Kaliis, Monte, and Claire visit with fourth-generation farmer, Bud Ellison, of Ellison Farms Beef in Ludlow. He and his son, Zach, run about 70 cattle on their family land. Ellison breeds Angus and Hereford cattles to produce “Black Baldies.”

Ellison talks about how the farm is run much the way it was by his grandfathers, “We do things the old-fashioned way. We buy our own bulls, we buy high quality. We scour the countryside and Canada. We buy only high, high quality bulls. We’ve had the Grand National champion of Canada’s son here, and then we help other farms. We’ll cycle that bull around, because when the bull has nothing else to do, he’s gonna look for something to do to get in trouble. He’s 2000 lbs, so he can win most battles with fences and barn walls and all that.”

Listen in to hear more about the secret lives of beef cattle, raised right here in Hampden County.

Catch this week’s #localherospotlight on NEPM! Monte, Kaliis, and Claire visit David Machowski, of the Amherst Farmers’ Market. The gang speaks with Machowski while he receives a delivery from the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts at the food pantry at the First Baptist Church in Amherst.

With forty years of experience managing the Amherst Farmer’s Market, Machowski. They discuss the history of the market and how this year they are offering a new winter market at the Bang’s Community Center. The winter market has music to inspire holiday cheer.

The winter sessions are Saturdays in December, 2025, 10am-2pm. December 20th will be their last winter market of the season.

Photos courtesy of NEPM.

Warren and Will McKinstry

McKinstry Farms has been growing strong in Chicopee since 1908. Will and Warren McKinstry are the next generation stewarding the family farm under the guidance of their parents, Bill and Nicole McKinstry. Will manages growing operations in the field and greenhouse, while Warren oversees the farm store.

This year brought structural improvements to the farm, including removal of railroad tracks, an enlarged parking lot, and a half-acre greenhouse that was funded through Massachusetts Food Security Infrastructure Grant program. Growing indoors allows the farm to offer fresh lettuce, herbs, cherry tomatoes, and peppers despite the winter weather.

Listen to this episode of the #LocalHeroSpotlight on NEPM.

This week the gang heads to the wilds of Chesterfield to visit with Rachel and Tevis Robertson-Goldberg, of Crabapple Farm. Snuggled in the Berkshire foothills, Chesterfield is between Northampton and Pittsfield, positioning the farm to serve farmers’ markets in both towns. Longstanding advocates for SNAP & HIP Rachel and Tevis reflect on the many changes in food access over the last year. Hear about their soft yarn favored by knitters and their philosophical approach to raising meat.

Photos courtesy of NEPM

This week, Kaliis, Jennifer, and Monte visit Wellspring Harvest Co-op in Indian Orchard. They talk with Fred Rose, co-director of the Wellspring Cooperative, and Clive Ndlvu, production manager of the Wellspring Greenhouse.

The hydroponic greenhouse is located in the Indian Orchard neighborhood of Springfield, where they grow five types of lettuce. Wellspring Harvest sells through Big Y and other area markets.

Wellspring is a family of cooperative businesses that creates sustainable economic opportunities for Springfield residents. Through jobs with on-the-job training and pathways to ownership, they empower individuals to build wealth and stability.

CISA staff photos.

“Getting local meat on the plate is so much harder than other meat,” says Kate Stillman, owner of Stillman Quality Meats in Hardwick. Recognizing the challenges for local meat farmers, Stillman embarked on a journey to build a new USDA-inspected smokehouse and processing facility. Adding a local processing option will enable many other local farms to make the products and capitalize on timing for selling their products.

They have spent the last three years collaborating with regional farmers, food advocates, and agricultural professionals to design a facility that truly meets the needs of our larger local food system. The facility is a large project, with Stillman receiving technical support from CISA and Berkshire Agricultural Ventures (BAV).

“By building this facility, we’re talking about investing in rural communities. Hardwick is an incredibly rural community. This facility offers highly skilled, high-paying jobs, year-round jobs right here in Hardwick. That didn’t exist in farming when I started out.”

