By AIDAN POOLE For the Gazette September 19, 2021 HADLEY — State lawmakers toured four farms in Hampshire and Franklin counties on Friday to better understand the challenges facing farming communities in western Massachusetts. The tour included stops at Simple Gifts Farm in Amherst and Reed Farm in Sunderland, as well as Barstow’s Dairy Store … Read more
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 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: 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
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
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
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
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
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
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