Cranberry farmers turning old bogs into wetlands

CARVER, MASSACHUSETTS – It is peak season for cranberry farmers in southeastern Massachusetts. The Bay State is second solely to Wisconsin in U.S. cranberry manufacturing

“Massachusetts has an extremely strong cranberry trade,” stated Karen Cahill, deputy director of the Cranberry Business. Association of Cape Cod Cranberry Growers.

She tells FOX {that a} 2023 financial examine confirmed a $1.7 billion contribution to the state’s financial system and supported almost 6,400 jobs within the space.

However one upstate cranberry farmer says it is changing into more and more tough to develop in Massachusetts.

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Jarrod Rhodes, Edgewood Bogs, works along with his crew to reap this 12 months’s cranberries. (Chelsea Torres)

Jarrod Rhodes, a fourth-generation cranberry farmer in Carver, Massachusetts, produces 50,000 barrels (or 5 million kilos) of cranberries yearly on his household farm. Based his household Edgewood Bogs LLC early forties. Rhodes launched Cape Cod Choose in 2009, the place they course of a few of their very own fruit for the frozen market, he stated.

However rising prices and altering climate patterns are creating further strain.

“All of it provides up and it should be much more costly to develop right here than in Wisconsin or Canada,” Rhodes stated.

Cahill added, “Massachusetts normally is an costly place to do enterprise, pushed by excessive labor, utility and actual property prices.”

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She additionally says a key distinction is the dimensions of Massachusetts, in comparison with simply Wisconsin.

“The size in Wisconsin is considerably bigger — greater than double the acreage in Massachusetts — and while you do one thing on a big scale, it tends to be cheaper,” she stated.

With these pressures in thoughts, Rhodes turned to a state program to retire and restore greater than 30 acres of older swamps.

“The constructing was in misery and needed to be rebuilt,” he says.

Cranberry Swamp in Carver, Massachusetts (Chelsea Torres)

The state’s Division of Ecological Restoration (DER) manages a cranberry swamp program that converts retired swamps again into native wetlands.

Over the previous decade, DER has restored a number of unprofitable wetlands, together with the restoration of the Eel River Headwaters. DERs website says Atlantic white cedar has recovered, swamps now cowl former farm surfaces and river herring have returned upstream.

This previous, unprofitable swamp will develop into a wetland within the spring of 2026. (Chelsea Torres)

Conscious of an unprofitable quagmire, Rhodes signed up for this system, which is funded by state and federal grants.

“We determined to not rebuild this, however to purchase a greater constructing with the cash,” he stated.

The Rhodes household now farms much less acreage, however the retired swamp will likely be completely protected as a wetland, and the household will make investments the proceeds in higher-yielding fields.

DER describes the strategy as a “inexperienced exit technique,” through which households just like the Rhodes are compensated by way of restoration grants and easements to transform swamps into wetlands.

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Krista Haas of DER stated land have to be legally protected earlier than building begins.

“This locations a deed restriction on the land, which limits sure actions equivalent to growth,” Haas stated. “Conservation easements are sometimes carried out by way of the USDA Pure Sources Conservation Service (NRCS) Wetland Reserve Easement (WRE) program.”

The state’s Ecological Restoration Division says that is the primary restoration challenge, Eel River Headwater close to Plymouth. (State of Massachusetts’s Division of Ecological Restoration)

As extra initiatives take form, Rhodes says many growers need to observe the identical path. Some are nearing retirement and the youthful generations are “not that ,” he stated. The restoration of the Rhodes wetland is predicted to be accomplished by spring 2026.

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DER Government Director Beth Lambert stated the company’s objective is to revive 1,000 acres over the following 10 to fifteen years.