EASTHAMPTON — On Wednesday morning, rather than walking into the field to pick the first sweet corn of the season, Ben Perrault, co-owner of Mountain View Farm, kayaked through the inundated field to assess the damage caused by the worst flooding the farm has seen in its 16 years of operation.

In addition to heavy rainfall across western Massachusetts from Sunday evening through Monday afternoon, runoff from major flooding in Vermont made its way down the Connecticut River and flooded into area farm fields. Altogether, hundreds of acres of crops were ruined around the region.

“It happened really fast,” said Liz Adler, co-owner of Mountain View Farm, an Easthampton community supported agriculture (CSA) farm that has fed local residents for 16 years. “It felt like it was something happening somewhere else, and then all of a sudden it wasn’t.”

Across two submerged fields totaling 45 acres, Mountain View Farm lost most of its summer CSA produce and fall and winter crops, including eggplants, squash, peppers, potatoes, leeks, carrots, celery, corn and storage onions. Flooding from the river dumped several feet of water into the fields.

“We’re just trying to process this … it feels particularly devastating because it was so beautiful down there. This was the year there were no weeds,” said Adler, adding that because the fields are in a floodplain, the river periodically deposits nutrient-rich soil, making it some of the best farmland in the valley.

On the flip side of the nutrient-abundant soil, planting in the floodplain comes with the risk of inundation, although the field hadn’t flooded in July since 1973. Usually, Adler said, the fields flood in the spring before planting and in the fall, long after crops are already harvested.

Even when Hurricane Irene swept through New England in August 2011, only one field flooded as opposed to the whole farm. “This is even worse, much worse,” Adler said. “I think that people just have to contend with a whole new level of extreme weather and things happening so fast. It’s just out of your control. There’s nothing we could have done.”

Because Mountain View Farm operates under a CSA model, it sells shares of its annual produce before the season’s start. This year, nearly 2,000 CSA members bought a share for weekly pickup.

Summer CSA shares provide the farm with some level of financial support, but it doesn’t account for the income that comes from its winter shares, which contain fall and winter crops, all of which are underwater and completely unsalvageable. Adler said the farm relies on winter shares to get through the winter and pay its staff.

As of Wednesday afternoon, community members raised nearly $85,000 in a GoFundMe to support the farm.

“The kindness of our community has made us cry over and over again,” Mountain View wrote in an Instagram post to its CSA members. “We are so lucky to have your support and we know it.”

Though the farm was forced to close its doors Monday through Wednesday — the first time it has ever closed on CSA distribution days — Adler said they will open back up on Thursday and give members what they have.

Despite the “catastrophic” losses, Adler said around 15 unaffected acres of Mountain View’s farmland in Hadley and Easthampton contain herbs, flowers, tomatoes, carrots, beets, scallions and fennel, among some other produce that will be distributed to CSA members.

Maddie Fabian can be reached at mfabian@gazettenet.com or on Twitter @Maddie Fabian.]]>