Food in Boston

Like the other aspects of the survey, it has proved difficult to put a simple number on the number of jobs directly related to food production in Boston, not to mention volunteer and personal producers. Partly this is due to the seasonal nature of food production, partly to the wide variety of jobs, which include head growers, laborers, interns, and volunteer coordinators. Jobs fell into three categories:

• Full-time, year round: 5 1/2, mostly growers, but some acting more as coordinaters
• Full-time during the growing season: 8, including a couple assistant growers, and the field crew at Allandale Farm.
• interns / trainees during the season: the equivalent of about 14 full-time positions, though this is a little misleading as some are working quite a bit less than full time throughout the growing season.

When you consider the quantity and value of food produced in Boston, and factor in the educational aspects of most of these producers, it shouldn’t be surprising that a serious amount of volunteer labor is also involved. I really didn’t get a sense for the overall magnitude of volunteer involvement, other than to note that ReVision House alone has on the order of 1600 volunteer hours over course of a given season, and it’s the smallest of the nonprofit farms.

There are also approximately 3000 community garden plots in town, and untold numbers of private vegetable plots on private property, so we know that there are thousands more involved in smaller-scale food production.