Photo above: Kalyan and Seva pose proudly with their diversified nut orchard at Nutwood Farm in Cummington, Massachusetts. Winter 2018. Credit for all photos: Mark Phillips
IN THE SPRING of 2017, 35 people gathered at Back the Lane Farm in Stephentown, New York, for a workshop with Mark Shepard, author of Restoration Agriculture, to witness the design and implementation of a permaculture inspired chestnut and hazelnut orchard. As the founder of New Forest Farm in Viola, Wisconsin — a commercial scale, perennial agricultural ecosystem that mimics the native ecology of its Wisconsin bioregion — Shepard has served as resource and inspiration for farmers aspiring to use agroforestry, or the intentional cultivation of trees, as a vehicle for ecological restoration and financial profitability. Our story highlights the work of three diversified tree farms in the Hudson valley area, united by the bold vision that chestnuts and hazelnuts can one day be the staple food of the Northeast region and beyond.
As woody perennials that produce nuts year after year without the annual tillage required of grains and vegetables, chestnuts and hazelnuts are ecosystem services providers par excellence–reclaiming degraded landscapes while sequestering carbon in topsoil and plant biomass.
With the temperatures dropping and the lush green of summer beginning to fade from the hills into the muted and brilliant crisp colors of fall, we have held steady in our persistence, day by day, block by block. This past season has served us up plenty of humble pie as we learn, slowly and many times over, what it really takes to accomplish big dreams.
Which is to say: everything in its own time.
After a beautiful yet very wet June, we finally managed to prep and pour the foundation for our new barn in July only to grapple with the monolithic task of laying 396 cement blocks for our inner thermal wall. This week, we topped the eighteenth course with its final layer of sand, rebar and concrete, and celebrated for a few glorious moments before dashing out into the looming thunderstorm to gather fallen pears from a neighbor’s road side tree. Spiced pear sauce, anyone?
With our impressive many-lithic wall finally behind us, our attention is turning eagerly to the pile of lumber that will soon become the walls and rafters of our now internet famous unique multi-purpose nut farm structure. When helping hands come at just the right moments, and support from the sidelines reenergizes our mental state, all doubts and delays melt away leaving determination in its place! This barn is going up! Perhaps not as quickly or easily as we imagined, yet these steep learning curves have only enhanced the significance of this work for us. One cannot haste through life’s lessons on sequence and time. There is a rhythm of observing, planning, working, and assessing; no amount of force will speed up or pass by a critical phase in the cycle. And then there is heat, and rain, jobs and commitments, visits from old friends and social gatherings on the hill, not to mention the rhythm of ourselves and our own need to rest, to heal, and to take care of our being.
It is finding some semblance of balance between self-care, oikonomia, and economy that has been our most pertinent challenge these last few months. With so much still hanging on our plans for the future, weathering the slowness or soreness or minutia of the day can take its toll, on both body and being. We are learning to create and give each other more space and support, and – most of all – to acknowledge that each step is likely to be more complicated and take far longer than we anticipate. But the truth is that it is all okay – we have so much to be grateful for that to not notice what we have for want of what we don’t (yet) would be intolerable. Cultivating the equanimous joy that comes with the ache of impermanence is part of the path we walk. And one day we will look back on it all and just smile.
After spending two full days at the Slow Living Summit in Brattleboro with other food, agriculture, and permaculture entrepreneurs, we are walking away with some keen insights and incisive questions to add to our farm business meetings – a.k.a. dinner table conversations.
First, slow money. As high-risk farmer-entrepreneurs who aim to measure our true success by the amount of top soil we grow, we don’t appeal to most traditional forms of business financing. Despite the wealth and class privilege associated with “slow _____,” we find our values reaffirmed by those who feel compelled to invest their cream back into the crop; who understand what it means to turn money back into soil and why. Slow Money and other more enlightened investors advocate for wealth generation that goes beyond money and profit maximization, and frequently manifests in other forms of capital like social, cultural, and experiential capital.
That said, those with the “cream to spare” who are actually ready to make this shift aren’t so easy to find, as most of us are deeply entrenched in particular posits that self-perpetuate. Of course, what we really need is to redesign the whole system to “turn on affection” as Wendell Berry would say.
Enter Raj Sisodia, co-founder of the Conscious Capitalism philosophy, who is trying to reframe business as an ethical, noble, and progressive way to elevate humanity. Imagine that. His surprising optimism and narrative of world economic history up to and after 1989 (a very pivotal year) is compelling. It’s a “turn this around because we must–and because we can” argument, because (we know) it’s not working status quo, because people are unhappy and stressed out and dying unnecessarily, from both poverty and aspirations of limitless affluence. In an age when capitalism is literally the word we spit out as we make the sign against evil, we both still have to come to terms with what it means to start a farm, even a nut farm, and be an entrepreneur without confronting a constant clash of values and concessions. We can create value–economic value included–and be of enormous benefit to our environment and community well being. We can/must have BOTH/AND. There is so much more to life than money and material wealth, and we must find a way to evolve from consumptive trumpster fire caterpillars to ethereal cross-pollinating flutterbys.
