, being able to access sites that process HIP, or being able to find and afford culturally relevant products), that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It requires a lot of organizational support, funding for the equipment, and daily sweat equity to source the food and set up for each market.

Riley and Fred Rose, who is a co-director at Wellspring, both talk about how important the input of customers is to the way the market is run, especially when it comes to sourcing foods that people want to eat. They prioritize relationships with their shoppers and with the farmers they source from, and they rely heavily on those relationships to find new farmers to buy from, which includes a particular focus on sourcing from BIPOC farmers.

Last year, the market ran year-round for the first time. Now, they are expanding to a second van so they can serve more communities, and are especially focused on expanding their reach to younger populations and families. It’s exciting to hear about this growth and to think about what this can mean for people in Springfield and beyond. So for all of this success so far, and the growth to come, CISA is proud to present a 2023 Local Hero Award to the Go Fresh Mobile Market.

Winton Pitcoff, Director of The Massachusetts Food System Collaborative, accepting their Local Hero Award. Stephanie Craig Photography.

The Massachusetts Food System Collaborative was founded to support the goals set in the Massachusetts Local Food Action Plan, which was completed in 2015 as a result of several years work and the input of thousands of stakeholders across the state. The (paraphrased!) top-level goals of that plan are: 1) to increase production, sales, and consumption of Massachusetts-grown foods, 2) to create jobs and economic opportunity in food and farming and improve wages of food system workers, 3) to protect the land and water needed to produce food and ensure food safety, and 4) to reduce hunger and food insecurity, make healthy food more available, and reduce food waste. Those are lofty and absolutely necessary goals, and the Collaborative is working towards them through collective action, with a focus on legislative advocacy.

Winton Pitcoff, Director of the Collaborative, says that after the plan was developed, there was a core group of participants who wanted to make sure it didn’t just sit on the shelf – and who also understood that there were a lot of groups already doing this work in so many ways across the state. But there was one big missing piece, which was the focus on policy in a coordinated, state-wide coalition. The MA Food System Collaborative would become the policy staff for organizations that don’t have dedicated policy staff, while also working on building capacity in that realm.

Some highlights of their work, which happens with the input and leadership of partner organizations, advocates, and issue experts, include successfully advocacy for $59 million for HIP since the program began in 2017, working towards policy shifts to make that program more equitable, and turning it into a year-round program. The Collective has also led advocacy efforts to fund FSIG, the Food Security Infrastructure Grant Program; new funding for UMass Extension; a new grant program for food policy councils, and too much more to name.

Those are some of the specifics, but the big picture is that Collaborative has been an essential part of changing the conversation around food and agriculture so that policy-makers see it as fundamental to the economy, health, and overall well-being of our state. So for all of that, CISA is pleased to present a 2023 Local Hero Award to the Massachusetts Food System Collaborative.

The whole Clarkdale gang at CISA’s 2023 Annual Meeting. Stephanie Craig Photography

Clarkdale Fruit Farms is a fourth-generation orchard located in Deerfield, known for the quality of their fruit and for the generosity and the civic- and community-minded orientation of the Clark family.

Clarkdale is run today by father-son duo Tom and Ben Clark. It was established over 100 years ago by Tom’s grandfather, Webster Clark, who was an entrepreneurial doctor who lived in Greenfield. Tom’s father, Fred, took over in the 1940s and he continued with the business model established by his father, which was to sell fruit to regional wholesale markets in New York and Providence, while he continued to expand the orchard. By the time Tom came back to the farm in the 1970s, the fruit business had started to shift, with more global competition and fewer regional wholesale markets. So throughout the 80s Tom shifted the business towards the farm-based retail operation that is still booming today, along with some limited wholesale sales directly to schools, grocery stores, and restaurants. Ben’s return in the mid-2000s marked an opportunity for some modernization, like the farm’s first website, revamping the farm store, planting new varieties, etc.

The Clarkdale story tracks with the types of transitions that every multi-generational farm family experiences as markets and opportunities around them shift. Throughout it all, the Clarks have kept pace with changing tastes and needs, and that warrants celebration on its own. But they are truly exceptional in the way that they show up and give their time – and their fruit – to make Deerfield, Franklin County, and the whole region better. From service on the town school board and selectboard and as volunteer firefighters, to supporting The Food Bank and Monte’s March every year, to Ben’s nine years on the CISA Board, to using their position as trusted community members to speak out against the Kinder-Morgan pipeline that would have been laid under many miles of Franklin County, the Clarks show up for the things they believe in. Ben says that they see this as a symbiotic relationship: they give their support to their community, and the community supports the farm – and gets some pretty beautiful fruit out of it too. So for all of this, CISA is honored to present a 2023 Local Hero Award to Clarkdale Fruit Farms.

