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Massachusetts farmers scrambling to sell crops after USDA funding cuts leave them without a buyer

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Massachusetts farmers scrambling to sell crops after USDA funding cuts leave them without a buyer


On a humid April afternoon at Wellspring Harvest in Springfield, Stanley Zalewski is in the midst of a rapid search for a backup plan to sell countless heads of lettuce and basil plants.

He doesn’t have a buyer for much of the upcoming summer harvest, as he was expecting.

This season, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut $1 billion in two federal grant programs that had helped schools and food hubs pay for locally produced food. That’s left Massachusetts farmers scrambling in an already difficult-to-sustain industry — while the schools, food hubs, food pantries and food banks who got those grants grapple with an unfillable gap in fresh, local food.

Zalewski, a part owner of the co-op that boasts the largest urban greenhouse in the state, would usually sell cases of the deep green leafy lettuce to local schools and food hubs.

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He’s quickly looking for buyers so he doesn’t end up losing money on wasted food. Zalewski said the business barely makes a profit, even with sales from the grants. Staff have been been meeting every week to brainstorm what to do next.

“I can’t sit here right now and tell you with confidence that we have a solution,” he said.

Since these cuts were announced in early March, farmers are considering worst-case scenarios including layoffs, loans, selling off assets and reduced hours for staff. Schools and food pantries plan to simply serve less fresh, local food to students and low-income residents.

“I feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath us.”

Harrison Bardwell, owner of Bardwell Farm in Hatfield

About 500 Massachusetts farmers have sold their products under these programs since 2022, with their local food going to 700 distribution sites, according to the state’s agricultural department.

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The USDA now says the $18 million earmarked for Massachusetts were pandemic-era grants that “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.” An agency spokesperson said in an emailed statement that it’s not an “abrupt shift.”

But Harrison Bardwell, owner of Bardwell Farm in Hatfield, said the cuts were very abrupt.

“I feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath us and we have to start over on a portion of our sales,” he said.

Bardwell usually sells about $250,000 in produce to partners who, in turn, are funded by that grant money. That’s about 20 to 30% of his overall business. “It’s a large void if we can’t fill it,” Bardwell said.

Bardwell said he’s considering cutting back on products, finding new markets and trying to get into co-ops and grocery stores.

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“We’re kind of in an unsettled moment of not knowing what to do next,” Bardwell said.

What this means for families and nonprofits

There are consequences on the buyers’ side, too. Like farmers, they’re struggling under the weight of the funding cuts — meaning those food organizations may shrink their staff, and households that indirectly rely on them might put less food — or less healthy food — on the table.

The Boston Area Gleaners spent more than $1 million in federal grant money with dozens of farms across the state, according to Dylan Frazier, director of operations and strategy. They spent more than $60,000 with Wellspring Harvest last year.

Now, the organization is facing layoffs and restructuring due to the cuts, and sourcing for food pantries and food banks will get tougher.

“It’s a lot of suffering,” he said.

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The greenhouse’s irrigation system waters a row of lettuce.


Alexi Cohan


GBH News

The Salem Food Pantry got $500,000 in funding that will dry up in May. The money went straight to local farmers and covered 600,000 pounds of food, mostly eggs and milk, according to spokeswoman Kia Fernandes.

“We currently do not have a way to replace this funding and are anticipating a serious reduction in the amount of food we can provide,” Fernandes said in an emailed statement.

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She said the pantry was planning to reapply for the grant next year, too. The Salem Food Pantry served 19,000 people in 2023 — nearly half of them seniors and children.

Schools can’t fill the gap either.

Littleton schools had spent their $10,000 in grant money to implement “Friday Try-Days” that encouraged students to try things like winter squash, spinach and mushrooms as well as self-serve produce stations that helped reduce their reliance on canned and frozen foods.

Coming into the 2025-2026 school year, the district was slated to receive even more grant funding — $25,000, according to the schools’ superintendent Kelly Clenchy.

The district will continue supporting local farmers with money from their general nutrition budget, but “it is realistic to expect that less food will be coming from our local family farmers,” Clenchy said in an email.

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What comes next

While farmers fight to keep their businesses alive, elected officials are fighting, too.

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is trying to fight the cuts with public pressure, legislation and potentially lawsuits.

McGovern told GBH News farmers are “holding on by their fingernails.” His district of Worcester has the most farms in the state.

“I’m doing everything I possibly can. I mean, I think this is outrageous. I think it’s immoral, quite frankly, what they’re doing,” McGovern said.

Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources Commissioner Ashley Randle is urging the federal Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, to honor all outstanding contracts to farmers.

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Randle described the programs as a “win-win-win” and a “gamechanger” for farmers since they began in 2022.

“It does have devastating impacts.” Randle said of the cuts. “So for one farm, it could really put them on the brink of going out of business because of those financial uncertainties.”

