Holiday Gift Ideas that
Support Local Food and Farms
CSA Farm Shares
This gift provides fresh, nutritious, local food for your family - or for a friend - every week during the harvest season. Many Berkshire farms offer summer and winter vegetable, meat, and flower CSAs. Browse Berkshire Grown's Find Food and Farms web page to find farms that offer CSAs. Contact the farmers directly for details to purchase a CSA share. |
|
Clockwise top left: images courtesy Abode Farm CSA, Red Shirt Farm, and Full Well Farm. |
|
Restaurant Gift Cards
Support your favorite restaurant by purchasing a gift card. In the past year many Berkshire chefs reinvented their businesses, changed their menus, enhanced their beverage selections, and added Take Out and catering for every occasion.
Check out Find Food and Farms for local restaurants - from fine dining to Berkshire picnic tables! |
|
Image courtesy Old Inn on the Green, New Marlborough. |
|
Marketplaces, Grocers, and Food Cooperatives Gift Cards
Give a meal as a gift! Many local grocers feature local produce grown in Berkshire soils. Perfect for your favorite home chef!
Specialty Food Products
From pasture-raised meats, preserves, jellies and jams, artisanal cheeses, baked goods, ciders, and maple products to charcuterie, there is something special
for everyone on your list!
|
|
Farm Products Made in the Berkshires
Search Find Food and Farms for beeswax products, handcrafted soaps, body lotions and herbal products made in the Berkshires! Gentle skin care products made from beeswax, honey and goat milk not only soothe and nourish skin, but make great Hanukkah and Kwanzaa gifts and stocking stuffers!
|
|
Pictured left to right: Sweeet Birch Herbals, Dandelion Hill Farm and Berkshire Wildflower Farm products.
Wooly Warmth Grown in the Berkshires
Shop for alpaca and wool products. Or how about a soft and warm sheep hide?
These cozy items from Berkshire farms make great gifts! Find them in local farm stores or buy direct from the farmers at Berkshire Grown Winter Farmers Markets.
|
|
Images courtesy Colonia Alpacas, Williamstown and Ashford Heights Farm, Adams. |
|
For more ideas, visit Berkshire Grown's searchable
|
|
Cut Your Own or
Buy a Fresh-cut Local Christmas Tree
|
|
Image courtesy Windy Hill Farm. |
|
Or Enjoy a Live Tree Indoors!
Garden Center Gift Cards make the perfect gift for planting
outdoor trees, shrubs and plants next spring!
|
|
(l. and r. images courtesy Seekonk Tree Farm, center image Windy Hill Farm.) |
|
Shop the Winter Farmers Markets
December 18 & 19!
Local Farms and Food Producers bring Fresh Food to You!
|
|
Both Holiday Farmers Markets will feature the abundance of locally grown foods from the Berkshires. The offerings of local producers range from winter squash, greens and root crops to apples, meats, cheeses, honey and maple syrup, as well as baked goods, jams, ferments, and cider.
You can also count on finding delicious prepared food at both markets – market favorites Off the Shelf Farm will make their All-Day egg sandwiches and North Plain Farm will be grilling sausages in Great Barrington. And at Greylock WORKS, Sweet Brook Farm will be flipping cheeseburgers made with their grass-fed beef, and the Break Room offers coffee, treats, and a full breakfast and lunch menu focused on regional farms.
Admission is always free and SNAP benefits are available (with Market Match!) at both markets. HIP benefits for fresh fruits and vegetables available, too. Visit the Market Manager's Table for tokens and more information.
|
|
What we are reading:
I tried to prove that small family farms are the future.
I couldn’t do it.
By Sarah Mock for The Counter
The myth of the noble, independent grower keeps this nation from acknowledging that farming is simply a profession—and small farmers pay the price.
|
|
Pictured above: Thomas Hart Benton’s mural, Achelous and Hercules over a painted cloudy blue sky. |
|
In the media, the small family farm has been on the brink of disaster since time immemorial. The story is an easy win—in part, because there’s no need to explain why it’s important.
In fact, in 2016, I landed a book deal on the topic, promising to explore why small family farms were at risk and what could be done to protect them.
