Recognizing the importance of agriculture and locally grown food in 2018 the residents of Duxbury purchased a property once known as the DeLorenzo Farm, a 27.32-acre parcel that was a turkey farm until the late 1950s. It took a couple of years to purchase the land, select a farmer, clear the land, install wells, and make other improvements to prepare the property for farming, and by 2021 these steps were complete. That seems pretty fast for this sort of project—but actually, the project was decades in the making, completed with the cooperation of a farm-minded landowner and thanks to the hard work of dedicated town employees and residents. Of course, whether it would succeed was a whole other question, for as any farmer will tell you, farming is a risky proposition, and getting a new venture started is riskier still.
This is the third of three articles chronicling the Town of Duxbury’s acquisition and preservation of a piece of land for agriculture and the start-up of Brett Sovick’s Farm.
In mid-2022, Brett Sovick signed a ten-year lease to farm roughly ten acres owned by the Town of Duxbury. Through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process, the Town determined that Sovick was the farmer they needed to bring the DeLorenzo farm, land that had been left largely unmanaged since the late 1950s, back to agriculture. For Sovick, the lease represented a chance to expand projects and techniques he’d started in his backyard and scale them up. It would also allow him to try new things, experiment, grow new crops, and raise new animals. For the Town and those who worked tirelessly to make the Town’s purchase of the property a reality, Sovick’s lease of the land represented a leap of faith that this relatively inexperienced but extremely enthusiastic farmer could make a go of it.
Starting a farm is hard, and the DeLorenzo project is no exception. It is hard for members of the Town who worked to get the DeLorenzo project to where it is and who have their own vision for what the farm can be, and it is hard for Sovick, who knows that the eyes of the Town are upon him.
A season into the lease seemed like a reasonable time to check in with Sovick and a few of the people in town who are closest to the project and ask how things are going. What has worked? What lessons are learned?
A Visit to the Farm
I ask Sovick what he views as being a success as the first season comes to a close. His response: “Do you have time to take a walk?” We head to a portion of the farm that is open field and which an abutting farmer has been haying for decades. He points to a thirty-foot-wide strip of grass running the length of the field that is noticeably greener than the rest of the grass. “This is where we had our chicken tractors. Look at this! The field is healthier, more fertile.” The difference in the color of the grass is striking. For years, the entire field has been hayed and fertilized with cow manure spread by the abutting farmer. This past season, Sovick added three chicken tractors with nearly a hundred broiler (or meat) chickens which moved along a section of the field. Every day he moved the three tractors a few feet along the field so that by the end of the summer the tractors had gone up and then back along the length of the field. “When NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Services) came out here they were stunned. Prior to the tractors they did a survey and counted maybe four species of forbs, grass, and legumes. When they saw this, they did a quick count and came up with nine. The field is so much healthier and more productive, and the chickens I raised were healthier too.”
It takes time, or Bumps in the Road
But Sovick had a few setbacks as well. A crop of newly planted garlic disappeared. Whether at the hands of wildlife or vandals remains unclear. And progress on fencing and infrastructure has been a little slower than he might have liked. “I didn’t underestimate how long projects would take, but I did underestimate all of the other things, in addition to those projects, that I would be doing.”
Sovick spent a lot of time simply talking to people. “Brett has been an incredible ambassador for the project,” says Pat Loring, a resident who was on the committee that developed the RFP and selected Sovick. “He’s done a wonderful job meeting with NRCS and other agricultural organizations, he has worked with Carl (the abutting farmer) and done a great job working with the neighbors. That takes a lot of time.” Sovick agrees but also says that establishing communication and talking to folks was always part of the plan. As an example, he says, “I am trying to bring a type of agriculture (silvopasture) that a lot of folks in town and at NRCS have not really seen before so I have to take the time to show them what it is. I really want the farm to be part of the community and that means talking to people about what I am doing.”
“I think the neighbors are very happy that we did not simply clear the land to create fields,” Loring adds. “Brett has maintained a wooded buffer and is also retaining trees in what will be grazing space.”
Visions of a Farm
As a steward of the land, one of Sovick’s goals is to reuse as much of the harvested materials as possible. He is milling trees for fencing and lumber and using woodchips for mulch and other ground cover. Local landscapers are more than willing to donate wood-chips, but Sovick only wants to use woodchips that originate on the farm to ensure there are no foreign substances introduced to the property. In addition to reusing onsite materials, Sovick has asked some nearby residents to donate clean cardboard, which he uses in the produce fields for weed control. Cardboard donations are also a way of connecting to the community. He intends to reuse lumber from a utility company to build a structure for the livestock. This approach leads to a barnyard that, to some, might appear disheveled, with a pile of trees to be milled here and a bundle of cardboard there. To Sovick these are signs of progress.
Those I spoke to all said they had a picture in their minds of what the farm would look like and admitted that their picture was a little more bucolic. Recognizing that the picture in their minds might not be exactly what Brett has in mind was a challenge at first, but they have also come to realize that farms don’t just happen overnight. Sovick assures visitors that it is all part of the plan.
From the start, the Town’s approach has been to try to keep out of the way, to let the farmer farm. But balancing a hands-off approach with the desire to see the project move forward, the land returned to agriculture, is not easy. “I think we have learned that these projects take time,” says Nancy Rufo, Duxbury’s Conservation Administrator and the person primarily responsible for managing Sovick’s lease. “There are a lot of projects that need to be completed and I think we underestimated the time it would take for one person to do all these projects.” Kathy Cross, another resident who led the effort to secure the land and find the farmer, agrees. “I think I expected Brett to be a little farther along but we also see that some projects were not as easy as we expected.” There have been challenges coordinating all of the moving parts, including town funding, acquisition of grants, and even coordination of volunteers. The Town agreed to participate in the completion of, and funding for, infrastructure improvements, most notably the construction of a roadway and the installation of a perimeter fence and two wells. Rufo points out that cost estimates for some of the infrastructure improvements were obtained pre-Covid. “Everything seems to cost more after Covid,” she says. Finding alternative funding for these projects takes time.
Final Thoughts
So, one year in, is the Town/Farmer partnership working? Asked whether they would do it again, everyone I spoke with enthusiastically said, “Yes.” The farm is in good hands and Brett is making good progress. All agree that good communication is critical to early identification of challenges and issues. “We started having weekly calls, simply to talk about issues, and I think that has been very important,” says Cross. “I think we are all very pleased with what Brett has accomplished,” says Rufo, “and we look forward to completing the infrastructure projects, so things really take off.”
“The Town has been a great partner in this venture,” says Sovick. With the first season behind him, he looks forward to expanding what worked, changing what did not, and trying some other new things. “Soon we will have livestock grazing in the woods, an expanded vegetable space, and more chickens.”
Note: Products from Brett’s farm are available at the Marshfield Farmers’ Market. Look for Fowl Play Farm and honey-related products from Miss Bee Haven.
https://ediblesema.com/farm/farm-preservation-part-one/ https://ediblesema.com/farm/farm-preservation-reviving-the-farm-part-two/
