Welcome to the website for “Farm Values: Civic Agriculture at the Crossroads,” a project of Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust with humanities scholar Cathy Stanton.
The project, which will take place primarily in summer and fall of 2015, will develop histories of selected farm sites in a mini-region in north-central Massachusetts comprised of the towns of Warwick, Orange, Athol, Petersham, Barre, and Hardwick. These materials will serve as starting-points for both informal conversations and more focused discussion about the challenges faced by small-scale farmers in the area over a very long time span.
The project has several overlapping goals:
- to develop new historical knowledge about key sites within Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust’s extensive farmland protection efforts in its 23-town service region
- to engage new publics with farmland use and protection issues
- to add historical depth to ongoing civic and public efforts to strengthen the region’s agricultural economy.
Farm Values is funded by Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Image: Detail from Walling & Gray’s 1871 Railway & Township Map of Massachusetts
