The hand-painted mailbox at the end of the long driveway lets you know you’ve arrived. “Little Patch of Heaven” doesn’t come with the proverbial pearly gates, and as you drive onto the property, it becomes clear that the luster had long faded from this six-acre pearl of Falmouth farmland.
What also comes into sharp focus is the tremendous work it has taken over two and half years to restore this once-busy alpaca farm. This restoration is being undertaken by the tireless staff and volunteers of Farming Falmouth – a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to support local agriculture, and to close the gap between consumers and where their food is grown. The long-term goals areas lofty as they are varied for this place now known as “The Patch”. Chief among them: saving this plot of fertile land from private development, making just a small, but vitally important, reversal to the otherwise ebbing tide of farmland in Falmouth.
No matter how you slice it, the trend in farming numbers is not good. The amount of working farmland acreage is dwindling, whether on a national, regional, or local scale. A multi-faceted solution is needed to reverse course on this drift, for it is not merely a square-footage problem. Is the available land drying up because there are fewer farmers to tend to the fields? Or are fewer people looking to farming as a career because of the lack of affordable, arable land? As with most complex issues, both points are working in concert to the detriment of our local food supply. Solutions, like the problems they strive to solve, need to be wide-ranging.
Established in the wake of the Town of Falmouth’s purchase of Tony Andrews Farm in 2017, Farming Falmouth’s sizable team of staff and volunteers oversee several initiatives, such as:
• The Falmouth Service Garden – Gardening a one-sixteenth-acre plot produced over 1400 pounds of produce in 2024 that was given to those with food insecurities through the Falmouth Service Center.
• Gleaning – Harvesting ripe produce from local farmers’ fields which would otherwise go to waste. Last year alone, Farming Falmouth donated over 3100 pounds!
• Community Orchard – Planting 120 apple trees, along with a mix of other fruit trees at Tony Andrews Farm in 2021. The first apple harvest took place in 2024.
This past March, the first of its kind Falmouth Food Assessment (FSA) was published. The FSA is the culmination of five years of exhaustive research done by Tyler Barron on behalf of Farming Falmouth. The assessment, at over two hundred pages, features statistics and results from numerous surveys, and gives an unblemished look at the entire food ecosystem within the town. According to the FSA executive summary, the desired goal of this FSA is to “Establish a baseline of information that can be used to inform and track change within the food system”. Many of the statistics from various agencies and organizations quoted within this story have been collected and presented in this FSA. You simply can’t know how far the journey ahead is without knowing where you stand. With the FSA in hand, Farming Falmouth can see just how much work lies ahead.
Farming Falmouth has taken on a new goal of preserving what farmland Falmouth has left. Since 1950, Falmouth has seen a reduction of agricultural land by over eighty-six percent – from 3498 acres to 470 (in 2016). Based on data from Mass GIS (Bureau of Geographic Information), 2024 estimates put that figure closer to 399 acres. Remove cranberry bogs from the equation, and Falmouth is left with a mere 166 acres of agricultural land. The same story is playing out across the Cape. Farming Falmouth is fighting back.
The number one reason for crop land loss has been residential development. Comparing the USDA Census of Agriculture and the Cape Cod Housing Market Analysis by the Cape Cod Commission, there is a direct correlation between the two. Asthe number of second homes increased by 25% in Barnstable County over the fifteen-year period of 2007-2022, the acreage of harvested cropland dropped 23%. When Farming Falmouth was just getting going, two properties came up for sale. The group learned a valuable lesson. As Farming Falmouth’s Board President Ellie Costa explains, “Conservation doesn’t happen unless the [property] seller wants conservation.” If the property owner wants to make the most money out of the sale, the long line of deep-pocketed developers are standing by to oblige them.
When The Patch came up for sale, Farming Falmouth entered negotiations with the property owner. There were heftier offers to be had, but the owner wanted the property to remain a working farm, so the two parties agreed on a discounted price. Next came the hard part: coming up with the money, which Farming Falmouth didn’t have. Phone calls were made. The search was on to find someone who could step up and fund the purchase. As the clock ticked down, a supporter was found to make the purchase on behalf of the organization. The transaction was finalized within twenty-four hours of the property entering a foreclosure auction in September of 2022. The anonymous buyer, who wishes to remain so, became the “Conservation Caretaker”. What the purchase did buy was time. Time for Farming Falmouth to raise the funds to purchase the farm, at a sizable six-figure discount, from the caretaker. The agreement states that this subsequent sale needs to be completed by this coming June. The fundraising sprint to the finish is on to close the substantial gap in funds that remains.
Once the transfer was complete, the heavy lifting began with the “year of clarification”. Dumpsters were filled with debris from years of neglect. Miles Manning of Manning Construction had his hands full rehabilitating the main log cabin structure. Tremendous amounts of rot needed to be removed, and the framing repaired. Doors and windows were replaced. Mold was rampant throughout, and so pervasive that a company was brought in to sandblast both the inside and outside surfaces to get them clean. Some facets, such as the flooring, were too far gone and needed a complete replacement. One of the two hoop houses on site was missing both ends, making it more wind tunnel than hoop house. Manning framed in both ends with wide double doors and old window sashes that were removed from the main house. Two local arborists, Shay Kuntz of JSK Treecare and Chris Saunders of Saunders Landcare, removed trees and helped reclaim the property from the invasive vines and underbrush that had re-established and thrived for many years.
