Massachusetts farmers scrambling

Stanley Zalewski picks a ripe bundle of romaine lettuce at the Wellspring Harvest greenhouse in Springfield, Massachusetts | Alexi Cohan  GBH News

Massachusetts farmers scrambling to sell crops after USDA funding cuts leave them without a buyer
Alexi Cohan | GBH News

May 01, 2025 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 unifiable gap in fresh, local food.... read more