Farm Center

The Farm Center is a 400-acre working farm, integral to the Hampshire campus, that grows food, raises animals, and educates students. The Community Supported Agriculture Program ( CSA ) is managed by Nancy Hanson and sells organic vegetable shares to members of the Five College community. Everyone can share in the benefits and bounty of living next to a working farm.



The farm presses apples in the fall and collects maple syrup in the spring.



The farm is great! They have yummy things and cute things and a farm festival in the fall!



History of the Farm Center
The original proposal that established the Farm Center (http://www.hampshire.edu/archives/3403.htm#24A Text from the Hampshire College website):

A Proposal to Establish a New England Farm Center at Hampshire College November 17, 1978.

Abstract Hampshire College proposes to eatablish a New England Farm Center, which will be the organizational nucleus of (1) a demonstration program to assist in the revitalization of the New England agricultural economy, linked to the New England Cooperative Extension network to disseminate the program's results; and (2) an undergraduate program in agricultural studies, within the College's School of Natural Science...The goals of the Center are to help New England farmers, especially those involved in small and part-time farming, to revive the region's agriculture; and to produce graduates with a fuller understanding of this nation's agricultural systems...

The College is sharing in the financial responsibility for the development of the Center, and once it is in operation will fund significant portions of its continuing operation out of the annual operating budget.

Proposal 1. Present Day New England Agriculture Although the northeast United States contains some of the best farmland in the world, 80-90% of the food consumed here is grown elsewhere, and the amount of land under active cultivation has been delining steadily for over one hundred years. In the mid-nineteenth century, New England farmers raised nearly all of their own food and exported a major portion to the rest of the nation. Flocks of sheep, for example, grazed everywhere: there were 350,000 sheep in Massachusetts alone. Today flocks of sheep are rare, with the Massachusetts census at only 8,000. In contrast, consumption remains high: Massachusetts consumes 19 million pounds of lamb and mutton annually and has the highest per capita consumption rate in the country.

The decline in production and the attrition of farm acreage began soon after the Civil War with the opening of the great, flat grazing lands of the Midwest and West where efficient mass production techniques could be applied...Two other pressures accelerating the move out of sheep production were the new federal and state regulations brought into being to handle the huge slaughterhouses in the Midwest, and the problem of predators. The new slaughterhouse regulations forced small regional and local slaughterhouses, which served farmers in outlying rural areas, to close, since they could not afford to comply with the costly requirements. This made it difficult and finally impossible for producers on family farms to slaughter their own animals for sale. Roving packs of domestic dogs and coyotes have been a traditional problem and now represent a major obstacle to the expansion of the sheep industry.

The tide of this century-long decline has recently begun to reverse, mainly because of the rising cost of energy, which is bringing about the return to economic importance of an agriculture with greater land productivity and energy efficiency. We now recognize more clearly that land is not limitless; petrochemical fertilizers are increasing in price; big machines are expensive to run (and maintain and replace); transportation, now almost exclusively by truck, is extremely costly and becoming more so every year. As a result, the comparative economic advantage of the West's large-scale agriculture is decreasing rapidly. (p.1)

Because of these developments, New England's small and part-time farmers are in an improving position to undertake a renewal of their traditional brand of efficient farming...But several major obstacles have developed over the last fifty years of depressed agriculture that must be overcome if any revitalization is to take place. A revised sheep industry faces at least three:

1. The types of sheep which have become established in the United States during this century have been bred for large farm and western range conditions. They are not suitable for taking advantage of the very different terrain, climate, and small farm conditions of New England. 2. With the attrition of farm acreage and its reversion to forest, the Eastern Coyote has returned to the new England countryside; also, the number of domestic dogs hunting and harrassing sheep has multiplied dangerously. In combination, these two types of predators now represent the major obstacle to a revived sheep industry. 3. The cost of feed has risen to the point where the only economic way to raise small flocks of sheep and herds of other livestock is to graze them. At present the lack of research on suitable high protein forage crops is an obstacle to a widespread substitution of forage for grain feed.

To make possible a full-scale return to a highly productive, widespread, and self-sufficient regional agriculture, thorough investigation of obstacles like these and demonstration of practicable ways to overcome them are needed soon...To help set in motion the needed investigation and demonstration, specific programs are required in which research is coordinated. Properly organized and connected to the surrounding region through cooperative extension, such programs could get this important task underway...(p.2-3)

2. The New England Farm Center at Hampshire College Hampshire College proposes to establish the prototype of an agricultural center and to link this to an undergraduate program in agricultural studies.

In early 1979, provided sufficient funding has been secured, the New England Farm Center at Hampshire College will begin operation on a several hundred acre farm at the northern end of the college campus in South Amherst. The Center will be dual in function. First, it will be engaged in investigation, demonstration, and extension to assist New England farmers in addressing the major obstacles to a revived agricultural economy. In this role, the Center will be formally associated with the New England Cooperative Extension network. Second, it will also be the nucleus of an undergraduate educational program in agriculture, through which the Hampshire College faculty (and its distinguished visiting faculty) who constitute the Center's personnel will introduce students to the study and practice of natural science by means of agriculture. Students will carry out individual and group projects in applied agriculture on the demonstration farm, which will serve as the educational program's laboratory in addition to being the Center's facility for research.

