News from the Center

We are working hard to make our expertise and resources available to you in this challenging time. While in-person events and some on-campus services are suspended to protect public health, we are continuing with some scouting and farm visits, and many existing and new resources are available online and through virtual delivery.

Ahhh, twilight meetings: much-anticipated moments for farmers. So what do Extension and Massachusetts growers do when a coronavirus pandemic changes the in-person meet up?  They pivot: information now flows virtually, over Youtube channels, conference calls and zoom meetings.

Solar power is one step closer to serving rural Massachusetts. The University of Massachusetts’ Clean Energy Extension will work with three Western Massachusetts communities--Blandford, Wendell and Westhampton--to develop plans for siting solar panels, in a project funded by a grant from the federal Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

If you are a grower, work for an agency, non-profit organization, or business that intersects with agriculture, the document you’ve been waiting for is now available. The results of the every-five-year federal census of agriculture came out months ago, but now you can make use of an easier-to-read version of the results for Massachusetts.

The Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, along with other sponsors, hosted the Massachusetts Ecosystem Climate Adaptation Network’s  third annual conference on Tuesday, Oct. 29 in Newton.

The CAFE Summer Scholars Program completed its fourth year in 2019 with another varied selection of academic research and extension projects.

A new report from UMass Amherst’s Clean Energy Extension, released on July 5, 2019, sees significant potential to accelerate Massachusetts’s emerging energy and battery energy storage (BES) innovation ecosystem.

Students, staff, and faculty welcomed a new resident early on the morning of Tuesday, June 11 at the Hadley Farm. The new addition is a Hanoverian foal named "Stockbridge Sonnet UM" (lovingly nicknamed "Levi" as the barn name).  

Wednesday, March 27 was Agriculture Day on Beacon Hill. It’s a day when legislators and legislative staff get to meet with farmers and other members of the agricultural community to hear about the issues important to them.