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Ramps are in season in Berkshire County, but is overforaging a problem?

Sustainable Food Trend May Be Putting Ramps at Risk

By Nichole DupontiBerkshires Staff
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SHEFFIELD, Mass. — Foraging, the act of searching for food (usually in the wild), has long been a mainstay of food cultures around the world.

Recently, thanks to the resurgence of sustainable farming and the farm-to-table movement, foraging has regained its popularity. In fact, many area foodies and restaurants including Nudel in Lenox, the Old Inn On the Green in New Marlborough and Mezze Bistro and Bar in Williamstown often highlight the wild harvest when creating their notable seasonal menus. Ramps, wild watercress, fiddle head ferns and many varieties of mushrooms are among the abundant wild harvest available in the area's many damp, wooded areas. The art of foraging and cooking with foraged food has been featured in Berkshire Grown's annual "Farmed and Foraged" event held in May.

But how long will the wild bounty last?  According to ethnobotanist Lawrence Davis-Hollander, president of BotanicalPosters.com and former director of the Eastern Native Seed Conservancy, foraged food, particularly ramps (or wild leeks as they often called) are at risk of depletion as commercial foragers cash in on the locavore trend.

"It's the most ironical question," Davis-Hollander said in a phone interview. "There are two major food movements running through this county right now. One is the heavily industrial-based processed food trend. The other is the locally grown, sustainable, supposedly environmentally friendly food movement – the farm-to-table movement, as it's often called. Unfortunately this idea of foraging has morphed into 'what can we get out of ramps?' It's become commercialized in many circles. Like anything else, if you start harvesting millions of them, how long are they going to be around?"
  
Part of the problem with ramp foraging, Davis-Hollander pointed out, is the method by which foragers extract the ramps from their wild habitat. He said that many foragers rip up the entire bulb, wholly removing the ramps from the ground. This practice, he said, is not sustainable and will inevitably lead to ramp depletion.
  
"It takes seven years for a ramp bulb to get to a mature size," he said. "People are taking mature and immature bulbs right out of the ground and not replacing them with anything. They are not being harvested with any care. Entire patches of ramps are being completely decimated."

Photos by Austin Banach
Local forager Austin Banach, cheesemonger and fishmonger for Rubiner's in Great Barrington, said that ripping up ramp bulbs, aside from being unsustainable, is not an efficient method, especially for larger forages.
  

"I used to take up the bulbs but when I got them to my kitchen to wash them it was a complete mess," he said. "The dirt would clog up my sink and it just wasn't worth it. It's easier to cut them. Yes, supposedly the bulb contains the most 'spice' so to speak, but the taste of the ramp is so garlicky and distinct it really doesn't matter."

While Banach now forages strictly for his personal kitchen, there was a time when he was out foraging ramps in order to provide seasonal offerings for the restaurant he used to work at. He said that foraging is a relatively common practice among area chefs but that he has not noticed any visible depletion in his ramp hauntings.

 
"Sure, one weekend we'll sell ramps here or have a special ramp dish," he said. "I know at Nudel that they always come up with ramp dishes. Eventually you just get sick of ramps because everybody's got them. But it's not in mass quantities and it's not for a very long period of time."

There is no shortage of ramps now, Davis-Hollander said, but if they are overharvested they may suffer the same fate as another wild edible that used to grow abundantly in New England – American ginseng (panax quinquefolius L.)

According to the USDA NRCS Plant guide, American ginseng "has been depleted by over-collecting for commercial purposes." The report goes on to say that many states "have a permit process instituted for collectors in the wild. Certain U.S. ports have been designated by the USDA, APHIS as ports through which ginseng can be exported. The Canadian Museum of Nature (2000) considers it a species at risk."

Who's to say, asks Davis-Hollander, that ramps will not follow suit?

"A great parallel and another example is the disaster with [American] ginseng," he said. "Ginseng may have been as abundant as ramps are now but they're never abundant anywhere anymore. They're not plentiful; we did that. People have been harvesting ramps for hundreds of years, that's not the problem. Commercializing is the problem."
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Crosby/Conte Statement of Interest Gets OK From Council

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Architect Carl Franceschi and Superintendent Joseph Curtis address the City Council on Tuesday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the approval of all necessary bodies, the school district will submit a statement of interest for a combined build on the site of Crosby Elementary School.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the green light for the SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by April 12.

"The statement I would make is we should have learned by our mistakes in the past," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"Twenty years ago, we could have built a wastewater treatment plant a lot cheaper than we could a couple of years ago and we can wait 10 years and get in line to build a new school or we can start now and, hopefully, when we get into that process and be able to do it cheaper then we can do a decade from now."