With the main house’s renovation complete, two young resident farmers were able to move in, and ease the stress of finding affordable housing. Jeny Christian is the farm manager of the Service Garden at Tony Andrews Farm. Nina Landau is the assistant farm manager. Christian, a retired army veteran and single mother, is also the “soil steward” for The Patch. Serving as a diesel mechanic (both in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010) set Christian up with the skills for dealing with all types of farm equipment, yet it is very “low-tech” at The Patch. “Just about everything we use here are hand tools,” Christian explains. “We may bring in a Bobcat [skid steer loader] for a day of heavy work, but that’s about it.” The Patch is currently the nursery for the Service Garden across town. “Every plant that is grown at the Service Garden comes out of this greenhouse,” she says, standing inside the toasty hoop house on a bright sunny late winter morning. In a moment of self-reflection, Christian chuckles, “I think one of the things that makes me a great farmer is my ADHD, I swear. Being good at so many things, but master of none, you know? God, there’s so much! The carpentry, plumbing, irrigation, electrical, biology, soil science, nutrition, cooking, all of it! I feel like if my brain didn’t work like this, I’d get stuck on one item, but it’s a holistic thing.”
The breadth of planned uses for this property is impressive, and noble for its goals. Parked alongside the house is an old school bus which in a previous life served as a transport for the students in the carpentry program at Upper Cape Tech High School. The lichen-covered sides suggest that it’s been on this site for quite some time. Actually, it’s a new arrival, and a sign of the larger struggles that local farmers continually face. Farmer Mike Able transformed it into the “Chicken Bus” where he sold the eggs laid by his flock and grew pullets for sale to people looking to raise their own chickens for egg production or meat consumption. Mike turned over the bus to Jeny at The Patch after being forced from the eight acres he farmed across town when they were sold out from under him. “How do I say no to this bus?” Jeny asks. “He said, ‘I’ve made so much money from this bus. I just want you to have it.’ It’s so like farmers. He just wants someone to farm with this.”
It’s these unwritten agreements; handshake deals between property owner and tenant farmer which can leave the agrarian out in the cold when financial situations, or whims, change and the property is sold. It’s a situation Jeny knows first-hand. “I had an 11-acre field I was working and living on, and paying a lot for, and the landowner was like, ‘Yeah, great! I’m so excited – do it. I want to see a farm here,’” she remembers, and after a pause, “He sold it out from under me after trying to raise my rent five hundred bucks. I’m single with my kid and he just totally pulled the rug out in a way that was just not kind,” How long had she been there before the bait and switch was completed? “Six months,” she flatly adds. “I was on unsecured land.” The Patch offers Jeny an ability to grow her own root structure while growing for the Service Garden and her own business, Feather Light Farms.
The Patch will offer farmers a chance to lease small plots at reasonable prices. Much like Cape Cod Culinary Incubator for food business entrepreneurs such as the one located in Hyannis, The Patch could be an incubator for the new farmer starting out. “We certainly look forward to working with the schools, and introducing kids to farming, but remember, a new farmer can be any age,” Ellie Costa points out. Indeed, there are numerous examples across the Cape of older, first-time farmers launching the “second act” of their careers. Where some might see a challenge, others will see possibility. Costa again: “It’s [The Patch] not a flat open field. There’s marginalized space that could be looked at as waste. But those shady spots would be great for someone who wants to grow mushrooms.” And Jeny chimes in, “Yeah, someone who just needs a little space to set up their logs and needs just a little water. Worm castings! It’s a niche business that doesn’t take up a lot of room, but it’s needed, and it helps close the [agricultural] loop.”
The average age of a Cape Cod farmer is 58.4 years old, and over 250 Cape farmers are older than 65. In Falmouth, those numbers are made even more startling by the fact that most farmers do not have a succession plan in place upon their impending retirements. The FSA’s Grower and Producer Survey reveals that, of the farmland surveyed, 70% could turn over by the year 2032, further constraining what farmland is left in town if those plots are sold for development. Making public lands more available to be leased to local farmers, developing “agri-hoods” where small, affordable homes are built around a central farm, small outside-the-box ideas are needed as there is no one solution to this situation. Tiny homes placed on the very farmland the growers work? Last year, Massachusetts passed the Affordable Housing Act which eases many of the challenges when it comes to creating solutions to the Cape’s (and state’s) biggest problem, including solutions such as additional dwelling units.
Farming Falmouth’s mission is an honorable one, one which hopefully will be emulated in other towns throughout the Cape. Weather, equipment issues, support staff shortages – farming will always be full of risks. For Jeny Christian, The Patch gives her the chance to take them. “I can take the risks that the community needs me to take,” she states. Maintaining local farmland to source our food helps mitigate the risks we all face from supply chain issues which can (and have) arisen a half a country or half a world away. Is there anything better than stopping at the local market or farmstand, grabbing some fresh vegetables grown just down the road, or just up the driveway? It’s a heavenly feeling that this world could surely use more of.
Along with being co-publisher of Edible Cape Cod with his wife Cori, Larry Egan is a New England Associated Press award-winning writer and commentator and host of the talk show The Handyman Hotline on Saturdays from 1-3 pm on 95.1 WXTK-FM. He can be found most afternoons on the trails of Cape Cod being worn out by his personal trainer: their Portuguese Water Dog, Archie.
To learn more, volunteer or donate:
FarmingFalmouth.org
@farming_falmouth