The official funding deadline for the two grant programs is May 6 — meaning that, for many farmers, their last purchases from this grant money may come next week.

Back in the greenhouse at Wellspring Harvest, Zalewski said he got a spot at the East Longmeadow farmers’ market. He’s considering selling a basil lemonade. He admits a couple hundred bucks of lemonade won’t make up for the thousands in lost grant sales, but it’s a start.

“It makes you feel helpless, right? Because it’s like: You can put your best foot forward … just to be completely curtailed by forces completely out of your control,” Zalewski said.

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Massachusetts

4 shot during World Cup watch party in Massachusetts

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4 shot during World Cup watch party in Massachusetts


Four people were shot on Friday night after hundreds had gathered to watch a World Cup match in Massachusetts.

Police said the shooting happened just before midnight on Main Street in Brockton.

Officers said the victims were taken to the hospital.

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Police have not said if there were any arrests.



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Man cited for alleged wrong-way deadly crash

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Man cited for alleged wrong-way deadly crash


BOSTON, (WPRI) — A somerset man has been cited for allegedly causing a deadly wrong-way crash in Boston late Saturday night.

Just before midnight, troopers from the H9 Barracks were called for a report of a multi-vehicle crash on I-93 North before Exit 15A.

A preliminary investigation showed that the driver of a 2004 Cadillac Escalade, identified as 81-year-old Antone Carvalho, of Somerset, entered Route 93 North at Exit 15B and drove southbound in the northbound lanes.

Two vehicles, a Honda Odyssey and an Audi A4, attempted to avoid the Carvalho and crashed into each other.

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Four people in the Honda Odyssey, were taken to a Boston-area hospital for evaluation.

Shortly after the initial crash, police say Carvalho collided head-on with a Chevrolet Cruze.

Carvalho and the other driver were taken to Boston-area hospitals for their injuries

The driver of the Chevrolet Cruze, identified as a man in his 20’s from Haverhill, died from his injuries.

Carvalho will be issued a summons to appear in court at a later date.

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8 Picture-Perfect Main Streets In Massachusetts

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8 Picture-Perfect Main Streets In Massachusetts


Norman Rockwell painted Stockbridge so often that the real Main Street now looks like one of his canvases come to life. That is the trick these Massachusetts towns pull off. A whaling-era cobblestone lane on Nantucket and a Revolutionary common in Concord do the same thing in different accents. Each one packs its best landmarks into a few blocks you can cover on foot. The eight New England streets here all sit under 50,000 residents and earn their reputation the honest way.

Stockbridge

Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Fewer than 2,000 people live in Stockbridge, yet its Main Street may be the most recognizable in the state. Credit Norman Rockwell, who lived here and painted the view down the street so many times it lodged in the national memory. The white clapboard buildings, the old inns, and the big shade trees are all still right where he left them, and people still use them.

The Red Lion Inn has welcomed guests on this corner since 1773, and its long front porch is the street’s anchor in every sense. A short walk away, the Norman Rockwell Museum holds the largest collection of his work and even his relocated studio. Naumkeag adds a Gilded Age cottage with terraced gardens climbing the hillside. Come December, the town recreates Rockwell’s famous “Main Street at Christmas” scene with vintage cars parked along the curb, which is about as close as a real place gets to stepping into a painting.

Lenox

Downtown street in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Downtown street in Lenox, Massachusetts. Image credit Richard Cavalleri via Shutterstock

Edith Wharton built her dream house just outside Lenox, and the writer’s eye for proportion seems to have rubbed off on the whole town. The center is small enough to park once and walk, with bookshops, cafes, and galleries shoulder to shoulder under the trees. Under 10,000 people live here, and the place wears its Berkshire elegance lightly.

The Mount, Wharton’s 1902 estate, runs as a house museum and public garden and hosts readings and outdoor events all summer. Ventfort Hall, a Jacobean-style mansion built for a sister of J.P. Morgan, fills in more of the Gilded Age story. Just up the road, Tanglewood draws crowds every July and August as the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, so a quiet shopping street can be ten minutes from a world-famous concert lawn. Few towns this size balance that kind of culture against that little traffic.

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Concord

Main Street in the historic town center of Concord, Massachusetts.
Main Street in the historic town center of Concord, Massachusetts.

On April 19, 1775, the shot heard round the world was fired a short walk from where Concord shoppers now buy their morning coffee. That is the strange gift of this town. Its pretty village center sits below 20,000 residents, and its old houses, churches, and civic buildings look calm until you remember what happened among them.

Minute Man National Historical Park preserves the battle road and the fields where colonial militia turned back British regulars. Old North Bridge marks the spot itself, with Daniel Chester French’s Minute Man statue standing guard. Concord also raised more than its share of writers, and Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, where she wrote “Little Women,” still opens for tours. Two miles south, Walden Pond holds the woods Thoreau made famous, an easy swim or walk that closes the loop between the town’s history and its quieter ideas.

