Cranberries were first farmed in eastern Massachusetts back in the early 1800s and they are still a popular commodity to this day.
Located in Freetown, MA, is a woman-owned cranberry business called Freetown Farm. Dawn Gates-Allen, the fourth generation on the farm, is the owner. She works alongside her husband Fred, their two daughters Nicole and Mariah, two sons-in-law and two brothers who own their own sections of the family bog. The family farm recently became a sixth-generation cranberry operation with the introduction of their first grandchild, Poppy Joyce.
The farm began when Dawn’s great-grandmother Adella recognized the high value in the cranberry industry. Adella invested in cranberry farming in 1917 and bought their current farmland in 1923. Dawn’s father David L. Gates took over the business in 1978. He worked on expanding the property from just five acres to the current 27 acres and built a brilliant bog that has been sustaining the family from that 1984 timeline to where they are now in 2024.
Dawn became the owner in 1997 and has been working on improvements ever since.
Dawn refers to farming as a “privileged problem” – you own a lot of land but you need to use it wisely to sustain the business and earn income.
“In order to be futuristically sustainable, a farm in Massachusetts needs to grow at least 200 to 300 barrels of cranberries per acre,” Dawn said. There are more than 100 varieties of cranberries; to increase their production, she started growing Stevens cranberries in 1997, and still does alongside the Early Black and Howes varieties.
When Dawn’s generation took over the business, they made a goal to reduce their carbon footprint, manage the water even better and minimize labor while working “in conscious nature with Mother Nature and the environment.” Their water source is a manmade two-acre pond in the center of their bog, built so “none of the water during the growing season leaves the farm.”
Owner Dawn Gates-Allen and her husband Fred Allen. The family farm recently became a sixth-generation cranberry operation with the introduction of their first grandchild, Poppy Joyce. Photo courtesy of Dawn Gates-Allen
They invested in a Hortau irrigation system that collects data on the temperature and soil moisture in the bog. With this precision management, they have reduced their water usage, increased fruit quality and reduced their fuel usage by 20% to 25%.
When harvesting, the family uses a GPS guidance system that “allows for no berries left behind.” Not only does the GPS prevent harvesters from driving into ditches, it also keeps track of where they’ve harvested in the bog and where they still need to work.
Dawn’s brother Shane designed spring-tooth bars to use for harvesting instead of the water wheels that the family was using from the 1970s. This change decreased their harvesting time by more than 81%, reduced their fuel use by 60% and doubled their crop production.
Following harvest, the unsellable fruit is removed and the remaining berries are loaded onto a truck. Growers are expected to remove as much water and leaves as possible, delivering 95% clean berries. Growers are also expected to provide fruit with proper pigmentation, which depends on the final product of the cranberry. There is a high consumer demand for sweet-dried cranberries, so the farm is expected to produce a certain size berry to fit in the slicing machine at the processing facility.
Freetown Farm currently sells their cranberries wholesale to Fruit d’Or and does a small amount of retail on the side.
Freetown Farm utilizes a three-prong pollinator approach: relying on native pollinators in the area, using migratory honeybees they bring in June and July and bringing in bumblebees as a back-up.
Dawn was recently provided a grant to use a half-acre of their land to build a pollinator habitat. She is a strong believer in “giving back to your own property so you can be successful.”
In terms of pest management, the family goes out to the bogs every week starting at the end of April to scout for bugs and pests. The bog is divided into seven beds so if treatment needs to be done, they can target-spray one bed instead of the whole bog.
The farm has come a long way since 1923. Dawn thinks “it’s incredible to see where we’ve come” and how they’ve improved since. However, there’s still a lot the family wants to achieve, such as implementing education opportunities. Not only do they hope to start an ag education program to get more high school students interested in the future of the industry, but they also to teach the general public more about where their food comes from and how cranberries are grown.
Dawn and her family are very passionate about their cranberry farm and plan to keep learning new techniques to stay relevant in the industry. She remembers being at the farm since she was as young as five years old, and believes it has been “a great family farming experience.”
For more information on cranberry growing, or to visit Freetown Farm, visit newenglandcranberriesest1923llc.com.
What better place to learn about the industry than Massachusetts? After all, it is “the home, the history and the heritage of the cranberry industry.”
by Kelsi Devolve