To learn more about Kate Stillman and her family farm: https://www.buylocalfood.org/valley-bounty-stillman-quality-meats/

To learn more about this project or to pledge support for the crowdfunding campaign:

Help Bring Our USDA Processing Facility To Life

Pig photo courtesy of Stillman Quality Meats; interview photo courtesy of NEPM.

Carol Hillman of New Salem Cider talks with Claire, Monte, and Kaliis about their family farm, apples, cider, and hard cider in honor of Cider Days.

Hillman shares how they acquired the overgrown orchard in 1968, but she and her husband had a vision of what it could be. “It was a beautiful opportunity to bring good food–good apples–back to western Massachusetts.” She continues, “Really the beauty of this particular piece of land is staggering to me every day.”

The hard cider is relatively new–the farm is in their fourth year pressing hard cider. Hillman says,  “It’s so interesting to me that hard cider is what brings the people. I don’t care what brings the people, as long as they get out in nature, have a few moments of repose with their friends and family, bring a picnic and just sit here for a while.”

98-year-old Hillman is a teacher, and sees the farm as a place for learning. “The farm has been a place for kids and parents to learn. It’s a place to learn a work ethic and how to look to the land and learn to take care of it.”

Photos courtesy of NEPM.

October is Farm to School month, and is celebrated both nationally and statewide. The team talks with Abby Getman Skillicorn, Special Projects Manager of Massachusetts Farm to School, and Mistelle Hannah, Nutrition Director of Freshampton, the school nutrition program of Northampton Public Schools.

Many local schools currently receive this support through existing grant programs, like the Local Food for Schools Grant, that awarded $3.5M in 2023 to the Bay State, and was cancelled this year with the new administration. Our state legislature has passed a bill in the Senate to codify a formal farm-to-school program, to permanently establish a local food incentive and rebate for schools to purchase ingredients from local farms.

Says Getman Skillicorn, “Farm to school is a holistic methodology that needs the classroom, the cafeteria, and the community (CCC) to be really successful.” Hannah shares how the Northampton Public School system receives the Mass Fresh grant, and integrates these three C’s with monthly taste tests. They offer in-classroom nutrition education with hands-on exercises, like making tea bags, grinding wheat into flour to make dough, or harvesting tomatoes to make sauce. Students visit the farm at Grow Food Northampton, start hydroponic towers, and start seeds as community partners support students.

This episode aired on 10/22/25

Farmer Clark is a young farmer in Hampden, MA, who just started farming his own land through the  Massachusetts Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) Program.

A graduate of Smith Vocational School (and current advisory team member for agricultural program), Farmer Clark has his sights set on being a steward of the farmland he tends by improving his soils’ fertility and productivity. He sells fruits, vegetables, nursery plants, livestock, poultry & more that is grown onsite or locally sourced at his two farm stands in Hampden & Monson, MA.

Listen to the whole story here:

This segment aired on NEPM’s #localherospotlight on 10/8/25. Photos courtesy of NEPM.

Claire, Monte, and Kaliis visit with Sue Kosinski at Kosinski Farms and Farmstand in Westfield. A classic New England farm stand, the harvest season is on full display with pumpkins, hay bales, mums, apples, and a bakery full of donuts, pies, and cider.

The farm encompasses over 100 acres of apple orchard, blueberries, and fields of mixed produce and flowers. The farm stand houses a bakery and the family’s winery, Raven Hollow Winery, is adjacent to the farm stand parking lot.

Sue and her husband, Gene, were both science teachers, in addition to inheriting the farming heritage from their respective families. Sustainability is important to the family, and so they till only when necessary, and their greenhouse is heated by corn.

Their children found inspiration in music and family history for the taglines to accompany their lines of business. For instance, “North Country Blues” is a song by Bob Dylan, and their son adapted that song as a reference to their 75 acres of blueberry fields. Raven Hollow Winery is the farm’s winery that puts their excess fruit to good use. The name stemmed from research on the family name by Sue and Gene’s son, Ed. The name Kosinski means “lives with blackbirds” and the family decided on the Raven.

Photos courtesy of NEPM & CISA files.