So we land with economic sufficiency, with what it means to have a business that adequately nourishes and sustains us AND gives back more value to our community than it takes. It is the Principle of Enough. We were inspired by a worker-owned cooperative near us that has committed to being and remaining small, Northeast grown and distributed, and disincentivizing future options to sell off because they are in the business of human beings, of ethical and equitable products that meet the multidimensional needs of the community for good, satisfying work. We love this model, because this is first and foremost a labor of love. We do what we do because we care – about people, about re-embedding, about aspiring to higher ways of being and cultivating community. Even if we completely fail financially, we will still have something of great value to offer. We are part of a growing movement of entrepreneurs not motivated by profit, but by the possibility of creating good lives and livelihoods, and leaving a legacy of humic magnanimity!
If you are moved by these reflections, we need to know you. The world’s current hurdles are entirely surmountable with a little dose of inspiration and long-term vision. Ideas we have plenty – this life just needs a little more cream in order to churn into butter(nuts) and gold(enseal). We are open to all avenues of funding and financing support, and will happily articulate our needs to anyone who wants to hear it. We’re ready for you!
Post-Post Update: we have just posted our call out for regenerative community investors – for more information about our big project, check out the pitch!
The good thing about having already done the seemingly impossible is that everything else feels like it has to be more manageable by default!
Last year our 2,450 ft 11-row swale installation and planting of 450+ fruit and nut trees and shrubs was only possible because we didn’t know it wasn’t! This year, we have the far more attainable task of digging two more swales and planting a little over 200 new young trees. Still, new challenges lay ahead of us: keeping up with the vigorous brambles and regrowth, diversifying our plantings, building our greenhouse/barn, and starting the foundation work for our house.
With two work parties already behind us we are well positioned to sail through our second spring, thanks to the help and motivation of neighbors and friends, new and old. We hope the spring rains come gently interspersed with some good sun and breeze so the backhoe doesn’t get too stuck in the mud! With a little luck, focus and determination, we’ll be well positioned for a fabulous second year full of new experiments, ideas, mishaps, and stories for the history books. Happy May Day everyone!
In less than a week, you have helped us surpass our campaign funding goal! What happens when you fear your expectations are too high, and then you find out they weren’t high enough? We are in awe. We’ve experienced some beautiful things in our lives, but this is pure fire. We have what we need now, not just in dollars, but in strength, conviction, and hope to continue down this path. Who needs banks when you have community!
Your investment in our work is what makes this real. This is not just dreamwork, this is real food, real wisdom, and real power. Without you, it wouldn’t be the same. Regenerative agriculture is about land, but it is also about people changing the way we see and interact with land together. We are so excited to dig into this work, and share our journey with you!
Thank you for your kindness, your generosity, your support. Our gratitude is vast and unspeakable.
First organic, then sustainable, now regenerative?
Language is powerful. We are always searching for better ways to express ourselves and frame our actions – sometimes we seem to reach the limits of our language, and other times we manage to birth a whole new cosmos in a single word.
Regenerative Farming is like that. Imagine: a practice that actually yields more than the sum of its inputs with each passing year; that builds soil fertility, increases organic matter, deepens topsoil, and sequesters carbon WHILE providing a diverse and complete nutritional food source; that turns farming back into a complex mutual relationship with the land and its many intertwined inhabitants; and that revitalizes land, community, local economies, and regional governance so that we can once again enjoy both the rights and responsibilities therein.
Our understanding of the fundamental laws of nature and the role of human beings within it has come nearly full circle to the wisdom of our indigenous ancestors as we emulate the Sankofa bird from Ghana: feet firmly planted forward, looking to the wisdom of the past, with the seed of the future grasped tenderly in our mouths.
We have already re-learned that excellent fertility is inherent in soil that is unmolested. And we re-affirmed the need to stop compromising the lives of future generations with extractive and wasteful practices. Now, finally, we are re-discovering a sense of ‘our place in the family of things,’ recognizing our distinctive capacity to heal the land and create the conditions conducive to more life, more diversity, and more abundance. To us, regenerative means all of this and more. It is a world emerging out of subversive resistance into enlivening potentialities.
Here at Nutwood Farm, we are seeking to embody regenerative practices on our land, in our business, with our community, and through our relationships. We want to heal the rifts in our minds, our society and our culture and incorporate the great wisdom of the past into a more just and resilient future.
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* Friends, this is the final week of our crowd-funding campaign! *
Our journey has been full of gracious humility and raw excitement. If you have been watching and waiting to join in, now is your chance to do it! With 123 amazing backers and over $7,600 raised, our feet (and our trees!) are firmly planted forward.
Cummington pair look to pioneer nut farming in Western Mass.
Sara Tower points out catkins, the male flowers, on a hazelnut tree last week at Nutwood Farm in Cummington. GAZETTE STAFF/Carol Lollis– Buy this Image
By NICOLE DEFEUDIS
For the Hampshire Gazette
Feb 7, 2017
CUMMINGTON — When Sara Tower began farming about eight years ago, she worked mostly with vegetables, which is typical of many farmers in the area. Next fall, though, she and her partner will harvest a crop that is new to western Massachusetts — nuts.
