My family and I have a farm-scale
permaculture project in central Massachusetts. Over the past year and a bit, the
local food security vulnerabilities have been laid bare. I know that's now a phenomenon specific to our area. We lost all of our restaurant business - which is to say ALL of our business. So we pivoted to serving the community of families in our area with the food we grew. We gave it away. Almost all of it. I think we took in less than $1000 on the season. But it shifted our focus to making our own community more food secure. We live in a rural food desert. I started a group to connect local farmers and the folks in our state - we're small, only about 500 members. We offered CSA shares and got 5. We planted 1.5 acres in veg again this year. We're starting a food co-operative that features foods grown or produced in our area. But
raw milk is a sticky wicket here in Massachusetts. It can only be sold on-farm. We can't bring someone else's raw milk to
sell here. And we happen to have a tiny herd of
dairy goats... So we thought to convert the old cow dairy building for goats and later, sheep.
And we thought maybe we could help other folks in the meantime by offering a way to get plans and instructions and reports on how it's all going. We figured that if we're on the ball, we can make a decent course out of our
experience and get the support of our local community as well as other permies. It's kind of a regenerative thing, you know?
So, I set up this fancy-looking site to try to help us raise the monies we need for the dairy. (I did it for almost free because this is what I know how to do.) You can check it out and the perks we're offering. We'd be tickled to have folks share it around, contribute if you can. I hope we can help some other folks start their own raw milk dairies for their own communities in the process.
RAW MILK DAIRY FUNDRAISER
Thanks everyone!
