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Virginia Kasinki,left, Jay Walsh, Tony Pisano, Sharon Wyrrick and Williams students Aaron Freedman, Sara Dorsey and Brandon Absolo confer with BRPC Senior Planner Amy Kacala at an initial Keep Farming meeting at City Hall recently. The initiative will formally kick off on Monday with a public discussion at First Baptist Church.

Keep Farming Initiative Launching in North Berkshire

By Stephanie FarringtonCommunity Submission
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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Sustainable Berkshires is moving ahead with a major survey of food resources in the Northern Berkshires in partnership with a newly formed local agricultural initiative, Keep Farming.

The launch of Northern Berkshire Keep Farming and related discussion will be held at First Baptist Church at 131 Main St. on Monday, Oct. 24, beginning at 7 p.m. 

This meeting will focus on agriculture and it will be considerably more involved than the other break-out groups related to Sustainable Berkshires' county and municipal planning.

Over the next six months, Keep Farming volunteers will carry out extensive surveys of food resources, agricultural patterns, the economics of local food, local food supply and demand, crops grown in the area, the health and economic sustainability of farming in our region and more.

The size of the project means there is plenty to do for those wishing to be involved. Support and supplementary resources will be provided by Sustainable Berkshires and Glynwood Institute for Sustainable Food and Farming, the organization behind the Southern Berkshires and Northampton Keep Farming initiatives, both of which are already in progress or nearing completion.

The nonprofit Glynwood, located in Cold Spring, N.Y., has developed a model for communities, working in collaboration with government agencies, to develop and implement plans to promote and protect agriculture and open space through community stewardship.
 
Jay Walsh, volunteer coordinator of Northern Berkshire Transition, a local group that aims to bring area residents together to strengthen the sustainability and economic foundation of the region, is one of the core group of volunteers.

"There's that old saying — you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone," said the North Adams resident. "We need to understand what we've got so we don't turn around in 10 years and say — 'gee, where did all that farmland go?'"

The group will work to provide local farmers, restaurants, food suppliers and retailers with the information needed to support, sustain and strengthen agricultural resources in the region for the long term.


"The information that will be garnered through the agricultural tool is not normally available to your communities," said Amy Kacala, senior planner with Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. "What we've seen where we've tried to use the information through the tax roles is that the information available is outdated and incorrect.

"This will give the agricultural commissions more accurate information to work from. Until you have that real baseline information in your hands as to who your farmers are, what they're doing, and so on, you can't be really effective."

Virginia Kasinki, director of community based programs with Glynwood, said, "This is really an effort to give the communities the information they need  and to start putting in place the support systems they need to keep agriculture here."

Another core member of the volunteer group is Susan Gardner, who teaches environmental planning at Williams College. Three of Gardner's students, Aaron Freedman, Sara Dorsey and Brandon Abasolo, have expressed such interest in the project and will be spearheading the "Supply and Demand" committee.

Participants will have the opportunity over the course of the enveing to break into working groups and make their feelings known about the current state of farming in our community and also about how North Adams can create the best conditions for farming in the future.

All are welcome. Refreshments will be served.

Stephanie Farrington is a freelance writer in North Adams. You can reach her at stephanie.farrington@gmail.com.


Tags: agriculture,   Sustainable Berkshires,   

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Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
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