'we’re like the canaries in the coal mine'

In recent years, fruit growers in Massachusetts have faced significant challenges from extreme weather and increasing uncertainty. Adverse events such as flooding, frosts, and droughts that typically occurred every 20 years are now more likely to occur every five years, said Ashley Randle, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, in an interview. 2023 was the first time her department started looking at multiple extreme weather events within a single year.

In February 2023, a deep freeze wiped out the year’s peach crop across the state. Then a late frost in May split tiny apples in half. With floods in July, the cumulative damage that year amounted to 13,000 acres of destroyed crops and an estimated $65 million in losses, state officials reported in a press release.

The Healey-Driscoll Administration’s newly created Natural Disaster Recovery Program for Agriculture allocated $20 million to farms impacted by several severe weather events in 2023. Nicewicz Family Farm received a payment from the program due to their significant loss of peaches and apples. 

With increasing climate volatility, Massachusetts has introduced a growing number of grant programs to help farmers stay afloat.

Those losses have led to higher prices. For example, peaches sold by the Nicewicz family at the Brookline farmers market have risen from $3 to $4.50 per pound since 2022.

Still, their city customers remain loyal — a pivot from wholesale to retail some 35 years ago has allowed the Nicewiczs to become full-time farmers. Until the 1980s, when they started selling directly at farmers markets, they all had other jobs in addition to farming. They tended the apples year-round, harvested them in September and October, placed them in storage, and packed them daily. But they wouldn’t see any money until November or December. 

“The customers we have in the city don’t seem to complain about the prices,” Tommy Nicewicz said. But he noted that local clients “complain about the prices, because the next town [Clinton], where most of our customers come from, is blue collar, and they’d go to Shaw’s or Hannaford [supermarkets] before they’d come here.” 

Climate volatility and its effect on the prices the Nicewicz Family Farm can charge is changing which communities can afford its locally grown produce. 

In a University of New Hampshire study on Alternative Food Networks, which include farmers markets like the ones the Nicewicz family farm participate in, consumers report price as one of the most important factors in making food purchasing decisions. The study also reported that Alternative Food Networks in New England often have trouble reaching a customer base beyond their niche committed market.

Direct contact between farmers and their clients has helped Massachusetts growers, said Jon Clements, extension fruit team leader at the UMass Amherst Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment.  The research center provides education on modern production practices to 125 orchard farmers across the state. 

"Among the local full-time growers, most farms who have been successful are those who went into retail, farm stands and pick-your-own, not wholesale," Clements said. 

The profitability of the farming enterprise is at the basis of sustainable agriculture, Piñero said. This doesn’t just include environmental support and the conservation of land, but also the social aspect. 

Nicewicz Family Farm customers “feel they are part of the farm, not just customers”, Piñero said. “They are such a good example of farming in Massachusetts, which is basically family, small-scale farming. They diversify the production, they have vegetables, flowers, and fruits to spread the risk and increase biodiversity — one of the key aspects of sustainable pest management.” 

The Nicewiczs earn approximately 80% of their income from selling directly at farmers markets in the Boston area. The remaining 20% comes from their farm stand and customers paying to pick fruit at the orchard. 

“Smaller scale farms are more likely to adopt biodiversity practices compared to larger farms,” Piñero said. “I’m very happy to say most growers are very receptive to these innovative strategies. We are developing something called “ecostacking”, which means we’re stacking biological and ecological factors that can help farming.” 

The ecologically informed projects UMass Amherst helped the Nicewicz Family Farm set up include using sunflower and buckwheat plantings as trap crops for pests and as medicinal plants for beneficial insects.

UMass Amherst also assisted with monitoring systems that use weather data to determine the extent to which temperature makes insects more or less active.

Piñero explained that partnerships between university research teams and local farms “are essential because they allow research and extension programs to be tested and refined under real farm conditions.”

To help long-term conservation efforts, the Nicewicz brothers (none of whom have children) sold their Agricultural Preservation Restrictions (APRs) to the town, to prevent future development, so farming can continue in perpetuity. In other words, anyone who buys their land can only use it to farm, nothing else.

I often think about the Earth itself,” Sath said, “because the atmosphere of the Earth is very thin, as thin as the apple peel”.

With longer, drier summers, the brothers have increased the use of their irrigation system, which they installed in 2005 at a cost of $70,000. Five years ago, they received a grant to expand it with two wells and two pumping stations to cover the whole orchard. 

“Last year, we had to water all the peach trees and all the apple trees with irrigation all summer,” Tommy Nicewicz said. “So that’s a big expense right there.” While the water from the wells on the property is free, irrigation requires a lot of electricity. 

Increasing weather extremes demand new technologies to help farmers adapt to changing conditions. These expenses add more economic pressure to farms and the communities they serve, according to a study published in the Journal of Smart Agriculture of Technology. 

In addressing water shortage, the Nicewiczs have been working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. 

“We have actually tried to mitigate our losses from drought,” Ken Nicewicz said. “We do a lot of irrigating with drip irrigation, so we conserve water as we’re irrigating.”

Although Massachusetts received close to 3 feet of snow in February, much of the state has remained in “significant” or “critical” drought conditions since 2024, state government reported.

Precipitation from this winter’s storms didn’t replenish groundwater supplies because the ground was frozen, according to the Massachusetts River Alliance, an environmental advocacy group in Somerville. Drought conditions are expected to continue through the spring and into the summer.

Rising temperatures are intensifying the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation, according to NASA reports. This is likely to worsen drought stress in parts of Massachusetts, where many soils are thin and stony, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“Because we live on a hill, we don’t have much top soil,” said Alan Nicewicz, 78. “When it does rain, it won’t sink in, it will just roll off, because the ground is so hard.” 

Ken Nicewicz said they see the impact on their fields and crops. "It's like a dust bowl behind us, because it’s been so dry,” he said. 

Tommy Nicewicz added: “When you go through those cycles, that affects the trees for the next year. If you have a drought, they are not going to put out as many apples next year. You don’t know which way to go.” 

Sophia Kornienko is a graduate student in visual narrative at Boston University's College of Fine Arts. You can reach her at nienko@bu.edu. Liv Slatton is a master's of public health candidate at BU. You can reach her at  livslatt@bu.edu. Joshua King is a senior studying nutrition science at BU. You can reach him at kingjosh@bu.edu.