How has the changing demographics of farming affected Massachusetts agriculture?
“Because our immigrant population has been growing over the past decade or so, we now have farmers that are growing the foods that appeal. We have farmers growing fairly exotic vegetables—Brazilian eggplants, stuff for the Cambodian population. That has become a big market. At the Marblehead market, the Mentor farm recruits immigrants to work the farm and they sell all sorts of different things that you wouldn’t see in a regular supermarket. If you went to Framingham, there would be loads of Brazilian produce.” What do you see as the future impact on the labor cost or shortage to the market or to the industry? “Finding reliable labor has been exasperated by the immigration struggle in D.C., and by lack of man power from the federal H-2 Visa program. Many farmers have said to me, ‘If we could just solve the immigration issue we could move on.’ “Our farmers are in their late 50s. In 15 to 20 years from now, if their sons and daughters don’t want to take over the farms, we’ll be in a litt
