Westborough organic farm holds first Earth Day celebration

Heirloom Harvest will host an afternoon on the farm of education, advocacy and action in celebration of Earth Day on Sunday, April 23, from 1 to 4 pm.

The farm is located along Route 135 in Westborough, behind and adjacent to Saint Lukes’ Cemetery at 30 Hopkinton Road. The farmers will be joined by the Dominican sisters in residence at the Crystal Spring Earth Education Center of Plainville, who will do a demonstration for children of how pollution contaminates drinking water.

Oxfam US organizer Stephanie Demmons will be present to discuss the 2007 farm bill,  and how residents can send a message to improve the farm bill to better support small farms in local communities in the U.S. and abroad. Volunteer Family Inc., a nonprofit community service organization with a mission of strengthening the role of families in providing service to the community, will send volunteers to help with cleanup around the farm, as well as some of the farmwork. Members of the public are welcome.

“Oxfam is working to shift funding in the 2007 Farm Bill to support sustainable, diverse and equitable agriculture and rural development programs here in the U.S.,” says Stephanie Demmons, a regional Oxfam organizer. “Oxfam is concerned that the current emphasis on commodity subsidies fuels consolidation and continued overproduction of commodities that harm farmers both here and in developing countries.”

The first Earth Day was celebrated nationwide on April 22 in 1970. It was observed in hundreds of communities and on the campuses of thousands of schools, colleges and universities. Many important environmental laws were passed by the Congress in the wake of the 1970 Earth Day according to Wikipedia, the online information source, including the Clean Air Act, laws to protect drinking water, wild lands and the ocean. The EPA was created within three years of the first Earth Day.

Heirloom Harvest is a community supported agriculture farm. Community supported agriculture is an innovative approach to the relationship between farmers and those who enjoy good food. With a preseason payment, members purchase a “share” of the season's harvest, a varied assortment of seasonal vegetables each week from early June through November. Though the farm is under private management, it has an educational mission and a program to donate food to charity. For more information,  call 508.963.7792, or visit the farm’s Web site.