Last year, Tower and Kalyan Uprichard, co-owners of Nutwood Farm in Cummington, planted 350 nut trees on their 8-acre farm. By 2026, they expect to harvest 10,000 pounds of nuts, including chestnuts, walnuts and hazelnuts.
“We’re changing the food system,” Tower said.
Tower and Uprichard’s goal is to introduce the practice of nut farming, a regenerative form of agriculture, to western Massachusetts. They anticipate planting 200 additional trees this spring and more over the next four years.
“We’re excited to try this out, be the guinea pigs and see what works,” Tower said.
Tower and Uprichard were inspired to delve into the business of nut farming after reading about regenerative agriculture, or farming that builds healthy soil. Uprichard has been in farming for three years, but this is his first commercial venture.
According to Tower, perennial plants are beneficial to the soil, which gives nut farming its appeal.
While researching perennial plants, Uprichard said, “We realized there aren’t any nuts commercially growing in our state.” So, the pair decided to take on the endeavor.
The downside is that the nuts take years before they are ready to harvest and Tower speculates that is why nut farming is not popular here.
Chestnuts and walnuts can take six to eight years before they are harvested for the first time, according to Tower. Hazelnuts generally take three years.
“It’s definitely a long-term kind of venture,” she said.
Once the trees are finally nut-bearing, though, they can be harvested every year, said Uprichard.
Next fall, Tower and Uprichard will collect 50 to 100 pounds of hazelnuts from trees they planted last spring.
Ten years from now, this harvest amount is expected to multiply. “One of the whole things about nut trees (is that) the older they get, the bigger they get and the more nuts they produce,” Tower said.
Hazelnut trees typically grow to be 10 to 15 feet tall. Walnut and chestnut trees, on the other hand, can extend up to 60 or 80 feet, Tower said. When the nuts are ripe in the fall, she explained, they drop to the ground. Tower and Uprichard count on their land to be covered in nuts in the coming years.
Currently, nut trees occupy one and a half acres of the land at Nutwood Farm. Tower and Uprichard hope to eventually expand to five acres of nut trees.
Hazelnut trees, the primary crop at Nutwood Farm, will be planted in groups called “plantings.” So far, the partners have planted one planting at the farm. They plan to set out five plantings over the next five years, according to Uprichard. When a planting reaches about six years old, he said, the trees in that planting will be coppiced. This, Tower explained, involves cutting the tree right down to the ground so it can sprout new roots again.
“I’ve never done nut farming before, so I’m definitely learning a lot as we go,” Tower said.
When they harvest their first major round of nuts, Tower and Uprichard plan to bring their bounty to local farmers markets. Some work will go into preparing the nuts for sale. For example, hazelnuts need to be dehusked and cracked, Tower explained.
In a decade, when the farm’s yield is much higher, Tower said, they may consider selling nuts wholesale to restaurants or bakeries.
“We’re hoping to also inspire and help other people incorporate nuts into their operations,” she said.
To help the development of nut processing and storage on Nutwood Farm, Tower and Uprichard have launched a crowdfunding campaign. They also held a launch party over the past weekend where they screened the film, “Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective,” at the Cummington Community House. About 100 people attended the filming, Uprichard said.
“We’re really excited about getting out there and letting people know what we’re doing and hopefully getting some support,” Tower said.
Sara Tower and Kalyan Uprichard walk their nut plantation at Nutwood Farm in Cummington last week. Nut trees occupy 1.5 acres of the farm at present; they hope to expand that to 5 acres. GAZETTE STAFF/Carol Lollis– Buy this Image
Sara Tower and Kalyan Uprichard with their planted nut trees on their farm, Nutwood Farm in Cummington. GAZETTE STAFF/Carol Lollis– Buy this Image
Sara Tower and Kalyan Uprichard with their planted nut trees on their farm, Nutwood Farm in Cummington. GAZETTE STAFF/Carol Lollis– Buy this Image
A Hazelnut tree with Catkins, the male flowers, on a nut tree farm owned by Sara Tower and Kalyan Uprichard in Cummington. GAZETTE STAFF/Carol Lollis– Buy this Image
Sara Tower and Kalyan Uprichard with their planted nut trees on their farm, Nutwood Farm in Cummington. GAZETTE STAFF/Carol Lollis – Buy this Image
Sara Tower and Kalyan Uprichard uncover one of their stone pine trees that will eventually bear pine nuts at Nutwood Farm, their farm in Cummington, last week. GAZETTE STAFF/Carol Lollis – Buy this Image
Sara Tower and Kalyan Uprichard with their planted nut trees on their farm, Nutwood Farm in Cummington. GAZETTE STAFF/Carol Lollis – Buy this Image
Sara Tower and Kalyan Uprichard uncover one of their stone pine trees that will eventually bear pine nuts at Nutwood Farm, their farm in Cummington, last week. GAZETTE STAFF/Carol Lollis – Buy this Image
environment and community well being. We can/must have BOTH/AND. There is so much more to life than money and material wealth, and we must find a way to evolve from consumptive trumpster fire caterpillars to ethereal cross-pollinating flutterbys.
