Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | March 29, 2021 | wbjournal.com C entral Massachusetts has more than 1,700 farms, a fact Mackenzie May, executive director of the nonprofit Central Mass Grown, loves to share. "Everybody's reaction is always the same: 'Wow!'" May said. Another fact she's fond of: Worcester County is ranked third in the nation among direct-to-consumer agricultural sales. Farmers in Central Massachusetts, she said, tend to skip wholesaler and third-party buyer options, instead selling directly to customers without any mid- dlemen, oen through farmers markets and community supported agriculture, more commonly known as CSAs. A surge of sustainably minded young farmers are helping to make Central Mass. a national leader in farmers market and CSA sales BY MONICA BUSCH Worcester Business Journal Staff Writer Growing community And if it seems like farmers markets and CSAs – wherein customers generally pay a farm upfront for produce and/or flower shares to be distributed at regular intervals over the course of the growing season – are increasing in popularity, that's because, said May, they are. Bol- stered by an aging Millennial workforce drawn to the less conventional ebb and flow of farming life, food justice move- ments and, yes, by the coronavirus pan- demic, farming in Central Massachusetts is having a moment – one the farming community is hoping will last. In recent decades, farming – much like manufacturing – was recast from an essential industry necessary for socie- tal functioning and into a far-fetched, impracticable career option. Agricultural training was harder to find, the country's smaller farmers were struggling to make ends meet in the face of deep-pocketed competition and federal fiscal policies that increased interest rates and collapsed grain prices, and Millennials were told they would likely never own property en masse the way their Baby Boomer parents did. White collar, 9-5 office jobs, obtained aer a neat four-year degree, became the mold. But there is a shi happening, accord- ing to the local farming community, as consumers grow invested in knowing where their food comes from and, in turn, as some younger people begin to re- ject the narrative that farming as a career is a pipe dream. And, said May, it has to do with how the younger generations are spending their money. Millennials, in particular, May said, are spending less on consumer goods which, oen manufactured overseas, are less ex- pensive, and instead are reallocating their discretionary spending budget toward purchasing food. "And that is a wonderful thing," May said. "ere is much more of a shi towards taking the time to go to the farmer's market, to sign up for CSA, to know where your food is coming from, and it's a societal shi in the buy local movement." Free Living e bulk of Central Massachusetts farms err on the smaller side, said May, producing on small plots ranging from three to 15 acres, or even smaller. One of those is Free Living Farm in Brookfield, run on land leased by Cara Germain and Michael Zueger, both in their early 30s. Germain, raised in Auburn, and Source: 2017 U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture; U.S. Census Bureau, via Mass.gov Massachusetts farms, by the numbers 7,241 Farms in Massachusetts 25,920 People directly employed by the state's agricultural industry 491,653 Acres of farmland in Massachusetts 21.1% Percent of the state's total sale of agricultural products which are direct market sales 79.7% Percent of Massachusetts farms that are family or individually owned Farmer Tim's Vegetables Owner Tim Carroll and Farm Manager Katie Bekel in one of their greenhouses in Dudley PHOTOS/MONICA BUSCH

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