A Visit to New Song Farm in Enfield, MA
A Visit to New Song Farm in Enfield, MA
In honor of National Farmers Market Week, the farmers market team at MFM would like to present an account of our very own BJ Daniel’s experience attending the 6th Annual Tour de Farm at the World Farmers Organization a few weeks ago.
I recently had the wonderful privilege of visiting New Song Farm, part of World Farmers’ Flats Mentor program, who have been participating at all three of MFM’s farmers markets for many years now. I was eager to see the source of their delicious and unique vegetables. Flats Mentor Farm as a whole consists of 70 acres, framed by a river, and farmed by more than 350 Immigrant and Refugee farmers. Tour de Farm is an opportunity for World Farmers to pause operations and showcase their accomplishments with speeches and gratitudes, all while celebrating the season’s bounty.
New Song Farm is one of the largest farms on the property. Farmers Nou and Song have raised 9 children here in Massachusetts and what binds them all together on top of their love and devotion to each other is their farm. Their extended family, some now living away from Massachusetts, all pitch in to help out at the farm and farmers markets.
During my tour of the farm, I also had a chance to learn the gloriously full-circle founding story of the World Farmers Organization from Maria Moreira, who had just handed the baton as Executive Director to Henrietta Isaboke. Ms. Isaboke had been a young child years ago when her family moved to the Lancaster area from Kenya. She was walking near Ms. Moreira’s farm with her mother and siblings when her mother instructed her to knock on Ms. Moreira’s door to see if it would be ok for them to pick some of the “weeds'' in her yard. Those “weeds'' were actually Green Amaranth, a delicious and treasured vegetable that reminded the family of their first home in Kenya. Ms. Moreira was more than happy to share her “weeds”with this lovely family.
Days went by with the family collecting the amaranth until Ms. Isaboke’s mother finally just outright asked if she could farm for herself on some of Ms. Moreira’s land. Ms. Moreira eagerly said yes and thus the proverbial seed was planted for an organization that now provides invaluable farmland and infrastructure in addition to a mentoring program which trains its farmer participants in marketing and production, seed saving and resource sharing.
Flats Mentor Farm is a space for small immigrant and refugee farmers to grow culturally relevant, delicious and marketable produce for their families, for farmers markets, and many other retail markets throughout New England. What started as a small act of generosity blossomed into fundamental access to land and for these immigrant farmers “a safe space to learn from their neighbors, feed their families, heal, rebuild their cultural foundations’ and teach the next generation all that agriculture can provide.”
We are honored to work with such an important organization and by extension all the hardworking individuals at New Song Farm. We ask that you help us celebrate National Farmers Market Week both by shopping at our farmers markets and thus supporting our mission at MFM as well as supporting the great work being done at the World Farmers organization.
Cam, BJ, Lizzie & the entire team at Mass Farmers Markets