Hitchcock Harvest Feast and Celebration
Sunday, October 1st, 2023
3:00 PM – 6:00 PM
The Hitchcock Center has been sowing seeds of change and educating for a healthy planet in the Valley for more than 60 years. In October 2023, we celebrated the harvest with local friends and businesses and shared what we are brewing up next. We can’t wait to see you next year for our third annual Harvest event where we will celebrate Hitchcock Center’s mission to educate and inspire action for a healthy planet with food, drink, community, garden and building tours, a short program, and lots of fun!
At our 2023 Hitchcock Harvest event, we honored three Hitchcock Heroes:
Sustainable Business Award: Barstow’s Longview Farm
Hitchcock Center honors Barstow’s Longview Farm, a sixth and seventh generation owned and operated dairy farm in Hadley, Mass. Their motto is, “Looking Forward Since 1806,” which speaks to the daily commitment to their herd, soil, workforce, community, and food systems. They have 600 head and milk 300 dairy cows using Lely robotic milkers. They are proud to be one of the 500 farm families, a part of the Cabot Creamery Cooperative, a B-Corp with big sustainability goals and accomplishments.
Barstow’s grows 100% of their own forage for their own herd on 450 acres. Here in the Pioneer Valley, open farmland is good for wildlife habitat, clean air and water, climate resilience, and food security. Barstow’s uses no-till equipment for all crops including their cover crop. They feel lucky to live in an area with so many active farms, which enables them to lend a helping hand to neighbors, share ideas, and share equipment such as a no-till planter, which makes our local food system more efficient, sustainable, and connected.
Barstow’s Longview Farm is also home to an anaerobic digester, a system that takes the energy potential (methane) from cow manure and food waste and turns it into enough electricity to power 1,600 homes. In addition to renewable energy, the digester also provides the farm (and neighborhood) with a fossil-fuel-free heat source and a chemical-free fertilizer for fields. This technology has increased crop yields, enhanced soil health, and decreased their chemical fertilizer usage by 90% all while diverting food waste from landfills, reducing farm odors, generating green electricity, and bringing in an additional revenue stream that supports their family dairy farm right here in our Western Mass community.
Thank you, Barstow’s!
See the other Hitchcock Center for the Environment award winners here.