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Direct Investment to Grow our Local
Food Economy
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Happy Spring!
After what seemed like endless snow days, we are now beginning to see a change to warmer days.
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After four incredible years as the Executive Director of BAV, Cynthia Pansing, will be stepping aside at the end of this month to focus on consulting and grant writing. BAV’s staff, board, and partners thank Cynthia for her deep commitment to our mission of building a more resilient food system.
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On that note, we are pleased to introduce our new Interim Director, Glenn Bergman. A native of Philadelphia, PA, Glenn fell in love with the Berkshires long ago and currently shares his time between his homes in Philadelphia and Stockbridge.
Glenn has a long history of working with nonprofit organizations. For five years he was the Executive Director for Philabundance, the largest hunger-relief organization in the Philadelphia area. Prior to this, he was the General Manager for Weavers Way Co-op for eleven years.
"I am thrilled to be assisting with BAV's transition into their next chapter. Berkshire Agricultural Ventures is a gem of an organization."

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We also welcome Great Barrington native Ciana Barnaba to the role of Executive Assistant. In Ciana’s role, she manages the BAV’s office, internal and external communications, and a lot of the behind-the-scenes work BAV runs on!
Ciana came to us from GrowNYC where she managed over a dozen Greenmarkets throughout the New York City area.

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BAV’s Board Welcomes Two New Members:
Meet Amanda Freund and Erik Rasmussen
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An experienced farmer, Amanda Freund, of East Canaan, CT, joined our Board in December 2020. She and her family own and operate the prominent, multi-generational dairy farm, Freund Farm & Market.
She brings years of farming knowledge and will be assisting with the development of new projects. Freund Farm is known for its dairy, "CowPots”, great food, plants, and vegetables. Visiting Freund’s Farm is a must!
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He brings important skills that will aid BAV in deepening its understanding of agricultural economics.
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We're Planting the Seeds for Local Agroforestry |
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What is agroforestry?
Agroforestry is a way to both grow food and yield environmental conservation benefits like water and air quality, habitat, soil health, and more.
Agroforestry is a priority area for BAV. We are delighted to be involved in promoting and funding agroforestry practices, or the intentional integration of trees onto farms, in Northwest Connecticut, the Berkshires, and Dutchess and Columbia counties, New York.
Adamah Farm operates a 3-acre organic vegetable operation with a sliding scale CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) model, a food access project, goats, chickens, herbs, fruit, and an 18-year fellowship program that teaches regenerative ways of living with the land in the context of an intentional Jewish spiritual community.
The BAV grant will assist Adamah in transforming a 25-acre parcel of sloping grass into a food-producing orchard centered around Chinese chestnuts, a blight-resistant variety of chestnut tree increasingly popular in the Midwest and Northeast regions due to its demand and productivity as a tree crop.
“We have found a great partner in Adamah,” shares Mark Phillips, Operations Director at BAV. “Agroforestry is widely practiced throughout the world but is less common in North America despite its potential for producing food in a way that regenerates soil and ecosystems. It is our hope that Adamah Farm’s orchard will serve as an example and inspiration for the adoption of agroforestry in the Berkshire-Taconic region in the decades to come.”
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Farmer & Food Business Spotlight |
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Ruby produces small-batch artisanal and seasonal product lines of sausage and pâté under the Hudson Valley Charcuterie name with its products coming exclusively from her own heritage pastured pigs at Raven & Boar Farm both in East Chatham, NY.
In 2009 Ruby and her family moved from Brooklyn to East Chatham NY. What began as a quiet country life, quickly transformed into a blossoming 16-acre farm with 150-200 pigs, hundreds of chickens, a small herd of lambs, and an acre of vegetables.
Growing the farm into a business, Ruby realized there were limited USDA value-added meat processing facilities available for farmers in the region. Due to existing stress on the meat industry, there was little room for product growth and creativity at the existing facilities, especially in terms of products like paté's, cured meats, and salami.
“We decided to research, fundraise and eventually build our own USDA meat processing facility on the farm in order to be able to create products we believed best represented the value and depth of the animals we raised and the plentiful agricultural region we were living in.”
Ruby learned how to butcher and process their own pigs while renting space from her local USDA facility. Hudson Valley Charcuterie was able to create a truly seasonal and diverse product line, sourcing raw ingredients from neighboring farms and having less waste from their pigs.
Ruby commented that the circumstances of this past year, amidst the pandemic, allowed her to gain perspective on this industry and take a hard look at the efficiency, structure, and management of the farm and the farming life - which is not always easy.
“I am extremely grateful to have been introduced to Berkshire Agricultural Ventures this last year in facing some of the toughest times. I have had to balance being a farmer, partner, mother, and business owner. With their individualized, one-on-one experience and understanding of the complexities of farming and business they supported and connected me with technical assistance programs that I would not have been able to access otherwise.”
From jumping into farming as a city kid to making sausage on the fly, it was exciting for Ruby to take time to reflect on the past years and see a healthier holistic business, farm, and life. BAV is grateful to be a part of it.
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We love what we do. But we can’t do this alone. We need you.
Your investment in our Revolving Loan Fund is 100% used to distribute low-interest loans (0-2%) to local farmers and food producers. That capital continues to grow and is recycled back, creating a viable and reliable stream of support for agricultural entrepreneurs.
So join us and invest in your local food community.
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Special Thanks to Our Supporters
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Berkshire Agricultural Ventures' priority areas for support include strategies that promote regenerative agriculture to help keep farm systems healthy and resilient in the face of climate change; improve land access and make farmland affordable for farmers; create season extension greenhouses and cold storage; fund on- and off-farm processing facilities; and support other means to strengthen the viability and sustainability of local farmers. |
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