SOUTHWICK – The Agricultural Commission met July 14 in Town Hall’s Land Use Room to discuss the town library’s new climate partnership, the planned Open Farm Day, and Right to Farm disclosures.

Commission member Tammy Ciak-Bissaillon said that the Southwick Public Library would become a Climate Resilience Hub member. She said that part of the membership requirement is that the library must host at least one educational event annually on climate change and climate preparedness.

“I brought up to the director to maybe do an event on how climate can affect crops and agriculture in general,” said Ciak-Bissaillon.

She said the Climate Resilience Hub Program has been reaching out to other community libraries to set up these partnerships.

“They work with a variety of communities to help them become better prepared for climate impacts,” said Ciak-Bissaillon.

She said that she would like to see the library and Agricultural Commission do a joint event on how climate change will affect farming and agriculture.

The commission then moved on to discuss Right to Farm community disclosures. Agricultural Commission Chair Burt Hansen said he does not think that realtors are sufficiently informing their clients that Southwick is a Right to Farm Community.

“Realtors are supposed to notify purchasers of homes that this is a right to farm community, so farming activities are allowed,” said Hansen, “It doesn’t seem like it’s happening very much, so we need to go through the Select Board to get the information to the realtors that they have to make that disclosure.”

The Commission then discussed a planned Open Farm Day, modeled after a similar annual event in Granby, CT.

An Open Farm Day is an event in which many of the farms in a community open up to the public who can tour the farms, pick fruits and vegetables, and interact with farm animals. Ciak-Bissaillon said kids in the Granby event are given a “passport” with all the different farms participating in the town. The children would go to each farm and have their passport marked, and they would receive a small prize for going to every farm.

“Small farms that normally aren’t open to the public will open up that day and show their operations, giving maybe two or three tours that day to show people how they operate and to give people an insight into what farming is day to day,” said Commission member Maryssa Cook-Obregón, “It’s supposed to be educational, but it is also insightful to everybody to know what is actually going on in your community 24 hours a day, because farming is 24 hours a day.”

Hansen said the Agricultural Commission had been trying to set up an Open Farm Day for a while, but the pandemic put those plans on pause. A date for the Open Farm Day has not been decided, but it is likely to be on a weekend in September.