Hackett farm plays a vital role in the ongoing battle against supermarket redlined zones and increasing food accessibility. It’s part of a growing trend in cities across the U.S. in reviving the ancient practice of communal agriculture and serves a crucial role in our ever changing agricultural landscape. As it stands, Hackett farm is in a prime position to make its impact felt across Easton and the Lehigh Valley at large. Our projects aim to build on its ongoing success and help it to grow to better meet the demand it hopes to meet.
The specific projects we took on were chosen based on conversations with the manager of the farm, Miranda Wilcha, currently used infrastructure at other community gardens and small farms, and the personal farming experiences of authors Konstantinos Voiklis and Casey McCollum. We chose projects that were likely to have the most significant impact now in addition to allowing for growth in the future. We approached these projects in specific ways, informed by community garden contexts at a local, state, and national level, involving factors like governmental support, the realities of the extent of food insecurity in the U.S., and Easton’s unique political and social ecosystem.
Hackett’s current wash station is unable to accommodate its growing output and workforce. The proposed wash station, composed of the scrub station and soak station, is a cheap and efficient rethinking of the way Hackett currently processes their vegetables and will better facilitate their growth in the community.
Hackett’s current bed positioning and spacing is a limiting factor in terms of accessibility to the farm for equipment. It inhibits the expansions of the raised bed system, and is ultimately a holdover from before the farm was as large as it is today. Our proposed repositioning would allow for the construction of a grass pathway, facilitating trucks and other equipment to access more of the farm and aid in further growth. As well, this repositioning would allow for a logical expansion of the space, allowing more community members to participate.
Hackett’s irrigation system consists of a single spigot, limiting the amount of bed space that can be watered at once and contributing to confusion and lost hose nozzles and attachments when community members visit. Our proposed updates would install two additional spigots, increasing the amount of space that could be watered at a given time. As well, it would allow Ms. Wilcha to assign spigots specifically to community members, increasing the sense of community ownership and reducing confusion as to where to return nozzles and attachments.
Future Potential Projects of Interest
Our contributions to the restructuring of Hackett Farm should be considered the first steps in the ongoing process of farm development within a community garden context. Because farms are highly personal, they tend to evolve as a farmer becomes more acquainted with their space and better defines their habits within that space. Our propositions, with the aid of Ms. Wilcha, aim to be a stepping stone that should help guide future additions, but not set them in stone.
As well, because these proposals were developed over the course of a single academic semester, the extent and variety of the modifications that could be made were certainly not exhausted. In the early stages of our work, we discussed a number of projects which should be further explored by future groups.
One of the primary projects Ms. Wilcha mentioned wanting to be developed was the construction of a propper community space. Community gardens are inherently community spaces that should help foster a sense of solidarity and be a space for gathering. As well, the space is largely volunteer-run, meaning new faces are not surprising and an effort should be made to accommodate the wide variety of people who might want to participate. The development of a space made for this express purpose should be a top priority in the ongoing development process. With the addition of a few tables and benches, a couple of large umbrellas to keep the sun and rain at bay, and a rearrangement of the current fireplace, the space could easily be transformed to help facilitate a greater sense of community.
Because the space is meant to be for a diverse community, accessibility should be of great focus. That may look like waist-high raised beds so that wheelchair users, the elderly. or people who otherwise can’t bend over are better served by the farm’s community plots.
The City of Easton has recently developed a ‘micro forest,’ a small space dense with a variety of native flora, directly across from the Hackett plot. Ms. Wilcha expressed a desire to implement that in some way to the farm, be it a children’s field day, an informative self-guided walking tour through the space, or the development of a food forest consisting of additional native, edible plants.
Hackett and the five other farms already have an ongoing relationship with Lafayette College via the ViC program and their partnership with Lafayette’s school farm, LaFarm. Students are on campus for most of the busy spring planting season, fall harvest season, and winter preparatory season. A number of people volunteer at LaFarm each week, meaning there is a workforce likely willing and able to help at Hackett as well. Developing this relationship to the extent that formal volunteer hours can be established would be significant. Beyond that, proposing a formal, partial credit class would provide a consistent, knowledgeable workforce, as well as increase the relatively limited social relationship Lafayette students have with Easton.
Finally, and what may end up having the largest impact on the farm, is the development of a more comprehensive social media presence tied together with an event planning position. Outreach is essential for any farm trying to sell its goods but is especially important to a volunteer program. Being able to quickly and broadly advertise when volunteers are wanted would help increase the number of people visiting the farm. An event planner could then help organize large, community-attracting events to help increase awareness of the farm and increase its outreach. Events like spring planting and fall harvest, children’s weekends or retiree evenings, or themed events like pumpkin carving or an easter egg hunt would certainly increase community involvement and awareness. Paired with social media outreach, Hackett would be set to become a dominant institution in Easton.
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