Contact information: 413/775-1420
Web link:

Contact: Liz Carroll
Phone: 413/775-1420
E-mail: carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Media contact: Liz Carroll
Marketing & Publications
413/775-1420 | carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Release date: November 8, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GCC + Working Landscapes = The Farmer's Ally

Bucolic vistas of cows and corn, farm stands and barns, epitomize the quality of life that makes Franklin County so special. At the same time, the economic viability of those landscapes is a challenge to new generations of farmers weighing their land's development value against its agricultural income. Helping them to make the decision they really want to make—which is to farm—are two community-based organizations, Greenfield Community College and Working Landscapes, who have joined forces to offer an innovative business training course specifically geared to agriculture.

The four-session, credit-free course, called "Farm Viability Business Training,” was developed and is taught by Jay Healy and Michael Lehan, co-founders of Working Landscapes, a nonprofit organization founded two and one-half years ago. It has found an institutional partner in GCC's Office of Community Education. "We're a small community college situated in a rural county,” explains Bob Barba, Director of Community Education, "and one of the reasons President Pura really wanted to do this is his on-going commitment to make the college the whole community's college. Farming is an economic sector that's really important in Franklin County, and I know Bob (Pura) would like for area farmers to think of GCC as a local educational resource.”

For former Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture Jay Healy, helping farmers become more profitable is our best hope for preserving rural landscapes. "Mike (Lehan) and I think that a lot of the beautiful land we drive by on our way to work is dependent on the ability of those landowners to hang onto it,” says Healy. "It's almost a ‘smart growth' kind of issue.”

"If farms are more successful,” explains Michael Lehan, co-founder with Healy of Working Landscapes, "there's more money in the local economy and the land is preserved for agricultural use.”

To that end, Healy and Lehan help farmers tackle their three biggest challenges: rising land values (development), maintaining continuity of ownership of the farm, and commodity prices, "or finding the right niche market,” says Lehan. "When you're addressing emerging markets, one that is not clearly defined, you have to figure things out as you go along. It's a very fuzzy process. It's also scary, because you don't know whether you're going to succeed or not. If you work for a business, you get a paycheck every two weeks; there's nothing scary about that. But farmers only make money when they sell something and if your crop fails, guess what? –no paycheck.”

Farmers that took the course last year are already applying tools they learned. Allen Miller, a partner in Montague's Sweetwater Farm, realized that the strengths of their farm were timber and grass, not annual crops. "We have 30 acres of hay ground and 70 acres of timber,” says Miller. "We have pretty good soil, but we're up off of the river and our soils tend to be rocky. So for us to try the cultivated crops that they can do along the river doesn't seem realistic. So we've decided to do what this farm sets out to do naturally, and that's forest and grass.”

"One of the greatest benefits of the class,” says Miller, "is the connections to other farmers. The class brought people together with similar concerns on how to make farming profitable in the 21st century. Everyone I've met in the class has willingly shared their experiences, and that still goes on.” Those connections have yielded valuable advice as Sweetwater Farm starts their grass-fed beef and poultry operations, their new orchard, timber farming, bee-keeping, and a truck garden. "We're in a start-up phase with a heavy front-end investment, and our learning curve is like a vertical straight line,” says Miller, only half-jokingly. "I don't feel like I have answers hard and fast, but now I have resources and the tools to address issues of profitability.”

"Most people do not go into farming because they expect to get rich,” says Healy. "They go into farming because they love the work, they love what they're doing. So what we do increases their quality of life as well as hopefully brings them some more dollars.”

And more self-confidence: "One farmer had never figured out how much he had spent to start his business,” recalls Lehan. "By the end of four weeks, he had figured it out and realized that, from a return-on-investment perspective, he was doing much better than he thought, and that changed his outlook about his business. That's important, because if you believe you're doing a good job, you'll be more likely to succeed. So he understood that he was actually doing better than he thought, and that increased his energy level.”

This fall, a new group of farmers will benefit from the collaboration of Working Landscapes and Greenfield Community College. "GCC has always reached out to the community,” says Healy, "and, I think, even more under the exceptional leadership of Bob Pura. They're local, and they're a natural ally to small nonprofits like ours that are doing this not for the money, but because we love to live here. The future of our whole county relates not only to what happens in Greenfield, but what happens in the towns and communities around it. GCC, I feel, lives and breathes that experience in terms of how it tailors its educational programs to work with the community.”

For more information about the upcoming 4-week series, please contact GCC's Office of Community Education at (413) 775-1606.