Meet Modern Farmer’s Guest Instagrammer: Lilac Hedge Farm

Tom Corbett and Ryan MacKay were both still in college in 2011 when they began Lilac Hedge Farm, named for the dairy farm MacKay’s grandfather once owned. The two 25-year-olds had a vision to provide local, sustainably raised meats to residents of Eastern Massachusetts.

Corbett and MacKay met while employed on the same farm. Corbett soon began working with MacKay at his Christmas tree farm and traveling petting zoo, which led to the pair starting Lilac Hedge Farm together.

Based in Berlin, about an hour west of Boston, the pair lease land in the surrounding area for a combined 275 acres of space for their Black Angus cattle, mixed breed pigs, Katahdin and Dorper sheep, chickens and turkeys that they raise from birth.

The pair say they “strive to produce the most sustainable, healthy meat possible” through “extreme attention to care, comfort, nutrition and the quality of the animals.” To achieve this goal, their animals are pasture raised on a forage-based diet. The pigs and poultry are also fed grains grown by a sheep farmer from the western end of the state. The animals are antibiotic, steroid and growth hormone-free.

The farm has a meat CSA, sells its products at Boston-area farmers markets and, beginning July 30, will be operating a stall in the Boston Public Market “alongside about 35 other farms and artisans in Massachusetts, which will serve as a year-round retail market for our products,” says Corbett.

Both men are actively involved in the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Program. MacKay also sits on the board of directors for Worcester County Farm Bureau and is on the state livestock committee.

MacKay comes from a farming family and went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst for agricultural business with a focus on livestock management. He’s been raising animals for a good part of his life, beginning with rabbits and peacocks, then goats, sheep, and a even a camel.

Corbett went to Worcester State University for criminal justice, but he says ever since he became involved in agriculture in 2008, he knew it was what he’d be doing forever.

“Farming is a lifestyle that is so rewarding and so meaningful that I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” says Corbett in an email. “I’ve always been a jack of all trades, fixing anything and everything that came my way, which is of great value on the farm.”