The proposal rebuilds Conte Community School and Crosby on the West Street site with shared facilities, as both have outdated campuses, insufficient layouts, and need significant repair. A rough timeline shows a feasibility study in 2026 with design and construction ranging from 2027 to 2028.

Following the SOI, the next step would be a feasibility study to determine the specific needs and parameters of the project, costing about $1.5 million and partially covered by the state. There is a potential for 80 percent reimbursement through the MSBA, who will decide on the project by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, city officials took a tour of both schools — some were shocked at the conditions students are learning in.

Silvio O. Conte Community School, built in 1974, is a 69,500 square foot open-concept facility that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but the quad classroom layout poses educational and security risks.  John C. Crosby Elementary School, built in 1962, is about 69,800 square feet and was built as a junior high school so several aspects had to be adapted for elementary use.

Ward 6 Councilor Dina Lampiasi said the walkthrough was "striking" at points, particularly at Conte, and had her thinking there was no way she would want her child educated there. She recognized that not everyone has the ability to choose where their child goes to school and "we need to do better."

"The two facilities that we are looking at I think are a great place to start," she said.

"As the Ward 6 councilor, this is where my residents and my students are going to school so selfishly yes, I want to see this project happen but looking at how we are educating Pittsfield students, this is going to give us a big bang for our buck and it's going to help improve the educational experience of a vast group of students in our city."

During the tour, Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey, saw where it could be difficult to pay attention in an open classroom with so much going on and imagined the struggle for students.

Councilor at Large Alisa Costa said, "we cannot afford not to do this" because the city needs schools that people want their children to attend.

"I know that every financial decision we make is tough but we have to figure this out. If the roof on your house were crumbling in, you'd have to figure it out and that's where we're at and we can't afford to wait any longer," she said.

"We can't afford for the sake of the children going to our schools, for the sake of our city that we want to see grow so we have to build a city where people want to go."

Councilor at Large Kathy Amuso, who served on the School Building Needs Commission for about 18 years, pointed out that the panel identified a need to address Conte in 2008.

Curtis addressed questions about the fate of Conte if the build were to happen, explaining that it could be kept as an active space for community use, house the Eagle Academy or the Adult Learning Center, or house the central offices.

School attendance zones are a point of discussion for the entire school district and for this project.

"At one time I think we had 36 school buildings and now we have essentially 12 and then it would go down again but in a thoughtful way," Curtis said.

Currently, eight attendance zones designate where a student will go to elementary school. Part of the vision is to collapse those zones into three with hopes of building a plan that incorporates partner schools in each attendance zone.

"I think that going from eight schools to three would be easier to maintain and I think it would make more sense but in order to get there we will have to build these buildings and we will have to spend money," Kavey said, hoping that the city would receive the 80 percent reimbursement it is vying for.

This plan for West Street, which is subject to change, has the potential to house grades pre-kindergarten to first grade in one school and Grades 2 to 4 in another with both having their own identities and administrations. 

The districtwide vision for middle school students is to divide all students into a grade five and six school and a grade seven and eight school to ensure equity.

"The vagueness of what that looks like is worrisome to some folks that I have talked to," Lampiasi said.

Curtis emphasized that these changes would have to be voted on by the School Committee and include public input.

"We've talked about it conceptually just to illustrate a possible grade span allocation," he said. "No decisions have been made at all by the School Committee, even the grade-span proposals."

School Committee Chair William Cameron said it is civic duty of the committee and council to move forward with the SOI.
 
He explained that when seven of the city's schools were renovated in the late 1990s, the community schools were only 25 years old and Crosby was 35 years old.  The commonwealth did not deem them to be sorely in need of renovation or replacement.
 
"Now 25 years later, Crosby is physically decrepit and an eyesore. It houses students ages three to 11 in a facility meant for use by teenagers,"
 
"Conte and Morningside opened in the mid-1970s. They were built as then state-of-the-art schools featuring large elongated rectangles of open instructional space. Over almost half a century, these physical arrangements have proven to be inadequate for teaching core academic skills effectively to students, many of whom need extra services and a distraction-free environment if they are to realize their full academic potential."
 
He said  the proposal addresses a serious problem in the "economically poorest, most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse area" of the city.
 
Cameron added that these facilities have been deemed unsatisfactory and need to be replaced as part of the project to reimagine how the city can best meet the educational needs of its students.  He said it is the local government's job to move this project forward to ensure that children learn in an environment that is conducive to their thriving academically.
 
"The process of meeting this responsibility needs to begin here tonight," he said.
 
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