GREENFIELD — State legislators, representatives from food access organizations across the state and local farmers weathered the wind and mud last week to tour Just Roots.
The food access organization’s co-executive directors gave about 20 visitors a tour through their farm, titled, “Food and Farms are Medicine.” Along the way, Co-Executive Directors Joshua Faller and Meryl LaTronica emphasized the necessity of collaboration to meet the political moment.
Just Roots’ Farm to Family program delivers fresh, local produce to families in need across the state with help from partners like World Farmers, Food for Free, Berkshire Bounty, Sustainable Cape and Nourishing the North Shore.
Before the tour, Program Manager Emily Chiara said Just Roots also donated 45,000 pounds of extra produce last year to local organizations like Stone Soup Café and the Center for Self-Reliance.
“Our number-one priority is to keep our community fed,” Chiara said. Referring to cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), she added, “This issue is deeply impacting our community and we’re stepping up to help out.”
Faller told attendees that the organization will forgive any SNAP contributions members of their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) are unable to pay this year.
“We know that that’s a drop in the bucket, but we’re making sure that people get fed here in Franklin County and across the state,” Faller said. “We want to bridge that gap, because we know people are going to go hungry.”
“What a moment to come together,” LaTronica said to the group outside the greenhouse, including Sen. Jo Comerford, Rep. Susannah Whipps, staff from Rep. Natalie Blais’s office, Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Recources (MDAR) Commissioner Ashley Randle, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein, Western Massachusetts Director Kristen Elechko from the governor’s office, Senior Director of Stategic Initiatives at MassHealth Gary Sing, Greenfield Mayor Ginny Desorgher, Greenfield Chief of Staff Erin Anhlat and representatives from Berkshire Bounty and World Farmers.
Sen Jo Comerford and Rep Susannah Whipps, at right, speak at a farm tour of Just Roots Farm in Greenfield on Oct. 31 PAUL FRANZ / Staff Photo 
Just Roots Co-Directors Meryl LaTronica and Joshua Faller speak in the renovatayed barn at a farm tour of Just Roots Farm in Greenfield on Oct. 31 PAUL FRANZ / Staff Photo 
Farmers, State and Local officials at a farm tour of Just Roots Farm in Greenfield on Oct. 31 PAUL FRANZ / Staff Photo
LaTronica guided visitors to the Community Garden, part of the Greenfield Community Farm, to share the organization’s “superhero origin story,” as she described it.
Before becoming an approved nonprofit in 2014, gardeners on Pleasant Street decided to together find more space to grow their gardens in 2008. Three years later, Just Roots was awarded a 15-year lease for 61 acres of Greenfield land. Together, the grassroots group dug out rocks and created their first garden bed, LaTronica told the tour group.
“The origin is really from community gardeners that wanted to grow food, that wanted to be self-sufficient, that wanted to do community work,” LaTronica explained.
Now, five tunnels of gardens stretch across the land. Tour visitors peeked inside to find bok choy, spring onions, arugula, lettuce and spinach. Flowers, peach palms, cherry tomatoes and a pollinator garden also fill the fields.
“Our focus is really abundance and beauty and making a really welcoming space for our community members to walk around,” Farm Manager Fran Kleinsteiber said.
Although LaTronica said the community garden does not sustain Just Roots, Faller said, “It’s been an incredible resource to address social isolation.” He recalled families stopping by to pick flowers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our focus is really abundance and beauty and making a really welcoming space for our community members to walk around
FRAN KLEINSTEIBER
As the tour group looked out at the fields, Faller told them Just Roots reinvests funding into the local food system to the tune of $900,000 last year, “duplicating the impact of the dollar.”
Next, visitors walked to the recently renovated barn. LaTronica shared the transformation from the barn’s beginnings as a corner of Just Roots reserved for raccoons when she first joined eight years ago. With funding from MDAR and other support, the floors no longer bounce and creak, and a custom cooler even sits in the barn for farmers and food access organizations like Berkshire Bounty and World Farmers to drop off fresh produce for the Farm to Family program.
Lacey Arnold, the wholesale manager at Warner Farm in Sunderland, described Just Roots as a purchaser she can trust.
“Consistent orders are ideal for farms — we know they’re going to order from us, we know they’re flexible if we have a problem with it, we know about how many people they have in their shares and how many they’re serving,” Arnold said. “It’s a very nice partnership.”
Attendees then experienced the day-to-day tasks behind the Farm to Family program for themselves, lining up to pack meat from local farms, including Reed Farm in Sunderland and Flag Farm in Gill.
While packing the meat into Farm to Family boxes, MDAR Commissioner Ashley Randle said she often leaves her office to visit farms and see MDAR’s investments in action.
“It brings everything full circle,” Randle said, before handing a meat package to Just Roots Farm Coordinator Tori Tenney.
Upstairs at the tour’s final stop, attendees checked out a typical Farm to Family package, complete with meat, vegetables, fruit, cookware and recipes. Faller explained the nutrition packed into these boxes to boost the health of families in need, including families at Boston Children’s Hospital.
After praising Just Roots’ partners like World Farmers and Berkshire Bounty, Faller said cooperation across communities must continue.
“Honestly, we don’t know what’s going to happen with the remainder of the years we have this administration,” Faller said. “All that said, we’re going to keep doing this hard work, and we need collaboration.”
