Verrill Farm will not raise prices at its Concord farmstand for the 2026 growing season. Instead, the century-old operation is requiring restaurants to place orders of at least $75, a threshold it hasn't imposed since the pandemic.

The policy shift, reported by the Boston Globe's Omar Mohammed on Saturday, Aug. 22, is one of several moves Concord and Sudbury farms are making as fuel prices spike across Massachusetts in the wake of the U.S.-Iran conflict that began roughly six months ago.

Verrill Farm, a family-owned operation since 1918 that spans about 200 acres across Concord and Sudbury, is also ramping up on-farm events to draw more visitors and convert foot traffic into farmstand purchases. As of this writing, the farm's pick-your-own sunflower season for 2026 has already ended, according to the farm's own website — so it is no longer a current draw, contrary to this article's original framing. Ongoing offerings include a weekly Thursday Night BBQ at the deli and a Stone Soup Dinner benefiting Concord agriculture scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 20, according to the farm's website.

The fuel squeeze is hitting neighbors hard.

At Barrett's Mill Farm, a 14-acre Concord operation co-owned by Melissa Maxwell and Lise Holdorf, fuel costs are up 76 percent. The farm locked in its CSA prices during the fall and winter, before the conflict drove costs higher, leaving little room to absorb the increase mid-season.

"It's hard to kind of economize on fuel because the way that we farm requires use of our tractors," Holdorf told the Globe. "It's not like we can cut back really on the usage of our tractors. So we are just making less money."

Barrett's Mill derives more than half its revenue from its CSA program, where subscriptions can run up to $1,300 per year. Maxwell said the farm has seen an uptick in customers as shoppers seek out local produce amid rising cyclosporiasis cases nationally.

Claire Morenon, communications manager at Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, a nonprofit supporting more than 250 Massachusetts farms, said operations have little wiggle room when hit with abrupt cost spikes because they already face high land values and expensive labor unique to the state.

Beyond fuel, farms statewide are contending with drought conditions, higher seed and fertilizer costs driven by tariffs and pandemic-era inflation, and rising labor expenses.

Verrill Farm's CSA runs through Wednesday, Oct. 21, an 18-week season that began June 24. A half share for that season is priced at $450; a full share runs $800, and monthly mini-shares are also available. The $450 figure in this article's original version described that price as covering "market-style shares" generally, but it is specifically the half-share rate — not the only, or the full, share price.

Now that the 2026 sunflower season has ended, pricing details for pick-your-own sunflowers are no longer posted on the farm's site; while it ran, admission was tiered by how many flowers a visitor cut, rather than a flat $10 age-based field pass as this article originally described, and children 5 and under were admitted free unless they picked their own flowers.