Healthy Hampshire is an initiative of the Collaborative for Educational Services, and they work to improve the health of people living in Hampshire County. Their work includes partnerships with health care professionals to prevent long term health problems, and support for community design that enables active lives, but the area of their work that we’re honoring with this award is focused on making healthy food more available to more people.

Here are a couple examples of Healthy Hampshire’s good work: they’ve supported SNAP matching programs at farmers’ markets for years, which since 2017 has meant supporting HIP, the Healthy Incentives Program. They’ve set up community gardens near affordable housing complexes, developed and supported mobile farmers’ markets, and, most recently, established the Hampshire County Food Policy Council.

Just looking at this list, it’s evident why this work is valuable in filling hunger and accessibility gaps for so many people around the county. But the thing that makes Healthy Hampshire’s work stand out — and that we especially want to honor — is that it does not happen without the engagement, opinions, and leadership of the people who are most affected by the issues they seek to address.

The Amherst Mobile Market was born out of a planning process that engaged over 25 people with low incomes, many of whom are people of color and/or Spanish speakers, to develop a plan, and then Healthy Hampshire sought out funding to make that plan a reality.

The community gardens project involves setting up structures of self-governance for the residents who use them. The Food Policy Council started out with an ethos of leadership by the people who are affected by the issues the Council is working on, and that includes stipends and other support so community members can participate.

Caitlin Marquis, Program Manager at Healthy Hampshire, says that these programs aren’t just about distributing food — they’re about putting folks who are experiencing the issue at the center of solving it. So, for serving as a model of participatory problem-solving and community leadership on issues of hunger and healthy food access, CISA is honored to present a 2022 Local Hero Award to Healthy Hampshire.

Queen’s Greens, located in Amherst and owned by Danya Teitelbaum and Matt Biskup, is a first generation farm that grows greens that they sell wholesale during the winter months. This sounds pretty straightforward, but this model is the result of years of experimentation, tinkering with different models, and an uncountable number of thoughtful decisions about what sort of farm they wanted to run and what sort of lives they want to have.

Queen’s Greens started out growing winter greens for sale at winter farmers’ markets. They spent the better part of a decade growing mixed vegetables and herbs all year round, mixing in direct sales and wholesale customers, before refocusing on winter greens and making the switch fully to wholesale. All of these changes, and all of this experimentation, has been about focusing in on what will be financially viable for their business and what will feel sustainable for their family, and also about taking a realistic look at their resources—their land, and existing infrastructure like greenhouses—and making realistic and honest choices within that framework.

So Queen’s Greens produces beautiful winter greens, in soil, without additional heat or light, and many of us have savored them during the winter months. But they are also a model of careful discernment, and the choices that farmers have to make to survive, and for that CISA is honored to present them with a 2022 Local Hero Award.

Andy Cox of Smith College Dining Services and Brad Morse of Outlook Farm

Smith College Dining Services stands out among its peers as a dedicated, creative, problem-solving partner to farms around the region.

Their stats are impressive. According to Andy Cox, Executive Director of Auxiliary Services, they spent $375,000 with farms in western Mass and $850,000 in New England in the last year they tallied up. Andy and Chef Dino Giordano can rattle off the names of the farms they buy from the most—including Outlook Farm, Mycoterra, and Queens Greens—because these are real, long-standing relationships. But what really stands out is how Smith Dining Services behaves as active participant in our local food system rather than a passive consumer. This is an institution that has power and resources that can be leveraged to make positive change outside of its own walls, and the staff takes that responsibility seriously.

There are small examples of this, like loaning a delivery van to the Sunderland Farm Collaborative in the early days of the pandemic. And there are innovative, ambitious examples too, including the work they’ve done to source local meat through the Whole Animals for the Whole Region project. In partnership with other local universities, Smith tackled this complicated question: how could they reliably source local meat, pay the farmers a fair price, and manage costs to stay within budget? They did an rfp to find out how much money would work for local farmers, set up contracts, and for the last several years they have been buying whole animals and managing the processing and delivery themselves for cost savings and efficiency. This is not just about bring a good buyer, which is so important by itself, but about being a partner—understanding farmers’ needs alongside their own values, thinking creatively about how they can work together, and putting in the work to make it happen. So for all of these reasons, CISA is honored to present a 2022 Local Hero Award to Smith College Dining Services.