The first assignment the Center will undertake is a program aimed at contributing to the revival of sheep farming. To our knowledge, the program will be the first of its kind to integrate a variety of efforts to overcome the three principle obstacles we have identified. The Center will be engaged in the development of cross breeds of sheep particularly suited to the climatic and natural forage conditions of New England and the prevalence of small farms here; it will be engaged in the breeding and training of selected varieties of European livestock-guarding dogs, which offer inexpensive and ecologically sound protection against predation by coyotes and domestic dogs; and it will be engaged in the development of alternative varieties of forage and the investigation of common New England woodland and roadside plants to assess their nitrogen-fixing ability, palatability, and nutritional value.

Sheep Project Sheep are efficient on marginal land, producing high quality meat without grain supplements and supplying meat and wool. Farmers trying to raise sheep in twentieth century New England need hardy breeds, adapted to local climate and forage conditions. Most U.S. commercial sheep flocks have undergone stringent selection against twinning because twins do not survive well on large western ranges. On a small New England farm, however, twin lambs have a much greater chance of survival. Twinning is a good example of a single genetic trait, relatively easy to select for, which provides a significant difference in productivity...(p.4)

Professor Slater, a former sheep farmer, has already been offered stock of several minor breeds, collected and bred in the U.S. by the American Minor Breeds Conservancy, Old Sturbridge Village, and by individuals. Continued trials of these breeds and travel to other parts of the world where sheep are raised under conditions similar to those of New England will be an important part of the Center's activities.

Livestock Dog Project Wild canids, whether wolves, coyotes, foxes or dingos, have always taken their toll of sheep on every continent. Recently, the population of large, free-ranging wild and domestic canids in the United States has increased rapidly, and the damage they have done to New England's small flocks and to the range flocks in the West has been devastating. The erection of dog-proof fences is usually prohibitively expensive, and it is useless for protecting livestock whose major value lies in their ability to range widely over marginal lands. In the western states, poisoning programs have drawn bitter criticism; resulting legislation has, in turn, been followed by an increase in the number of coyote and wolf attacks. Eliminating wolves or coyotes is not a satisfactory answer on either practical or ethical grounds. It also disrupts the balance of nature, permitting population explosions of rodents and other small animals that are considered vermin in agriculture and that often compete for forage with domestic animals.

European shepherds have traditionally relied upon partnership with livestock-guarding dogs, which often wear spiked collars, to deter wolves or bear. Most of these breeds have been selected for their ability to work with minimal human guidance. The canid specialist at Hampshire College, Professor Ray Coppinger, believes that independent guarding dogs represent the most economical and efficient way to protect sheep and other livestock...

Professor Coppinger has selected different breeding stocks for different conditions such as climate and range. He intends to breed and train the dogs for their particular advantages on New England farms and has already begun to place them on small New England sheep ranches suffering from canid predation. Farmers throughout New England have volunteered for trials with these dogs. (p.5-6)

Forage Project Part of any future success with sheep will depend on improved economically feasible methods of providing feed and pasture land for the flocks...New methods of planting and cultivating leguminous forage crops can be developed for use in those New England fields that are not considred productive by large-scale agricultural practices. As is the case with most U.S. sheep-breeding programs, improvements in forage have been concentrated around the needs of the western rangelands. It is not known whether this knowledge is applicable to New England; during the past fifty years, no one has tried to apply it here.

Professor John Torrey of Harvard University's Cabot Foundation for Botanical Research, in nearby Petersham, believes that new methods of planting and cultivating nitrogen-fixing forage plants can have profitable results for New England farmers...Among his priorities will be the planting of legumes in with other feed crops, and the use of symbiotic nitrogen-fixing, non-leguminous brush species such as alders, autumn and Russian olives, and similar nitrogen-fixing shrubs, for longer-term upgrading of pastures. Methods developed for improved forage in major sheep-raising countries like New Zealand and parts of Europe will be adapted to New England climate and growing conditions. (p.6-7)

Production, Distribution and Marketing Project Any proposal to expand the sheep industry in New England must address the need for more than the two existing government-inspected slaughterhouses, and for rebuilding the now largely inadequate local/regional marketing and distribution system. This is a fourth area study, which is still under preliminary analysis but which is likely at some early stage in the development of the Center's program to evolve into a fourth investigation project...

Timetable ...The Center is envisioned as an ongoing enterprise whose individual programs change from one three-year period to the next, but whose overall purpose, the revitalization of New England agriculture and the re-introduction of agriculture into the undergraduate science curriculum, remains constant...(p.8)

2008 Farm Assessment
Hampshire has invited a farm evaluation team composed of the Dean of Work and the Farmer from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC and the Farmer from the farm supported by Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH. The team visited Hampshire on September 11-12, meeting with Dean of Faculty and VP of Academic Affairs Aaron Berman, Dean of Natural Science Chris Jarvis, and members of the farm staff, the faculty, students, the business office, and human resources. The purpose of the evaluation was to continue our ongoing conversation about how to strengthen the Hampshire Farm, principally by forging a more thorough integration with the academic program. The farms at Oberlin and Warren Wilson colleges develop quite different models of organization, and Hampshire hopes to develop its own strategic conception of the farm in the context of other interesting ideas in the college farm community. The outside committee will be submitting a report of their observations and recommendations, which will be presented to Dean Berman and Dean Jarvis in the coming weeks.

Does someone have a copy of the assessment?