Juanita Nelson is one of the Pioneer Valley’s true movers and shakers. At 88 she’s slowed down a bit, but her legacy blazes a clear and brilliant path through the Valley’s drive for local food and its abundant social movements.

Arriving in Deerfield in 1974, Juanita and her late husband Wally adopted a self-reliant lifestyle that eschewed electricity, telephone service, and running water. Living in a four-room house on Quaker-owned land at Woolman Hill, they organically farmed three quarters of an acre. They sold their vegetables at the Greenfield Farmers’ Market, one of the state’s oldest markets, which Wally and Juanita worked with other local farms and orchards to establish.

Juanita and Wally’s lifestyle had deep roots in their conviction to oppose all forms of war and live sustainably. Juanita, who grew up near Cleveland, and Wally, who was raised in Arkansas, were active in the early civil rights movement before joining the war tax resistance movement. They chose to live simply in an effort to disengage from a system they viewed as immoral and unsustainable.

In 2005 Juanita inspired the Greenfield Free Harvest Supper, an annual celebration of local foods and community. The goals of the annual free supper are to support local agriculture, encourage people to eat locally grown food, and raise money for farmers’ market coupons for low income shoppers. In 2011, the supper raised $4,000 to make fresh locally grown food more accessible to customers on a limited income.

Always thinking of more strategies to encourage local eating, in 2007 Juanita envisioned a winter event celebrating locally grown foods available when traditional farmers’ markets are dormant. The seed she planted led in 2008 to Greenfield’s “Winter Fare,” a one-day winter farmers’ market featuring local produce as well as a barter fair and workshops on how to preserve food. The success of “Winter Fare” led to similar one-day events in Northampton and Springfield, with a combined attendance of over 3,000 shoppers, and has inspired ongoing winter farmers’ markets in those communities as well as Greenfield and Amherst.

CISA honors Juanita Nelson for demonstrating the power of living one’s values, exemplifying sustainable living, and working to knit our farms and our communities more closely together.

Ranging in size from 185 members to more than 5,000, the five food co-ops in western Massachusetts share a participatory economic model of member ownership and deep roots in their communities. Purchasing locally is a priority for all the co-ops, providing a valuable market for local farmers. Their sales range from $85,000 to $14 million annually; as a group these five co-ops represent a significant part of the local food economy with total sales of almost $23 million. Each business is controlled by a board of directors elected by the co-op’s members, and their profits are reinvested into the co-op and local community.

Franklin Community Co-op, which is celebrating its 35^th anniversary in 2012, is the only co-op in this area to operate two storefronts – in Greenfield and Shelburne Falls. North Quabbin Co-op in Orange is both the smallest co-op in the region and the only one run entirely by volunteers. The Old Creamery in Cummington, long a community center for Hilltown residents, incorporated as a co-op in 2010. Leverett Village Co-op is a vibrant hub for its rural community. River Valley Market, the largest co-op in the area, opened in Northampton just months before the 2008 economic crisis and yet in its first four years has exceeded all of its financial goals.

As a steady retail outlet for local farms, food co-ops play a significant role in the regional agricultural economy. “Starting up a new farm and finding new markets is challenging,” notes Ray Young, farmer at Next Barn Over in Hadley. “River Valley Market has been great to work with and an important source of sales for our burgeoning farm. It’s clear they are committed to supporting local farmers and they’re playing a key role in building a vibrant local food system.”

In the face of current economic challenges, food co-ops are further strengthening the local economy through creative collaborations. Several western Massachusetts co-ops, for example, are working with the Neighboring Food Co-op Association’s “Farm to Freezer” pilot project to extend the availability of the season’s harvest to local consumers.

In declaring 2012 the “International Year of Co-ops,” the United Nations estimated that globally one billion people are members of cooperatives. About one in four people in the U.S. belongs to a co-op. With the loyal support of their members, the western Massachusetts food co-ops have surmounted challenges, supported each other as well as other co-ops, and provided inspiration during difficult economic times. CISA honors these five co-ops for demonstrating the viability of a democratic economic model, providing valuable markets for local farms, and strengthening communities in our region.

Driving north on Route 47 through Hadley it’s hard to miss Michael Docter’s barn. It’s the one with 158 solar panels arrayed on its southern-facing roof. The barn is used to store tens of thousands of pounds of organic carrots, parsnips, beets, turnips, and radishes that Winter Moon Farm grows each summer on about ten acres. The solar panels generate 45 megawatts, four to five times the amount of electricity needed by the farm. They power a computer and fan which regulate the cold winter air flowing into the storage system, allowing Docter to store crops at the optimum temperature without refrigeration.

Since Docter aims for the farm to be carbon-neutral, he and a friend use cargo bikes to deliver vegetables throughout the winter to Winter Moon’s accounts in Hadley and Northampton. By early March 2012, they had transported by bicycle more than 23,000 pounds of the 2011 harvest to Smith College, Whole Foods, and other customers within a few miles of the farm.

Though Winter Moon has just completed its third season, Docter has been farming in the Valley for several decades. In the early 1990s he founded the Food Bank Farm, which pioneered the concept that organizations supplying food to families in need could produce some of that food themselves. From 1991 to 2009, the Food Bank Farm in Hadley raised organic crops that supported 700 CSA shares, feeding approximately 1,200 local households. In addition, each year more than 200,000 pounds of vegetables were donated via the Food Bank to food pantries throughout the region.

Each season the thirty-two acre Food Bank Farm, farm store, and farm kitchen used apprentices. Docter’s motto was to “hire well and delegate even better.” Using this approach he mentored numerous young farmers who after a few seasons went on to establish their own organic farms, including Next Barn Over in Hadley, Mountain View Farm in Easthampton, and Riverland Farm in Sunderland.

CISA honors Michael Docter for his commitment to innovation and renewable energy, leadership in organic farming and mentoring new farmers, and making farm-fresh food available to the entire community. Docter has been a leader in building the local food system we now enjoy in the Valley.