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Press about Many Hands Organic Farm

100% local food in Massachusetts?

Kyle Alspach
local is better
January 11th, 2010

If Massachusetts residents wanted it badly enough, all food in the state could be local food. That's the conviction of Julie Rawson, a longtime organic farmer and executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA/Mass.) "If everyone took part in raising their own food, we could totally shift things," said Rawson, who has run the Many Hands Organic Farm, a mixed crop and animal operation, in Barre for more than two decades with her husband, Jack Kittredge.

A taste of reality: Local food movement requires reduced expectations

Steven H. Foskett Jr.
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
December 21st, 2009

For Armsby Abbey owner Alec Lopez, educating a customer at the Main Street craft brew bar and restaurant about eating sustainable and locally sourced food can be done by using as an example something as simple as an unassuming tomato.

Record number of organic farmers expected in Mass.

Mark Pratt
The Associated Press
August 8th, 2009

BOSTON -- Barbara Wefing has been growing fruits and vegetables organically for nearly 60 years, ever since she kept most of the seed packets she was supposed to sell for her elementary school's fundraiser. But despite decades of experience, the 65-year-old Morristown, N.J., woman readily acknowledges she still has plenty to learn as she looks forward to this weekend's Northeast Organic Farming Association conference in Amherst.

Barre Farm Resident Makes MSNBC Top Ten; Filmmakers and photographer descend upon organic fields in Central MA

Julie Rawson
Many Hands Organic Farm
July 31st, 2009

This summer it has been easy being green and seen if you are a frog in the fields at Many Hands Organic Farm located at 411 Sheldon Road in Barre MA. Photographers as well as filmmakers turned to the long-time organic agricultural operation and its farmers for inspiration to fuel a host of projects currently underway.

Squealing on swine flu culprit: As I See It

Jack Kittredge
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
May 22nd, 2009

Although the current outbreak of swine flu is being treated as an epidemic rather than a food safety problem, it has its roots in the failure of global production agriculture to raise food in a healthy manner. The increasing reliance on large factory farms has repeatedly resulted in disease outbreaks affecting large numbers of people.

Organic farmers say time is ripe for them: Local alternative called safer, cheaper

Craig S. Semon
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
January 19th, 2009

With our country's economic woes and the growing perception that our ecosystem is out of whack, organic farming might make more sense more than ever - at least that's the consensus of the state chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association.

Feds prodding farmers to tag and track animals

Jay Fitzgerald
Boston Herald
September 5th, 2007

Even Noah didn't have to count every single farm animal in existence before the floods floated away his critter-filled ark. But the federal government is prodding states to encourage farmers to register and tag with computer chips every cow, sheep, chicken, goat, turkey and other livestock on their premises.

Down to earth; Many Hands Organic Farm dedicated to community

Frank Magiera
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
February 28th, 2007

Even in the dead of winter, Julie Rawson's greenhouse is literally a garden salad. Lush green leaves of lettuce and spinach sprout from beds of loam to kiss the humid air warmed only by the sun, or on this particular day, just the gray specter of daylight mustered by a drizzly December afternoon.

Barre organic farm still reaping harvest: Produce feeding the multitudes

Bradford L. Miner
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
October 6th, 2005

Barre - Many backyard gardeners have already enjoyed the final harvest of the season, but that's not so at Many Hands Organic Farm on Sheldon Road. Shopping bags of greens, root crops and traditional fall vegetables are still being filled weekly with the bounty of a two-acre parcel that Jack Kittredge and Julie Rawson have organically cultivated for nearly 25 years.