The project will model the economic and social impact of solar-agriculture co-location on farms and surrounding regions. The team will assess crop productivity, soil health, and microclimatic conditions for a range of crops under various solar array designs project at eight operating commercial farms in Massachusetts. The team will also study public acceptance of solar-agriculture co-location and develop practical co-location management guidelines for growers, solar developers, and other relevant stakeholders.
This is a multi-disciplinary research project that encompasses renewable energy, agronomics, and economics. Dr. Dwayne Breger is the project PI, with Co-PIs Clem Clay, Dr. Sam Corcoran-Glazer, Dr. Giverson Mupambi, and Dr. Hilary Sandler and Dr. Fitzsimmons. The project team is based in the UMass Amherst Center for Food, Agriculture and the Environment (CAFE), Clean Energy Extension (CEE), UMass Extension Cranberry Station and the Dept. of Resource Economics.
Department of Energy Press Release
University of Massachusetts Amherst Announcement
Project partners include American Farmland Trust (AFT) and solar industry leaders BlueWave Solar, NextSun Energy LLC, Pine Gate Renewables, Hyperion Systems LLC, Iain Ward, the MA Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) and the MA Department of Energy Resources (DOER).
U.S. farms that comprise an "agriculture of the middle" (AOTM) have gained recognition for their important contributions to agricultural economies, rural communities and land stewardship. But despite efforts to support these mid-sized farms, their numbers continue to decline. With the increasing average age of farmers, rising land prices, and formidable barriers to farm entry, the challenge of transferring farms and farmland to a new generation of farmers has become more pressing. Our long-term goal is to develop a richer understanding of the relationship between attributes and circumstances of AOTM farms and their unique succession and transfer challenges in order to improve succession and transfer outcomes, increase entry into this sector and decrease their rate of decline. Supported by our research advisory group, our transdisciplinary research team will conduct mixed-methods research using national secondary data sets and primary data collected in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Washington to address four objectives: 1. Identify characteristics of mid-size, and particularly AOTM farms, and any relationships between these characteristics and farms' exit or persistence; 2. Develop an in-depth understanding of succession and transfer challenges faced by AOTM farms and the outcomes for operators, operations, and farmland; 3. Identify, investigate and profile promising and successful AOTM farm succession and transfer pathways; 4. Recommend strategies for future research, programs and policies to address identified challenges and advance solutions.
This is a transdisciplinary research project that unites non-profit organizations with rural sociology and economics. Dr. Clare Hinrichs (Penn State) is the project PI, with Co-PIs Dr. Marcy Ostrom (Washington State University), Jan Joannides (Renewing the Countryside), Kathy Ruhf (Land For Good), and Dr. Fitzsimmons.
The decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic showed steady growth in consumer demand for locally and regionally branded food products. Many of these purchases were considered to be synonymous with buying “direct” from farmers, such as through farmers markets, community-supported agriculture, and farm stands. The pandemic, however, dramatically shifted consumer shopping habits. During the height of the pandemic, consumers decreased the purchase of fresh products typically associated with local foods and increased the purchase of storage goods. Consumers spent larger portions of their food budgets on grocery purchases, and there was a sharp increase in grocery delivery services. Some pre-pandemic opportunities to buy direct from farmers were curtailed as farmers markets paused or restricted access, but new direct-purchase opportunities arose as farmers pivoted and offered remote purchase options, socially distant pick-ups at farm stands, and in some cases, delivery services.
This paper examines changes between pre- and post- COVID-19 consumer preferences for directly-marketed local foods. We conduct an online choice experiment with consumers in the Northeast (N=500) in 2019 to estimate willingness-to-pay for frozen blueberry attributes, including purchase location, where the product was grown, and where the product was processed. We repeat that choice experiment with a national sample from four regions (N=2,000) in 2021. Both choice experiments include questions about consumers’ perceptions that local, regional, or direct-purchase foods are relatively safer than other comparable foods. The 2021 sample also includes questions specific to purchase method (remote or in-person), consumers’ perceptions of the relative safety of purchase location itself, and the impact of COVID-19 on recent and intended future shopping habits.