Each year, CISA presents Local Hero Awards to farms, businesses, or individuals who exemplify our mission of strengthening farms and engaging the community to build the local food economy. We applaud their hard work, social responsibility, and many contributions to sustaining local agriculture.

Liz O’Gilvie wears many hats as an advocate within our local food system: she is chair of the board at Gardening the Community, the youth development and urban agriculture organization in Springfield. In that role, she has provided leadership that helped GTC buy their own land and to take the bold step of building a permanent, year-round farm store on Walnut Street – both the result of a big vision.

Liz is also the chair of the steering committee and working director of the Springfield Food Policy Council which does so much great work, including school gardens and Breakfast in the Classroom at Springfield Public Schools, and advocacy for the brand new Springfield Culinary and Nutrition Center, which will bring scratch cooking to Springfield and Holyoke public schools. Liz and the Springfield Food Policy Council have also advocated for HIP, the Healthy Incentives Program, and founded the City Soul Farmers’ Market, and over the next year she is working with CISA on a project designed to identify resource gaps for food businesses in low-income areas and communities of color.

Liz’s work is varied and vital, and so much of it has happened in partnership with other amazing people and organizations and businesses. But Liz herself really deserves the spotlight: to all of this work, whether she’s focusing on urban agriculture, school food, or food access programs, she brings nuanced, inclusive, big-picture, systems-level thinking. Liz is rooted in her hometown, Springfield, but she is always reaching across geographical boundaries, organizational silos, and racial divides to find common ground and build coalitions that are so much stronger and more effective than working apart. She is tireless about working to undo racism in our food system and calling others in to do the same, and so often her voice is a clarion call to participate bravely in hard conversations, expand narrow thinking, and to dream broadly about possible futures. So for all that, CISA is proud to present Liz O’Gilvie with a 2019 Local hero award.

Hana Martin works as Assistant Manager at Old Friends Farm in Amherst. Hana represents a vital but underappreciated group of farm workers – she is a manager who is essential to keeping the farm running smoothly, and she does it with grace and real dedication to the farm’s health and sustainability.

Hana grew up on a dairy farm in central New York, and she came to farming in western mass about 7 years ago. Her role at Old Friends has grown over the 5 years she’s been there, and today her responsibilities include a mix of field work, farm crew management, and administrative tasks, and she’s part of the management team that makes the big-picture decisions about the farm’s future along with farm owners Missy Bahret and Casey Steinberg.

Farm owners can’t be everywhere at once, and as businesses grow in size and complexity, owners have to put their trust in their crew to keep things humming along—and the people who fill those roles might not always be visible to the outside world, but they make enormous contributions to local farms and therefore the larger local food system. When Casey, one of the owners of Old Friends Farm, nominated Hana for this award, he told me that she does all the direct seeding at the farm, and then he paused weightily, and then when it was clear I needed more context he said, “I NEVER thought I would entrust that important a task to anyone else.”

That’s one example of how Hana frees up Casey and Missy to take on different challenges. She capably fills a role that strengthens the entire farm operation and oversees the crew with care and consideration, and for that CISA is proud to present Hana Martin with a 2019 Local Hero Award.

Diemand Farm is in Wendell, where they raise poultry, meat, and eggs, have a sawmill, and turn out all sorts of delicious foods in their farm kitchen. So, they are a very busy group!

The varied nature of their business speaks to their specific history: this is a farm that has adapted to changing circumstances with a lot of tenacity and creativity over the decades. The farm was established in 1930, and by the 2000s they were best known for their eggs, which you could find in stores all around the region, and for their Thanksgiving turkeys. In 2011, when new FDA regulations loomed that would have been crushingly expensive to implement, they downsized their egg production to a fifth of what it had been. Today, they are undergoing another transition in the wake of new state regulations about housing for poultry.

In 2011, when they were making this decision to completely shift their business model, each family member did independent brainstorming and they asked themselves, “what have I ever dreamed of doing on the farm?”. The outcome was that they decided to expand their focus on the farm kitchen and store and their catering business. That might make that transition sound easy, but of course it wasn’t. This process speaks to the resilient approach the Diemand family has brought to their business over the years, and it’s an example of the persistence that is required of farmers. Tessa, the next generation, recently returned to the farm, bringing her own energy and creative thinking to the future of the business.

