South County Farm Grows Community
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| Participants in a Wednesday farm tour in South County file into the community room in the new barn at Woven Roots Farm in Tyringham. |
TYRINGHAM, Mass. — Woven Roots Farm offered the ideal venue for the message Massachusetts' commissioner of agriculture wanted to deliver: the barn.
That is where Commissioner Ashley Randle addressed a group of about two dozen attendees at Berkshire Grown's Berkshire Farm Tour.
"With everything that is happening around us, it can feel very disheartening and very heavy," Randle said Wednesday after the group shared a meal in Woven Roots' community gathering room. "And two things that I've talked about have been leading in community and with compassion.
"And, certainly, Woven Roots has embodied that every day."
Jen and Pete Salinetti founded Woven Roots at the turn of the 20th century on a quarter acre of land they owned in Lee.
Today, they have almost 850 garden beds on 2 and a half acres in Tyringham, where they moved full-time in 2014.
The community-supported agriculture farm produces 70 crops and produces enough food for 1,600 people per week, Jen Salinetti said while leading a tour of the property the couple leases on McCarty Road.
While she delighted in talking about the variety of crops and the couple's commitment to no-till, hand-scale production, she also told participants in the tour, "I can talk about community for hours and hours."
And that is where the barn will be a game-change for the farm.
"It is so important to not take lightly what it means to be in relationship with one another," Jen Salinetti said.
The nearly completed barn will help Woven Roots provide a space for community gatherings. The Salinettis Wednesday showed off the meeting room and the 2-week-old farm store that soon will be open to the general public.
"CSAs are not for everyone," Jen Salinetti said. "We wholesale, all within 13 miles of the farm. But we wanted to create another access point.
"Accepting [Massachusetts' Healthy Incentives Program] and [federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits will help that as well."
Woven Roots was one of four stops on Wednesday's tour. Randle and her Department of Agricultural Resources staff started the day visiting Gaetano's Organic Farm in Becket and headed to Lila's Mountain Farm in Great Barrington after leaving Tyringham. The day ended at the Stockbridge Farmers Market.
The tour was postponed a week due to last week's heavy rain, which gave Jen Salinetti a chance to talk about how Woven Roots is adapting to a changing climate.
The farm received 7 inches of rain in a 32-hour period last week and took on another three inches just before hosting the tour. But you could not tell from the condition of the tomatoes, carrots, onions, peppers, lettuce that were nearly ready for harvest as she led the group through the farm's beds.
"When I think back to 2014, we went 40 days of no sun and mostly rain," Salinetti said. "It was so bad, I needed to pick up another job in the winter to pay the mortgage.
"In the last 10 years, our soil practices have continued to improve. When we get 7 inches of rain, it doesn't wipe out crops anymore. You can see the crops growing. Ten years ago, that wouldn't have been the case."
Salinetti credited financial and technical support from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and Berkshire Grown with helping to get Woven Roots Farm where it is today.
"2019 was the first year we actualized a grant through MDAR, and it's no small feat," she said. "It literally changed everything.
"So often, we're forgotten about here [in Berkshire County], but not by MDAR."
A Farm Viability grant from the commonwealth helped provide seed money for the barn that will allow Woven Roots to better store its crops and better foster community for years to come.
The Salinettis maintain a, "commitment to community and education about what it means to be a farmer and what it means to eat local food," Berkshire Grown Executive Director Margaret Moulton said.
"This barn, to me, is a manifestation of that vision. Yes, it's about farming, but it's so much about community."
Randle agreed.
"I'm really grateful for the work that you do here, because community is our greatest asset," she said. "And whether it's connecting youth and beginning farmers or customers who become friends and part of our families and networks, I think the community aspect is really what grounds me every day.
"And that is how we can continue to make positive change in agriculture and the food system and our communities at large."
Tags: agriculture,