Consumers prefer location-identified foods for a variety of reasons, including that farmers are more trustworthy and that purchasing such foods contribute to public goods, such as environmental benefits, local economic development, and increased local jobs. Prior to COVID-19, evidence suggested that consumers also buy directly-marketed or locally-branded foods, in part, because they believe it is “healthier”. “Health”, however, generally reflected beliefs about product freshness or nutrient content, not whether food is more or less likely to be safe from pathogens or whether purchase is likely to increase exposure to a communicable disease. We hypothesize that consumer perceptions that local foods are “healthier” also extends to the health risks of COVID-19, and that consumers continue to have an increased willingness to pay for local or direct purchase food attributes.
Many small and medium producers and processors are affected by the recent implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) regulation as the existing training does not address how to determine compliance and assumes that small and medium food processors (SMPs) begin training with a base level of food safety knowledge that many SMPs do not have. This project develops accessible, scale-appropriate, motivational mixed-media content to provide SMPs with the information they need to better understand how to implement Preventive Controls (PC) in their food businesses.
This work is supported by the Food Safety Outreach Program grant no. 015331-00002 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
We gratefully acknowledge the expertise and engagement contributed by the following project partners:
NECAFS: Northeast Center to Advance Food Safety, CISA: Community Involved in Sustainable Agriculture
This project investigates new sustainable markets for New England seafood. Climate change challenges the socio-economic and environmental sustainability of New England's seafood industry. A warming Gulf of Maine compounds the complex puzzle of ecosystems, fish population dynamics, and catch limits for specific fisheries. Cascading effects on fishermen, seafood processors, markets, and restaurants provide a network of challenges that are difficult to disentangle. This multifaceted challenge highlights the need for collaborative, cross-disciplinary research to build sustainable new markets for seafood. This proposal brings together a team with diverse expertise in ecology, climate change adaptation, economics, stakeholder engagement and product development. We aim to support the fishing industry by investigating consumers’ seafood choices, sustainable fishing practices, and seafood products that contain lesser known yet abundant species.
The work will obtain new data to support ongoing pilot-work and support future proposals. Pilot data include: 1) fisherman’s perspectives on local and underutilized fish species and preservation methods, and 2) consumer acceptability of new artisanal preserved fish products. Seed grant funds will be used to execute semi-structured interviews with New England fisherman, an online consumer survey, and a consumer sensory experiment. These funds will support the collaborative relationship between team members, building an interdisciplinary working group to pursue larger research funds.
This is a multi-disciplinary project that encompasses economics, marine ecology, food science, and environmental science in research and extension. Dr. Alissa Nolden is the project PI, with co-PIs Dr. Katie Kahl, Dr. Michelle Staudinger, Amanda Kinchla, and Dr. Ezra Markowitz.
Small dairy farms face particular challenges as costs of production often exceed the set federal price for fluid milk. However, consumers have demonstrated a willingness to pay a premium for local dairy products, providing emerging market opportunities for small dairy farms. In Massachusetts, a significant barrier for dairy farmers hoping to capture this premium is lack of access to scale-appropriate fluid milk processing facilities. This project engages stakeholders to identify operational feasibility, market potential, and barriers to access institutional markets.
Farmers will be engaged to assess the interest and potential supply of fluid milk to the processing facility. Activities including grant workshops and energy efficiency education will assist dairy farmers with maximizing their energy savings, allowing them to lower costs of production. Project activities will engage dairy farmers, academic researchers,agricultural trade and marketing organizations, farmer-owned cooperatives, and institutional buyers.
This project is supported by the USDA FSMIP program (#USDA-AMS-TM-FSMIP-G-19-0004).
This work is in collaboration the:
Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, Value-Added team at UMass, Farm to Institution New England (FINE), MA Farm to School, Our Family Farms, Williams College, MA Cheese Guild, Berkshire Grown, Sheffield Land Trust, Northeast Dairy, Farm Credit East