Marblehead

Marblehead, Massachusetts: Sites of historical homes and buildings in historical downtown district.
Marblehead, Massachusetts: Sites of historical homes and buildings in the historical downtown district. Dee Browning via Shutterstock

The streets in Marblehead’s Old Town were laid out for foot traffic and fishing nets, not cars, so they bend and narrow and dead-end at the water. The town tops 20,000 residents now, but the historic core feels far older and more intimate. Washington Street and the lanes around it run past brick sidewalks and preserved houses, with the harbor flashing into view between rooftops.

The Jeremiah Lee Mansion, a grand Georgian house built in 1768 for the wealthiest merchant in colonial Massachusetts, still keeps its original hand-painted English wallpaper. Old Burial Hill rises above town with weathered colonial gravestones and one of the best harbor views around. Abbot Hall, the brick town hall with the clock tower, houses the original “Spirit of ’76” painting. Walk the waterfront and the reason for the whole town becomes obvious. Marblehead grew up facing the sea, and it never turned away.

Newburyport

Downtown Newburyport, Massachusetts
Downtown Newburyport, Massachusetts. Image credit Heidi Besen via Shutterstock

Federal-era sea captains built their fortunes at the mouth of the Merrimack, and their three-story brick blocks still line the streets of downtown Newburyport. The Main Street feeling here spreads across several streets rather than one. Under 20,000 residents keep the center humming, with shops and restaurants filling old facades right down to the riverbank.

Market Square and State Street form the heart of it, a tight grid of brick that survived a great fire and a wave of 1970s urban renewal to come out the other side intact. The Custom House Maritime Museum, set in a granite 1835 building, tells the port’s seafaring story. Waterfront Park gives you a bench and a view of the boats. A few miles out on Plum Island, the Parker River refuge at Joppa Flats turns the same trip into prime birdwatching, so a downtown afternoon can end with herons instead of storefronts.

Rockport

Rockport, Massachusetts.
Rockport, Massachusetts. Editorial credit: Starmaro / Shutterstock.com.

A plain red fishing shack on a granite pier may be the most painted building in America, and it sits right in Rockport’s harbor. Locals call it Motif No. 1, after an art teacher who got tired of seeing his students paint it. The town runs under 10,000 residents and folds its best parts into a few tight blocks by the water.

Main Street leads to Bearskin Neck, a skinny peninsula crammed with galleries, candy shops, and lobster shacks that ends with the open Atlantic. Front Beach puts sand and water within a short stroll of the shops. The Shalin Liu Performance Center, opened in 2010, built a concert hall with a wall of glass behind the stage, so the ocean becomes the backdrop for a string quartet. You can wander from a storefront to a harbor view to a gallery without ever breaking stride.

Great Barrington

Rustic brick buildings along Railroad Street in the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Rustic brick buildings along Railroad Street in the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Editorial credit: Albert Pego / Shutterstock.com

Great Barrington wired the first downtown in the world lit entirely by alternating current, back in 1886, and the place has kept that forward lean ever since. Under 10,000 residents fill a center that feels genuinely busy, with restaurants, bookstores, and galleries spread along Main Street and Railroad Street. It looks like an old Berkshire town and behaves like a young one.

The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, a restored 1905 theater, books films, concerts, and live broadcasts year-round. The Housatonic River Walk threads a half-mile greenway along the water right behind Main Street, the work of volunteers who spent decades clearing a once-polluted bank. Just outside town, Monument Mountain offers a short climb to a quartzite ridge and a long view over the Housatonic River valley, the same trail Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne hiked together in 1850.

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Nantucket

Main Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts
Main Street in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Image credit Mystic Stock Photography via Shutterstock.

Whaling money built Nantucket’s Main Street, and the cobblestones laid to keep wagon wheels out of the mud are still there to rattle your suitcase. The island stays well under 50,000 year-round residents even at the height of summer. Brick sidewalks, weathered shingles, and window boxes give the downtown the texture of an old port rather than a new outdoor mall.

The Whaling Museum, set in an 1847 candle factory, explains how a small island once lit the lamps of the world, right down to a full sperm whale skeleton. Brant Point Lighthouse marks the harbor entrance and ranks among the most photographed beacons in New England. Straight Wharf keeps the working waterfront within steps of the shops, and the Oldest House, built in 1686, anchors the streetscape in the island’s first century. Every detail down to the gray shingles seems to point back to the same seafaring story.

Massachusetts Main Streets Worth Slowing Down For

What ties these eight together is not a shared look but a shared honesty. Stockbridge and Lenox lean on Berkshire culture, Concord carries the weight of 1775, and Great Barrington keeps reinventing itself. Marblehead, Newburyport, Rockport, and Nantucket all grew up facing salt water and never lost the habit. The best Main Streets here are not stage sets. They are working downtowns that happen to be worth a long, slow look.



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