Bardwell Farm, which is fifty acres of diversified vegetables in western Massachusetts, has been in operation since 1685, making it older than the steam pump, the seed drill, and the Glorious Revolution. Last year, Harrison Bardwell, the farm’s ninth-generation proprietor, was selling thousands of pounds of cucumbers at a time, transportable by pallet and forklift. By this summer, he was struggling to move twenty-pound boxes of the same product. When he realized that he couldn’t recoup the costs of picking, packing, and washing the cucumbers, he stopped. He also gave up pulling from his cabbage field. Gleaners from a local anti-hunger group harvested some of the crops to donate to nearby food banks and shelters. The rest was tilled into the ground.

The Lede

Reporting and commentary on wh

See Full Page