Sudbury Valley TrusteesConservation, Collaboration, and Community since 1953
Land Trusts and Eating Locally: SVT’s role in local agriculture
Boston’s western suburbs abound with farms and orchards that provide residents an opportunity to lighten their ecological footprints through eating locally. This summer SVT is celebrating the agricultural landscape of our watershed. We hope these resources will help you further connect with your local farms.
Why eat local?
Buying locally produced foods helps preserve a network of farms that support one another and healthy communities.
According to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, the average fresh food item on our dinner table travels 1,500 miles to get there. When you buy locally, your food retains more nutrition and drastically reduces the amount of fossil fuels consumed to transport that food item.
Eating locally helps the local economy. Many farmers spend much of what they earn on transportation, processing, packaging, refrigeration and marketing of their products. Farmers who sell at their farms keep more of each dollar earned - that money stays in the community.
Buying food locally helps keep farmland open, which contributes to better air and water quality. Working with landowners, municipalities, and the state, SVT assists in protecting working farmland through leases, conservation easements, and agricultural preservation restrictions
Your support of SVT helps us to protect land that provides healthy air, water, and sustainable food sources – thank you!
SVT is actively working to protect several acting farms in our area. Among them are Eastleigh Farm in Framingham and Sweetwilliam Farm in Upton. Eastleigh, an iconic farm on Edmands Road sells raw and pasteurized milk produced by resident heifers. Try their ice cream, too! Sweetwilliam Farm, on North Street, runs a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, and sells other farm products (including ice cream) in its farmstand. View Images of these and other farms SVT is working to protect.
Resources:
- If you’re looking for a farm to frequent, you can also try Northeast Harvest Fresh Food Locally Grown.
- Edible communities produces “Edible Boston”, a magazine you’ll find at many local markets. It’s full of great articles about local food producers, recipes, and more.
- The Massachusetts Departmet of Agricultural Resources helps to promote local farms and farm products. Find a wealth of information about where to buy at the MassGrown website.
- The local harvest website allows you to search for local farms, farmers markets, CSA’s and even specific farm products in your area.
- Looking for foodie events this summer? Check out the Massachusetts agritourism calendar.
- One-stop shopping for information related to farmers’ markets in Massachusetts.
- If you’re traveling farther afield and want to find fresh local food, there’s a national resource for Pick-your-own (PYO) farms.
Recommended reading list:
- Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma
- Mark Bittman, Food Matters
- Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
- Eric Schlosser, Food, Inc.
