Four overflowing giant wooden bins holding 3,000 of pounds of McIntosh apples marked the start of a post-harvest food giveaway in Dracut Wednesday. It’s become a regular event for Farmer Dave’s since the start of the pandemic, said owner David Dumaresq, where anyone walking in could leave with a share of potatoes, squash and some of the many thousands of pounds of apples he’s ready to offer up for free.
“We started to have food giveaway days directly here on the farm, and I started to see a certain beauty and efficiency of offering it here on the farm because it's grown here,” Dumaresq said. “You don't have to package it and truck it and bring it to a food pantry or a food bank, and then it gets moved from there to another entity.”
For Dumaresq, the giveaway is not just a holiday event. It’s part of his vision: he’s always seen farming as a way of giving back to the community, and spreading sustainable agriculture ideas around the globe.
Farmer Dave’s sells almost two million pounds of local produce annually at 13 seasonal farmers markets and their three food stands. Dumaresq’s wife and business partner Jane Bowie said 25% of their sales are to people using federal SNAP food benefits.
“It should have nothing to do with what your income is to be able to get some good nutrition in your belly,” Bowie said. “And that's something that all of us here believe in.”
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Dumaresq and Bowie also believe in growing diverse crops — like Thai eggplant; or kai lan, a type of Chinese broccoli; or pipián squash, a staple in Southern Mexico and Central America — to cater to a diverse clientele, especially in the nearby gateway cities of Lowell and Lawrence.
But diversity at Farmer Dave’s goes beyond the crops. They are also producing farmers.
Farmer Dave’s participates in a paid internship program run by the nonprofit Communicating for Agriculture Exchange Programs. The organization brings young adults interested in farming to the United States, with 24 of them coming to Dumaresq’s Massachusetts farm this year. People come from all over — countries including Kenya, the Philippines, South Korea and Mexico in recent years.
“[Dumaresq] offers a fantastic program to each and every one that is interested in his business,” Maja Behrens, the agriculture coordinator at Communicating for Agriculture Exchange Programs, told GBH News in a message. “His USAID involvement and having volunteered in the peace corps shows now in his involvement and continuation in cultural exchange. I think it is fantastic that he continues this dedication.”
One of this year’s interns is 26-year-old Oscar Enrique Grenas, who came to Dracut eight months ago from Colombia.
The day before Wednesday’s food giveaway, he was cleaning and packing some of the last harvest from the outdoor fields: leeks. He said it’s his first real experience of winter, and that learning about seasonal agriculture here will help him learn how to improve farming in his home country, where it’s practiced in an “eternal summer.”
“I love [farming], I love this life,” Grenas said. “I study agricultural engineering in Colombia. And I'm here to improve my English, and I'm here to learn from Dave and Jane. ... So far, this has been the best experience in my life.”
This spring, Farmer Dave’s opened its new 7,000-square foot, $600,00 dollar indoor farmer’s store in Dracut, almost half of which was funded by Massachusetts' Food Security Infrastructure Grant Program. The program was started in the pandemic by Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration to increase equitable access to local fresh food for residents, especially for those using government food aid.
Inside the store on Tuesday, Amy Siebecker of Andover was happily paying for her McIntosh apples, even though they would be free the next day. She’s long participated in Farmer Dave’s farmshare, a seasonal pick-up program that gives her a weekly supply of local, fresh food.
“Probably the first time I heard of Farmer Dave's, I was working at the Open Door in Gloucester — a food outreach organization that serves the community,” Siebecker said. “To know that connection, to know their passion for service and, and to know that their produce is going to a good cause ... it definitely, definitely made me want to be a patron and find out more about them.”
In the first two hours of Wednesday’s giveaway, the store had already gone through 10,000 pounds of apples and all of their squash.
“We are happy people showed up!” Bowie told GBH News in a text message. “We would hate to have to dump these apples. ... Some of the people coming in are amazing. [A woman] bought a gift card and handed it to us on the way out. Told us to find someone who really needed it.”
