Massachusetts lawmakers tour Pioneer Valley farms as agriculture bill awaits hearings

MassLive By Jim Kinney | jkinney@repub.com September 17, 2021 HADLEY — Denise Barstow, a seventh-generation farmer, enlivened a tour Friday for state lawmakers, their staff, and advocates for the network of farms and retailers that make up the local food system by answering a question children typically ask. “What does a cow say?” Barstow, the … Read more

Connecting Point: Barstow’s Longview Farm Carries on 215-Year Dairy Farming Tradition

Connecting Point NEPM July 9, 2021 New England is home to over 1,000 dairy farms, and you can find them throughout the Berkshires, Pioneer Valley, and southern Vermont.   National Dairy Month, a campaign that happens every June, was initially created in 1937 to promote drinking milk and has now developed into an annual tradition that … Read more

Off the Menu

Off the Menu: OpenTable produces its Top 10 list for Western Mass Posted Jun 12, 2021 By Hugh Robert | Special to The Republican Best restaurant around? It’s a question the answer to which will vary widely depending on of whom it is asked. There was a time when such pronouncements were the prerogative of … Read more

2020 Sustainable Business of the Year Awards

The 2020 Sustainable Business Awards spotlights the brightest of what’s happening in our local economy. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small businesses has been tremendous, with the number of small businesses in Massachusetts being down 37% as of November 2020. Small businesses lend a distinct flavor to the communities in which they thrive. … Read more

Kestrel Land Trust: 50th Anniversary Stories

Since December 1970, thousands of people like you have given Kestrel Land Trust the inspiration and ability to save the landscapes that shaped our past and create our future. In the last 5 decades, we’ve worked together to conserve more than 25,000 acres of forests and woodlands for wildlife, natural parks and trails close to … Read more

Barstow’s Longview Farm Virtual Tour

On Tuesday, October 13, a rainy morning, New England Dairy, a regional nonprofit, filmed a LIVE virtural tour with Denise Barstow at Barstow’s Longview Farm in Hadley, MA. The target audience for this video is students in grads 3-5 – but we think everyone will enjoy it! Check it out: Using video chat technology, students … Read more

ESE provides location for distribution of products to local Cabot farmers

Sept. 24, 2020 | Sarah Heinonen sarah@thereminder.com WEST SPRINGFIELD – At farm stands and small on-site stores, farmers sell a fair amount of products that they help to produce. Dairy farms around Western Massachusetts and parts of Connecticut ship their milk to the Agri-Mark/Cabot Creamery Cooperative facility in West Springfield to be turned into cheese, … Read more

Weathering a dry spell: Drought hits farmers, hurts crops

By JACQUELYN VOGHEL Staff Writer Daily Hampshire Gazette Published: 9/18/2020 3:35:25 PM Modified: 9/18/2020 3:35:11 PM GRANBY — At Red Fire Farm, there are often years when workers “barely get the irrigation equipment out,” said co-owner Ryan Voiland. But this year, with much of the state and nearly all of Hampshire County under a moderate … Read more

Big E helps Agri-Mark distribute Cabot dairy products to small farm stands

MassLive By Jim Kinney | jkinney@repub.com WEST SPRINGFIELD — Farm stands like Barstow’s Longview Dairy Store and Bakery in Hadley used to be able to pick up Cabot Creamery-brand cheese and other dairy products at Agri-Mark’s butter and dry nonfat milk manufacturing plant on Riverdale Street in West Springfield. But that was before coronavirus restrictions … Read more

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