State officials visit Cold Spring Orchard in Belchertown

BELCHERTOWN, Mass. (WWLP) – State officials visited Cold Spring Orchard in Belchertown Tuesday, a research facility run by UMass to study issues that affect agriculture in Massachusetts. State Senator Jake Oliveira expressed why helping these organizations is critical.

“I’m just so pleased that my colleagues in the Senate are coming out here today, and we learned about the work that the Senate has done to support our farmers in western Massachusetts, including mitigating against the impacts of climate change,” said State Senator Oliveira.

Climate change over the past couple years in Massachusetts has affected farmers significantly, especially with frost in the middle of May and record high rainfall amounts in the summer. This facilities educates local farmers as well as UMass students.

Cold Spring Orchards Farm Manager Shawn McIntire told 22News how this sets up the next generation of farmers, “I seen a lot of students come through here and go through the program and then they go off and they start their own orchards or their own veggie farms and stuff like that so it’s really a cool thing.”

One of those students, Matthew Bley, believes one key item can help local farms battle through climate change, “The more funding we get, the more positions we’ll have, the better we will be able to react and disseminate information about climate change, and how that affects agriculture.”

Hampshire County is the largest producer of vegetables, potatoes and melons in all of Massachusetts. Massachusetts as a whole produces over $600 million of agricultural goods each year.

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Jack Wu joined the 22News Storm Team in July 2023. Follow Jack on X @the_jackwu and view his bio to see more of his work.

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