Critical Infrastructure: from sites of cultivation to hubs Identifying appropriate non-conventional sites for cultivation and exploring alternative agricultural practices are two important components of this study. In addition to these, however, Northampton’s local food system will also need special facilities or hubs to support functions like processing, distribution, waste management, and education. The hubs’ functions will be specific to the types of foods being supplied by producers and will need to be specifically designed to support local consumption and niche needs within Northampton. The sites of food cultivation supplying the hubs are referred to here as feeder farms or just feeders (a term not to be confused with conventional livestock feeder facilities or feed lots). A hub, as conceived here, may provide several functions or only one. It may support single or multiple food products; for instance, a processing hub may process several types of foods that come into season at different times to stagger operations and remain in production for longer periods of the year. To reduce transportation costs, a hub may be located close to the farms that supply most of what is processed and distributed, though it should be accessible to other feeder farms regardless of size or location. If equipment—for processing and packaging food, preserving through dehydration and canning, and for slaughtering animals—is made available for a fee within a hub (whether cooperatively or privately owned), the financial costs of starting and maintaining a farm may be reduced. Outsourcing post-cultivation tasks to such specialized hubs that meet health and other codes means processing can occur more efficiently and more affordably than on independent farms. Once established, community supported agriculture (CSA) relieves some of the financial uncertainty of farming by guaranteeing a farm’s income for the season. A CSA typically provides a diversity of crops to its shareholders, but not all food producers in Northampton will be able to produce the diversity of crops required to establish a CSA (due to particular site conditions in unconventional urban or suburban locations, for example), and not all producers will be interested in managing the various demands of this kind of business. A hub business that offers food collection and distribution, such as
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Feed Northampton Critical infrastructure
the service provided by Valley Green Feast in Northampton (which currently distributes food to consumers from fifteen farms in the region), could deliver for a fee food from multiple sources to private homes or to grocery stores in bulk, allowing large and small producers to specialize in crops suited to their particular conditions. The concept of the hub is not new; in fact, looking back to nineteenth-century agrarian New England we find that many farms did not have their own cider house, mill to grind flour, or boiler for maple sugar. There were independently owned local hubs that offered a niche service to farms for processing crops into enhanced food products. This allowed for specialization, whereby one individual could focus on growing while the other focused on processing. This was often the most affordable way for farmers to process their harvests, and the most efficient way to process food in terms of both energy and resources. It also centralized food products on a local scale, which made it easier to distribute to various markets (Hayden 1982). Hubs can also help farmers share knowledge and resources with one another. Communication between farms can help reduce waste, among other things. Farmers who raise livestock, for instance, might accumulate more manure than they can use, so it becomes waste. Waste products from one farm may be a resource for another. Creating these relationships can supply some farmers with free or cheap resources and materials that they would otherwise buy, reduces waste, and fosters community relationships. The function of connecting farmers to one another into a regional community of support was a function of the local Grange. Until recently most farming communities had a Grange, which served as a meeting place to discuss common difficulties and potential partnerships; a place for exhibiting choice crops; and a seed exchange. Looking back to earlier precedents does not mean social regression; it is a chance to repurpose old strategies into a twenty-first-century model. The abandoned hub strategy from the nineteenth century and the Grange concept can be applied to Northampton but realigned to meet today’s needs, challenges, and opportunities.