So for building a vibrant and diverse farm business, and their tenacity in the face of significant change, CISA is honored to present the Diemand Farm family with a 2019 Local Hero Award.

I am delighted to present CISA’s first Legislative Hero Award to Representative Steve Kulik. Steve has represented Massachusetts’ First Franklin District since 1993—he’s celebrating his 25th year, just like CISA! The district encompasses 19 towns in three counties, and Steve has been a frequent and welcome presence in town halls, meeting rooms, businesses, and events in all of those towns for a quarter century!

Steve has taken a keen interest in the day-to-day details that make rural towns work, probably because he started off as a member of the Select Board in the rural town of Worthington. He’s paid attention to issues like education, transportation, energy, communication, and economic development, and he recognized from the beginning that agriculture and food were a critical part of the health of these communities. Steve has had an essential role in many of the long-standing state programs that support local agriculture: the Agricultural Preservation and Restriction Program, the Community Preservation Act, the Dairy Farm Tax Credit. Steve introduced the legislation that created the Massachusetts Food Policy Council, and that led to the Massachusetts Local Food Action Plan. Steve has been critical in getting expanded state funding for the Healthy Incentives Program into the budget.

Just in this legislative session, Steve has introduced six agriculture-related bills. I can’t tell you about all of them, but reading them makes clear how well Steve understands the many factors that impact farm businesses. I’ll give you just two examples—one bill gives farmers more flexibility for taking farm vehicles for short distances on the road, and one makes sure that farmers have input when town boards of health write regulations that effect farms. Just reading the bills is a reminder of how much we will miss Steve’s understanding of agriculture.

I also want to recognize the quality of Steve’s staff. For several years, Steve’s western Massachusetts office was in CISA’s building in South Deerfield. This meant we saw Steve occasionally, but more than that, it meant that we had the pleasure of interacting with his long-term staffer, Paul Dunphy, every day. I want to make sure to note that Steve’s hard work, attention to detail, and care for his constituents and their concerns was reflected by his staff.

When I asked a couple of CISA staff members what stood out for them about Steve, our Program Director Kelly Coleman said, “Steve taught us how to advocate at the state level.” She mentioned that once, long ago, in the early days of our Senior FarmShare program, we missed a deadline in the process of getting the funding for the program was included in the budget. We called Steve in a panic, and he was able to get the money in the budget, but he called us back and said: “Don’t ever ask me to do that again. These are the steps that you need to take, and this is when you take them.”

We will miss Steve at lots of different times in the coming years—during Monte’s march, and during budget season, and when a farmer calls us with a problem that we know Steve’s staff can help solve. But more importantly, all of us—farmers and residents in Steve’s district and across the whole Commonwealth—are better off because of his 25 years of dedicated service. Thank you, Steve.

Richie Davis has been reporting on Franklin County and the surrounding region for over 40 years, but it’s not just longevity that makes him stand out: his deep care for local farmers and farms and his dedication to clear communication about complex issues are what make him a Local Hero.

Richie grew up on Long Island, 20 miles from New York City, and his interest in farming stretches back to his youth. He says, “When I was really young, there were farms there – I remember visiting them as a little kid. Then they turned into houses, and so there weren’t any more farms. We’d go visit the vestiges of the old farms that were within bicycling distance of my house to take pictures. They were interesting because there’s nothing else like them in the suburbs.”

College in upstate New York introduced him to big apple and dairy operations, and when he took a job as editor of a local weekly paper after graduation he started writing about agricultural issues in that area.

In 1975, Richie came across a “Farm and Ranch Vacation Guide,” which led his young family to vacation in Lancaster County, PA, and then brought them to an old dairy farm in Shelburne. “We fell in love with Franklin County because of that dairy farm,” says Richie. “We came back a couple of times within the next year, and knew we wanted to move here.”

By 1976, Richie had taken a job at The Recorder, where he has filled a number of roles over time, but his personal interest in local agriculture has made farming a primary theme in his more than four decades of work. His feature articles, long-form pieces, and in-depth series have explored the stories, challenges, and hopes of local farmers and their businesses.

As it turns out, The Recorder has been the ideal home for this work: “The Recorder has always, like Franklin County itself, been a special place that ‘gets it.’ They’ve given me the creative space to come up with my little (or big) ‘discovery projects’ that aim to convey why this place is so special.”