Having grown up on a small family farm myself, I was certain that they were not only the future of our food system, but also the best and most virtuous way to organize agriculture. It’s right there in the name. “Small” means humble, locally connected, intimate with the natural and human community and their needs. At the same time, the small farmer is satisfied with their farm’s scale, not greedy for more but simply content with their share of honest reward for honest work. “Family” means caring, far-seeing, and willing to consider not just profits, but people. It also signals stubborn independence and self-reliance. Today, “small” and “family” are potent antidotes to “corporate,” “industrial,” and “factory,” all those evils of commerce that in our guts we believe should be kept far away from our land, water, air, animals, and food.
Read the full article here.
|
|
Baker-Polito Administration Celebrates “Green Friday” in Massachusetts with Tree Cutting Ceremony |
|
In celebration of the Massachusetts Christmas tree industry, the Baker-Polito Administration, in conjunction with (MDAR) Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and the Massachusetts Christmas Tree Association, has declared Friday, November 26, 2021 as “Green Friday.” To support the Commonwealth’s Christmas tree industry, Green Friday encourages people throughout the state to visit their local Christmas tree farms to purchase their Christmas trees, holiday plants, ornamental swags, and wreaths to fulfill their holiday decorating needs. To celebrate the declaration, MDAR Commissioner John Lebeaux participated in the annual Christmas tree cutting ceremony at Seekonk Tree Farm in Great Barrington, which has between 20-25 acres of Christmas trees spread across three locations.
|
|
“Like most of the state’s agricultural commodities, Christmas tree farms impact both the environment and the economy in a multitude of ways," said Governor Charlie Baker. “The Christmas tree industry has an important role within the Commonwealth, including removing carbon dioxide in the air, creating habitats for wildlife and enabling residents an opportunity to shop locally and purchase holiday decorations from one of the state’s multi-generational family-operated farms.”
Read the full press release here.
|
|
Bryant Terry on ‘Black Food,’ plant-based eating and where he finds inspiration
By Aaron Hutcherson for The Washington Post
|
|
An award-winning author who has been writing plant-based cookbooks for the better part of two decades, Bryant Terry calls his latest project, “Black Food,” “a communal shrine to the shared culinary histories of the African diaspora.” He writes in the introduction: "These pages offer up gratitude to the great chain of Black lives, and to all the sustaining ingredients and nourishing traditions they carried and remembered, through time and space, to deliver their kin into the future. We pray that this collection facilitates reflection on and veneration of our sacred foodways.”
The anthology includes essays, poems, recipes and more from more than 100 contributors from around the world, including the likes of Gabrielle E.W. Carter, Stephen Satterfield, Paola Velez, Zoe Adjonyoh and Leah Penniman. (Wanting the contributors to share what’s authentic to them, some of the recipes include animal products, contrary to Terry’s culinary philosophy.) I chatted with Terry to discuss his new publishing imprint with Ten Speed Press, 4 Color Books, his latest book and why it’s also his last, what music he’s listening to and more.
Read the full interview here. |
|
Berkshire Grown connects you with local farmers, restaurants, and food producers. DONATE TODAY to celebrate local farms and food, sustain our Berkshire food economy, and Keep Farmers Farming! Support your favorite local eating establishment.
Make a contribution in the amount of $100 or more and receive a Berkshire Grown baseball cap or signature re-usable produce bag -- while supplies last!
|
|
To pay via check or phone, make payable to Berkshire Grown, mail to:
PO Box 983, Great Barrington, MA 01230 or call (413) 528-0041.
Contributions are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
|
|
The 2021 Guide to Local Food & Farms is the Berkshire region's most comprehensive reference for finding local food, farms and restaurants that source from local farms and food producers.
This valuable resource connects you to farmers markets, CSA's, farms stands and farm stores, specialty producers, Berkshire County food pantry sites, local food & lodgings, and other business members who support Berkshire Grown and its mission to keep farmers farming.
Complete with contact information and a handy map, the 2021 Guide is now on the news stands throughout Berkshire County and the surrounding region. In addition you can find the 2021 Guide digital version and the Find Food and Farms searchable map on the Berkshire Grown website.
|
|
Stay in Touch
Berkshire Grown's e-newsletter comes out monthly.
Margaret Moulton, Executive Director
Jordan Archey, Program Manager, Business Members
Kate Burke, Program Coordinator, Farm to Food Access
Sharon Hulett-Shepherd, Membership and Office Manager
Join Berkshire Grown here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
