Brookwood Community Farm

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Brookwood Community Farm

One of the best things you can do for your planet is buy locally grown foods, as I was saying to members of the Boxborough Garden Club when I spoke to them yesterday. It does no good to buy organic food grown in California that has a huge carbon footprint from shipping.

I recently visited Brookwood Community Farm in Milton and was impressed that this is what we need more of. It was created in 2006 to build community through the endeavor of growing food. Co-founders Judy Lieberman and Mark Smith saw the potential of Brookwood Farm – a 75-acre dormant farm in the Blue Hills Reservation managed by the Dept. of Conservation and Recreation – to play a significant role in creating a more local and sustainable food system.

In early 2006, Lieberman and Smith met with then DCR Commissioner Stephen Burrington to lay out their vision of a farm operation on the Brookwood farm site that united the values of environmental and social justice. Burrington gave them the green light and one acre of land to see what they could grow.

In it’s first year, Lieberman, Smith and a handful of youth and volunteers grew food one acre. They initiated a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program -- a farming model in which farmers sell harvest shares directly to people in the local community before the seeds are ever sowed in the field. CSA’s provide farmers the capital they need to put the farm in operation. Farm members benefit by sharing in the farm’s bounty during harvest season, receiving a box of fresh vegetable every week.

Brookwood Community Farm operates as a non-profit organization because in addition to operating a CSA and selling at local farmers markets, its mission is also to improve access to fresh, organic food in nearby low-income neighborhoods.

Within months of planting the first seeds in the fields, Brookwood Community Farm was planting seeds of another variety in nearby urban neighborhood of Mattapan. Committed to ensuring that the organic food grown at Brookwood was accessible to all, Brookwood Community Farm initiated a conversation with residents of Mattapan to brainstorm together how Brookwood could meet the needs of Mattapan residents. The idea of a new farmers market was soon hatched, and in 2007 the market was launched.

Now in its fourth growing season, Brookwood is determined to build on its foundation and expand its vision. Brookwood thinks of sustainability in many ways–environmentally, socially, and economically. Because of its donations to local food pantries and its commitment to improving access to good food in poorer neighborhoods, Brookwood is challenged to build long term financial sustainability into its business plan. “If community health is a broad goal for society, and access to fresh food one of its central strategies, then we need the business, medical and philanthropic communities to support the work of local farms that are working toward that goal in concrete ways.”

Smith wrote me: “As Wendell Berry noted, what we choose to eat today will determine the future of the planet. Some of the most pressing challenges today (climate change, the need for renewable energy, rising obesity levels and related diseases, and protecting our land and water resources for future generations) intersect with local food systems. Brookwood Community Farm involves people in being part of the solutions to many of these issues.”