Richie’s own words about his work sum up the reasons that his writing has made such a significant contribution to the public’s understanding of and investment in local farms. He says, “I think of my work as being part of the education realm. I’m trying to explain to readers why agriculture is important, even If they don’t always think it is. My feeling is that a lot of people don’t understand the pressures that farmers are under. By which I don’t mean that I have all the answers! I just ask the questions.

The bottom line is I want to get into the heart of what the farmers are dealing with, and why it matters, and why it is the way it is. I think what really moves the reader is to understand the depth of the issue for the people who are affected. Farming is so compelling because a lot of farmers can’t quite explain why they work so hard and why they do this work, except that they really love it, and they’re driven to do it. Getting a sense of that drive really gets to people. It’s that tug of emotion.”

For his fact-based reporting, dedication to nuanced communication, and beautiful, human-centered storytelling, CISA is proud to present Richie Davis with a 2018 Local Hero Award.

Bonita and Dan Conlon of Warm Colors Apiary in South Deerfield have set a high bar for local honey production, educated countless new beekeepers, and emerged as leaders and advocates in the beekeeping community.

Dan’s interest in bees started early, when he worked on a vegetable farm near his hometown in Southeastern Ohio. The farmer kept bees on the farm, as was the norm for fruit and vegetable farmers at the time, and noticed that they held special interest for Dan. He invited Dan to help out with the hives on weekends, helping to developing Dan’s nascent passion. “He was a good beekeeper,” Dan says today. “I still find myself quoting much of what he taught me.”

Over the decades—and alongside careers as a professional touring musician and in food service and administration at Northfield Mount Hermon School—Dan continued to keep bees, anywhere from two to 100 hives.

Dan leading a workshop at Warm Colors Apiary in Deerfield

In 2000, Dan and Bonita decided that it was time for Dan to pursue beekeeping full-time, and Warm Colors Apiary was born. Just six months later, Bonita was laid off from her job as a counselor, and the two of them worked quickly and hard to build Warm Colors into a business that could support them. “We got serious very quickly!” says Bonita.

Today, Warm Colors Apiary is established as one of the best-known and most highly-respected beekeeping and honey producing operations in the area. Their honey, honeycomb, beeswax products, and more are sold out of the small farm store on their property in South Deerfield, and directly to grocery stores, restaurants, and dining services including UMass Amherst and Mount Holyoke College.

Dan manages around 1,000 hives, several hundred of which are kept on the Warm Colors home site. The rest are sited around the region, sometimes to support the best honey production, and sometimes to provide pollination to other farmers. One hive of bees on an acre of cucumbers will increase production by up to 40%, so farmers will hire Dan to bring hives to their farms as different crops flower.

Another cornerstone of the business is supplying bees, hives, and equipment to beekeepers throughout the Northeast. Each year, Dan brings around 1,000 packages and nucs, which are starter bee kits, up from Georgia to fill local hives.

The final primary component of the Warm Colors Apiary business is education. Each year, 30 new beekeepers pass through Dan’s multi-session beekeeping class, and many more attend Dan’s one-off workshops and lectures. Dan says, “It’s part of our mission to educate people about beekeeping. It’s a thrill to get people who are kind of interested in beekeeping and then see how they’re awed once they start to learn about bees.”

Bees, along with other native pollinators, are famously under threat. This poses real risks to our food supply, and beekeepers have led the fight against this loss. Dan’s advocacy work, conducted through leadership roles in the Eastern Apicultural Society, NOFA/Mass, the Russian Honey Bee Breeders Association, and the Franklin County Beekeepers Association (to name just a few!), has focused on this issue from multiple fronts.

One of the main threats to bee populations are Varroa mites, which can decimate bee colonies, and which also introduce viruses. The most commonly kept honey bees, which are descended from Italian breeds introduced in the United States in the late 1800s, are highly susceptible to mites and disease. Warm Colors Apiary is part of the Russian Bee Program, which was developed by the USDA in the late 1980s to promote more resilient Russian bees to beekeepers, and to build genetic diversity and strengthen the stock.

Another goal of Dan and Bonita’s advocacy is focused on protecting habitat for bees and other native pollinators, including advocating for MA H. 2113 – An Act to Protect Massachusetts Pollinators. Says Dan, “It’s not just beekeeping for us: it’s being involved in nature, working with the educators and researchers, getting involved in the politics.”