Massachusetts Farmer Consultant Program
The Healthy Soils Farmer Consultant Program aims to provide farmers who are newly adopting healthy soil practices with access to farmers who are experts in specific healthy soil practices (across scales, areas of expertise, and farm products) while compensating experienced farmers fairly for their time. A secondary purpose of this program is to improve the quality of local agricultural research and technical support by allowing our Healthy Soils Farmer Consultants to be a sounding board for non-profit technical service providers.
Each farmer seeking consulting services can request up to 6 hours with one or more of our consultants.
This program is limited to Massachusetts farmers. It is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture support and managed by the Massachusetts Coordinated Soil Health Program.
How To Utilize This Program
Massachusetts farmers seeking advice about soil health practices such as tillage reduction, cover cropping, organic transition, compost and manure management, and related practices are welcome to reach out to farmer consultants directly to request support.
If you do not see a farmer consultant who matches your needs, please email the program coordinator a brief description of your technical support needs, and we will try to find someone outside of this program who can help you.
Each of our Farmer Consultants has preferences about how you reach out to them to request support and when they are generally available for consulting. The farmer consultants are all full-time working farmers, so please be aware of their availability constraints. Please see below for a description of each farmer consultant, their expertise, contact information, and availability.
Meet Our Farmer Consultants
Jen Salinetti
Jen Salinetti (she/her) is a co-founder, farmer, and the Director of Education & Community Engagement at Woven Roots Farm. Jen has 20 years of experience in hand-scale, no-till farming systems. Jen, her husband, and her crew grow over 200 CSA shares and serve two wholesale accounts, feeding over 1000 people per week with just over 1.3 acres in production. In addition to her farming work, Jen is a skilled educator who teaches at the intersection of agriculture, soil health, climate resiliency, food systems, and social justice.
Equipment and Tools: Jen’s equipment and tool experience includes standard hand tools and push seeders, the filter, and walk-behind tractors for compost spreading (a full-sized tractor is used for compost management but not for spreading).
Contact Jen about Hand-scale no-till systems for vegetable production.
Availability: Please allow 48 hours for response.
Contact Jen: [email protected]
Wally Czajkowski
Wally Czajkowski (he/him) is a lifelong Hadley farmer growing vegetables and tobacco. For 10 years, Wally has been successful in growing winter squash and pumpkins using zone tillage and wants to share that experience. Wally is interested in reduced tillage strategies, and cover cropping and is insulted when he hears folks calling soil “dirt.”
Equipment and Tools: Wally has experience with the zone builder, front-mounted row cleaners, planters adapted with row cleaners, rolling cultivators, subsoilers, and sprayers.
Contact Wally for help with Zone tillage for pumpkins and winter squash, cover cropping, and drip irrigation.
Availability: Most availability is from December through April. During the growing season, call evenings or Sunday afternoons.
Contact Wally: (413) 237-2616
Laura Davis
Laura Davis (she/her) has 11 years of experience with hand scale no-till vegetable farming. She co-founded and co-runs Long Life Farm, a 2.5-acre farm serving 90 CSA members and two farmers’ markets. Long Life Farm is certified organic by Baystate Organic Certifiers and by the Real Organic Project. Remineralization (balancing soil macronutrients and optimizing soil micronutrients) has been a particular focus at Long Life Farm. In addition to her farming work, Laura also works as an organic inspector for Baystate Organic Certifiers, serves as the President of the Board of NOFA/Mass, and works as a Technical Advisor for NOFA/Mass, helping farmers navigate organic certification and providing comprehensive and holistic fertility recommendations based on soil lab results.
Equipment and Tools: Laura’s equipment and tool experience include standard hand tools and push seeders, tarps, and BCS implements.
Contact Laura for help with: Transitioning to organic practices, soil fertility planning, no-till amendment application strategies, cover crop planting and termination methods for small farms, mulching, and weed management for hand-scale farms.
Availability: Please allow 48 hours for response.
Contact Laura: [email protected]
Tristram Keefe
Tristram Keefe (he/him) is the Farm Manager at The Urban Farming Institute of Boston. He is driven by a desire to create positive change environmentally and socially through growing food in the community where he was raised and lives with his family. For the past 10 years, Tristram has been increasing mixed vegetables on 1.5 acres across six different growing spaces in Boston. During this time, he focused on low-till production methods utilizing hand-scale tools and healthy soil practices for urban farm settings. Tristram has also co-facilitated the Urban Farmer Training Program, a groundbreaking course offering agricultural training and educational programs for Boston residents since 2013.
Contact Tristram about Healthy soil practices for urban farms, including low and no-till practices, intercropping, bio intensive farming practices, mulching, and working with imported/ non-native soils.
Availability: Please reach out on weekdays and allow 48 hours for a response.
Contact Tristram: (617) 514-0540
Jono Neiger
Jono Neiger (he/him) operates Big River Chestnuts, a multi-site, collaborative chestnut agroforestry farm in Western Massachusetts. The primary crop is chestnuts, with additional diversified cropping and livestock integration. Other crops produced include small fruit, walnuts, hazelnuts, heartnuts, pawpaw, persimmon, and forage crops for livestock. Founded in 2018, the farm is 20.5 acres in production, with an additional 52 acres going into production in 2024. The farm is organic and “Real organic” certified. Jono also does farm and agroforestry planning through Regenerative Design Group, a small design and planning firm in western MA. Jono has 30+ years of professional experience in agroforestry, permaculture, ecological land and site planning, conservation, and restoration.
Equipment and Tools: Small tractors and implements (spreaders, tree planters), standard hand tools, a wide range of mowing equipment across scales, chainsaws, and pruning tools.
Contact Jono about Agroforestry, perennial cropping systems (and soil management in perennial systems), silvopasture, water management, and soil test interpretation (logan labs).
Availability: Jono is in the field a lot during the growing season. Please allow 48 hours for a response, and please ping again if there is no response.
Contact Jono: [email protected]
