How does a 24-year old from northern New Jersey get into the business of making pickles? For Dan Rosenberg, it started with his interests in social change, ecology, and the food system, and his experience as a recent college graduate apprenticing on an organic farm. A workshop at a farming conference inspired Rosenberg to try lactic acid fermentation, which is considered the original pickling method. The process relies on beneficial cultures, like those in yogurt, to break down natural sugars in vegetables and produce lactic acid and other nourishing substances.

Rosenberg’s business, Real Pickles, was launched in 2001. “It was another way to put up local food so that the harvest could be enjoyed during the winter, and to make available a traditional food that has kept people healthy for thousands of years,” says Rosenberg.

The company’s products, including dill pickles, sauerkraut, and kimchi, have quickly gained a loyal customer base throughout the region. Last year, Real Pickles purchased and renovated a century-old industrial building in Greenfield to accommodate its growing success. Many energy-efficient features were incorporated into the new facility, and more are planned this year. The facility was also designed to accommodate the unusual needs of a business that sources ingredients only during the local growing season, then stores its fermented product for sale throughout the year.

Rosenberg credits his business success to staying true to his principles: investing in the local food system, promoting minimally-processed healthy foods, and being as ecologically conscious as possible. Some of his principles led to business constraints that made early financers wary: for example, his commitment to regional sales and his seasonal needs for labor. Rosenberg is proud, however, that Real Pickles has proven to be economically viable, while finding and filling a niche in the local food structure.

Real Pickles uses only organic vegetables, which it purchases from seven farms within fifty miles of Greenfield. Its products are available at farm stands and CSAs as well as food stores throughout the Northeast. In addition, the company ships to mail order customers – but only if they live in New England, New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania!

Belle Rita Novak has always loved farmers’ markets. Now a grandmother, she has shopped at farmers’ markets since she was “a very young bride.” Novak’s passion for fresh local food is no doubt key to the success of the Farmers’ Market in Forest Park, a busy urban Springfield neighborhood. As market manager, Novak’s job includes planning and promotion, writing the weekly newsletter, selling tokens to customers, as well as cooking and serving food samples. “It’s a labor of love,” says Novak, and she clearly loves her job.

With the support of friends and help from the Department of Agriculture, Novak organized the market in the fall of 1997 and it opened in June 1998 with five vendors. At the time, there were ninety-eight farmers’ markets in Massachusetts; that number has since doubled to more than 200. Over the years the Tuesday afternoon market has grown and changed: there are now twenty-two vendors, and this year the market is moving from a parking lot into Forest Park. A monthly winter market was added for the first time in 2010, offering fresh dairy, apples, meat, and baked goods.

Fresh produce, great taste, food safety, health benefits, buying local – there are numerous reasons that farmers’ markets have become a fixture in so many communities. Shopping at farmers markets is also a political act, asserts Novak, because you are supporting local agriculture rather than other less desirable ways of using land.

Novak observes that over the years the market has become increasingly important to farmers. Twelve years ago, the time commitment required by the market was a challenge for many family farms. These days, says Novak, selling at market is central to the business plan of the new generation of farmers, and has become integral to many older farms as well.

Access to produce and other food fresh from the farm is especially important in an urban environment, where grocery shopping choices are often limited. Considered the largest urban market in western Massachusetts, the Farmer’s Market at the X attracts a diverse customer base, including many shoppers who pay with their electronic benefit cards. “Farmers’ markets have become popular because the food is so fresh,” says Novak. “People love the vendors and every single week someone thanks me for having the market – it’s so important to them.”

When Joe Waskiewicz was growing up on Meadow Street in Amherst in the 1930s, every household on the street farmed the land. The smallest farm was ten acres. Today, Joe’s farm is one of just two that remain.

Joe’s grandfather, Dimitriou, began the farm in 1909. It became known as J & J Farms when Joe’s father and his brother John took over the operation in 1937. Joe stepped in when his uncle retired in 1960; his father retired fifteen years later. These days, most of the farm work is done by Joe’s sons, Mike and Butch (Joe Jr.), though Joe can still usually be reached in the barn during chore time. The farm grows top quality sweet corn and other vegetables; equally important is its dairy operation, the only one remaining in Amherst today. They sell to wholesalers, retail stands, and have their own farm stand by the road. J & J has a reputation for diligence, quality, and innovation, and were early supporters of integrated pest management.

J & J’s success over the years is no doubt due at least in part to their understanding of customers’ needs and willingness to grow the crops desired by the community. One very satisfied wholesale customer, Atkin’s Country Market in Amherst, has been purchasing from J & J for decades. The farm supplies Atkins with potatoes, onions, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, shallots, and legendary cabbages that can only be described as enormous.

Reflecting on his farm’s celebration of its 100th anniversary last year, Joe commented that it’s hard to imagine another period in history when farming changed as much as it has since he was a boy. There have been great improvements in the variety of seeds available, as well as crop yields, and mechanization has made farming much more efficient. At the same time, farmers face new challenges. Years ago, kids would call the farm in January to line up work during the summer season. It’s much harder to find seasonal help now that families are more affluent; lots of teens don’t feel a need for a summer job and many who do would rather work at McDonald’s.

At eighty, Joe expresses pride that he was able to see the family farm over the century mark from his grandfather’s dream. J & J cultivates their own eighty acres, and rents an additional eighty from neighbors. “It’s important to keep the land productive,” says Joe, “I think it will be essential to food production in the future.”