Upper Northeast Pasture Center

Welcome to the Upper Northeast Pasture Center information page. The objective of the Center is to promote the adoption and sustainability of pasture-based livestock enterprises in the region through ongoing research and education. The Center was proposed for the University of Massachusetts’ South Deerfield Farm by farmers, NGOs, and reseach and extension educators throughout New England, and is located at the UMass Crop and Animal Research and Education Center (CAREC). We invite you to be part of the Centers development by participation in any of our education activities and research.

Possibilities include:
• Determining suitable plants species and varieties, and animal combinations for the upper NE.
• Increasing the energy utilized from grazed forages and exploring grazing season extension.
• Development of farm decision tools for integration of supplementary feed with grazed forages.
• Designing measurement tools to directly measure pasture feed quantity, quality and utilization.
• Comparing pasture-based economics to confinement systems.
• Evaluating pasture mixes and management to establish their effect on value-added products such as cheese, yogurt, meat, fiber.
• Exploring economic opportunities and barriers in marketing pasture-based products in the region.
• Auditing the energy advantage to pasture-based livestock production.
• Documenting improvements to water and air quality from the adoption of pasture-based systems.
• Examining animal health issues such as parasite interactions in pasture systems.
• Integrating pastured livestock with diverse cropping systems such as vegetables for increased efficiency and profitability.
This is a sample of suggestions that have been gathered from farmer and service provider input from the region over the last several years. No final research decisions or proposals have been made although some projects have been funded.

WHY: Requests from producers throughout New England for basic information and advanced research on increasing the use of pasture; and improving pasture use and production efficiency resulted in the determination that little research has been done in the unique New England environment. Producers have had to extrapolate research conducted elsewhere and collaborate with
other regional grazers. The center would meet the needs of smaller scale producers, producers transitioning out of confinement systems into grazing systems and others seeking to increase the profitability of livestock agriculture in the region.

The UMass CAREC farm is centrally located in New England in the central Connecticut River Valley at a latitude of 42 ° N. The soils and weather are representative of agriculture in New England . Currently underutilized, the 300+ acre CAREC site offers variant types of land - nearly 150 acres of flat prime river bottom land adjacent to the Connecticut River , and more than 150 acres of hillside pastureland. The land base, encompassing prime farmlands, with some of the richest soil in this country, and is a unique opportunity for agronomic and animal research in pasture based, mixed farming systems.

For more information contact Stephen Herbert Email,
Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst. ph. 413-545-2250

or Carrie Sears Email, Univ. of Mass., Amherst. ph. 413-549-3257
 

Minutes of previous conference calls concerning the development of the Upper Northeast Pasture Center are linked below.

 

Regional site visit held August 25, 2005 with representation from the 6 New England States & New York. The group toured the farm and farm facilities.