At Putnam Farm, Partnerships Are Growing

ORLEANS – For Katie Wibby, the numbers tell the tale.

The demand for food from the Lower Cape Outreach council, of which Wibby is executive director, has increased 150 percent over the past five years. And with cuts to food programs and services, as well as funding to the council’s main food source, the Greater Boston Food Bank, Wibby said she expects that demand to continue to grow.

“So what do we do about it? We come together as a community,” she told a crowd of supporters at Putnam Farm Oct. 1.

Ashley Randle, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, said that approximately 40 percent of Massachusetts is food insecure. But the answer to the problem, she said, could in part be rooted in the work that Orleans farmers, volunteers and officials have put into Putnam over the past 16 years.

Since the town purchased Putnam Farm in 2010, the property has returned to its roots as active farmland. There are currently 20 workable farm plots on the property, while work was finished this summer on a new agricultural barn that gives the farm’s growers space to clean, weigh, sort and cold store their yield. 

“When I was 5 or 6 or 8 years old, where it was then versus where it is now is a great thing to see,” Garrison Guzzeau, a representative from State Sen. Julian Cyr’s office who grew up in Orleans, said of the farm’s transformation.

Drusy Henson, who chairs the town’s conservation commission, recalled the work that has been done over the years to transform the Putnam property. That not only has included situating the property to allow for new farm plots, but the restoration of wetlands near the center of the farm. She credited town staff including Conservation Agent John Jannell and Conservation Clerk Kristyna Smith, the work of boards including the conservation commission and the agricultural advisory committee, and the impact of local volunteers such as Alan McClennen and Rick Francolini, the latter of whom was instrumental in writing the grant for the agricultural barn.

“The thing about this land is that the town loves it, and the town has participated all along the way,” Henson said.

But the new barn, which was funded through a food security infrastructure grant from MDAR, stands to benefit more than just the Putnam growers. It’s also expected to help accelerate the Putnam Pantry Project, which donates produce purchased from the farm to the Lower Cape Outreach Council for those in need in the community.

“I think that now, this stands as maybe the greatest little project that I’ve seen happen in this town,” Select Board Chair Mefford Runyon said at the Oct. 1 event, where a ceremonial ribbon was cut to celebrate the opening of the agricultural barn.

The project was initiated through a partnership between the council and Seaside Cannabis Co. As a condition of its license with the state’s Cannabis Control Commission, Seaside has a “positive impact plan” laying out its efforts to help support what the commission calls “areas of disproportionate impact,” communities that have been adversely impacted by the state’s past prohibition of retail marijuana sales. That plan is subject to review by the state commission every year.

Last year, Seaside purchased 500 pounds of organic produce from Putnam farmers. The bulk of the produce was donated to Damien’s Place Food Pantry in Wareham, while the remaining 100 pounds was donated to the council. 

This year, Seaside tripled its contributions in partnership with two other marijuana retailers, Suncrafted Cannabis of Middleboro and Coast Cannabis of Wareham. Spencer Knowles, a partner with Seaside, said 600 pounds of food this year was donated to the council.

“Those donations are used to pay the farmers fairly for the produce that they’re producing on their plot, and then they’re put in our local food pantries so they can feed the most vulnerable individuals in our community,” Wibby said.

Looking ahead to 2027, Knowles said a preliminary goal of 2,000 pounds of food has been set for the third year of the pantry program.

“This facility allows us to scale,” he said of the Putnam barn. “Without this facility, we would be capped not by demand…but quite literally by the inability to take something from the ground and get it ready.”

Randle said MDAR launched the food security infrastructure grant program in 2020 as a way to provide short-term relief for farmers across the state during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said more than $130 million has been awarded to infrastructure projects since the program’s inception.

Putnam, Randle said, should be looked at as a “model” for how other communities can create access to farm land, which she said is the biggest hurdle keeping potential farmers out of agriculture. She also celebrated the community-centric way in which the town and its volunteers and partners came together to address the growing issue of food insecurity.

“That’s the model,” she said. “That’s what we would love to see across the state, and I hope that more towns and municipalities come out to visit the site and this can be part of the conversation when we talk about long-term food security and how we can build a more resilient and viable food system.”

State Rep. Hadley Luddy, D-Orleans, applauded the local efforts to combat food insecurity not just in Orleans but also in Wellfleet, where ground was broken last week on a new food pantry.

“There’s really never been a more important time not only to create the space for our local farmers, but then to connect them to providing resources for the Lower Cape Outreach Council, which is doing so much critical, critical work here in our community,” she said.

When Jessica Rempel returned to her native Eastham in 2019, she was directed to Putnam Farm by a friend. Rempel and her husband are now in their third year of managing their plot on the property.

“Every time we’re here we’re talking to people, we’re sharing knowledge, we’re exchanging seeds and seedlings and equipment,” she said. “We’re helping each other out, and that’s really, really rewarding.”

But Rempel said the most rewarding part of growing at Putnam for herself and the property’s other farmers is the role that they’re playing in helping their neighbors.

“One thing I think I can say for all of us is we love to be outside,” she said. “We love to get our hands dirty. We love to work the land. We want to grow local, organic food and we want to share that with our family, our friends and our community. And that’s what this place and the Putnam Pantry Project allow us to do.”