NOFA
VT reports increase in winter CSAs and Farmers' Markets
from the NOFA
newsletter
One of the most impressive things we’ve noticed
this past month is the growth of local food markets through the winter
season. Both the number of winter CSA’s and Farmers’
Markets being offered this winter have more than doubled since last
year! Many winter CSAs have already sold out on shares, but winter
Farmers’ Markets are a great place to find local food (and many
are still looking for vendors.) Weekly markets will be held in Rutland
and Dorset while Montpelier, Brattleboro, Norwich, and Chelsea will be
held on a monthly basis. Other markets are choosing to host a single
Holiday Market before Thanksgiving. Dates, times, and locations of the
markets can be found on our website (
www.nofavt.org)
along with contact information for the farmers’ market managers.
CURRENT USE TASK FORCE UPDATE
from Rural Vermont
During the 2007 legislative session, the Vermont state
legislature authorized a study of the Use Value Appraisal program
(commonly known as "current use"). The legislature also formed a Task
Force to review the study when it was completed, gather input from
Vermonters, and make recommendations to the legislature for possible
changes to the Current Use program. The study has just been completed,
and the Task Force is now meeting. If you are in the Current Use
program, have concerns about the program or the study, or have had
difficulties getting into the program, now is the time to speak up! You
can find the study
here.
On Wednesday, November 7, 2007, the Task Force will meet again to
discuss recommendations to the legislature, in Room 11 of the
Statehouse. You can also submit written comments to: Rosalind Daniels,
Legislative Council 115 State St. Montpelier, VT 05633
The Food Hub
The
Food Hub is a project of Burlington's Intervale Center (IC) that is
in development stages. The Food Hub works with the community to
identify emerging market opportunities for Vermont farmers. As part of
a collaborative process, the IC will explore and implement creative
strategies to assist farmers with securing new, stable markets. The
Food Hub, as envisioned, may facilitate the development of a multi-farm
CSA, a shared season-extending storage facility and distribution hub,
and/or local brokerage service to consolidate products and coordinate
marketing. The goal is to asist farmers with securing new, stable
markets while increasing the availability of locally grown food to
consumers, grocers, restaurants, and workplace cafeterias.
The Food Hub is committed to building a community food system that
connects Vermonters in ways that are convenient, profitable and
honorable. You can read more about the project
here.
The Gardener's Year: Planning the Garden
Post Oil Solutions will begin its 2008 "(Re)learning to Feed Ourselves"
workshop series with the appropriately titled, The Gardener's Year:
Planning the Garden.
This workshop will be held on Sunday, December 9, 2007, from 1:30-4:30,
at the Brattleboro Savings and Loan community room, and will be led by
Robert King who presented the well-received root cellar and cold frame
workshops during our 2007 series.
The 2008 series will increasingly reflect the belief of both POS and
Robert that gardening and food production are 12 month activities that
require year-round thought and activity. That is why it is most
appropriate to begin the 2008 series in December, to underscore the
importance of planning and preparation at this time of year for the
next growing season.
Robert King has worked with many “master gardeners” over
the past 40 years. His interests include sustainable agriculture
particularly as found in Rudolf Steiner’s Bio-Dynamic
scientific/organic methods.
We will follow this workshop with a Seed Starting Workshop on Sunday,
January 27, 2008, from 1:00-3:00, again at the Brattleboro Savings and
Loan, led by Ron Krupp, author of The Woodchuck's Guide to Gardening,
amongst other works.
The fee for all POS workshops is $5, and pre-registration is required:
802 869 2141 or
info@postoilsolutions.org.
Rural Vermont's Food
Tastings and Film Screenings
What better way to connect with friends, family, and neighbors than
over wholesome foods and thought-provoking films? Rural Vermont’s
Local Foods Cookbooks are finally here! They feature 100+ recipes
collected from all of you, and highlight Vermont’s bountiful farm
fresh products. Now we need your help to debut them! As the holiday
season approaches, there is no better time to host a Food Tasting
(featuring recipes from the cookbook) for friends, family, and
neighbors. They will be floored by the flavors and the worthy cause
that their cookbook purchases support! You can also order a cookbook
($15 each) by calling 802-223-7222. Rural Vermont has a newly stocked
library of FILMS including The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived
Peak Oil, Standing Silent Nation, Fast Food Nation, and Supersize Me.
Organize a Film Screening in your home, church, or library and help us
share these and other important films about relocalizing our food
supply and supporting our local economy. The legislature will be back
in session before we know it, so now is the time to inspire your
community to take action! Contact Shelby at 223-7222 or
shelby@ruralvermont.org for
more info about setting up a Food Tasting and/or Film Screening in your
neighborhood.
VT Foodbank Network Partner Program
Does your garden produce more than you can use? Consider becoming
a Food Partner! If you are looking for an outlet for excess produce
from your garden or farm, there is a Foodbank Network Partner near you
that would appreciate your donation. Look at our Network Partner Map to
find a partner near you!
Read More
TEN REASONS TO BUY LOCAL FOOD
(adapted from 'Growing For Market'
newsletter - see original
here.)
by Vern Grubinger, University of
Vermont Extension
Vermont is blessed with a variety of farms. While known for dairy,
there also many farms that raise fruits and vegetables, flowers and
herbs, and animal products of all kinds. Our farmers are dedicated to
stewardship and committed to quality. And while they love what they do,
they aren't doing it for entertainment. They need to make a living.
Consumers that value fresh food and a working landscape should support
local farmers by buying their products. Here are ten reasons why.
1) Locally grown food tastes and looks better. The crops are
picked at their peak, and farmstead products like cheeses and are
hand-crafted for best flavor. Food imported from far away is older and
has traveled on trucks or planes, and sat in warehouses before it gets
to you.
2) Local food is better for you. The shorter the time between the farm
and your table, the less likely it is that nutrients will be lost from
fresh food.
3) Local food preserves genetic diversity. In the modern agricultural
system, plant varieties are chosen for their ability to ripen
uniformly, withstand harvesting, survive packing and last a long time
on the shelf, so there is limited genetic diversity in large-scale
production. Smaller local farms, in contrast, often grow many different
varieties to provide a long harvest season, an array of colors, and the
best flavors.
4) Local food is safe. There's a unique kind of assurance that comes
from looking a farmer in the eye at farmers' market or driving by the
fields where your food comes from. Local farmers aren't anonymous and
they take their responsibility to the consumer seriously.
5) Local food supports local families. The wholesale prices that
farmers get for their products are low, often near the cost of
production. Local farmers who sell direct to consumers cut out the
middleman and get full retail price for their food - which helps farm
families stay on the land.
6) Local food builds community. When you buy direct from a farmer,
you're engaging in a time-honored connection between eater and grower.
Knowing farmers gives you insight into the seasons, the land, and your
food. In many cases, it gives you access to a place where your children
and grandchildren can go to learn about nature and agriculture.
7) Local food preserves open space. When farmers get paid more for
their products by marketing locally, they're less likely to sell
farmland for development. When you buy locally grown food, you're doing
something proactive to preserve our agricultural landscape.
8) Local food keeps taxes down. According to several studies,
farms contribute more in taxes than they require in services, whereas
most development contributes less in taxes than the cost of required
services.
9) Local food benefits the environment and wildlife. Well-managed farms
conserve fertile soil and clean water in our communities. The farm
environment is a patchwork of fields, meadows, woods, ponds and
buildings that provide habitat for wildlife.
10) Local food is an investment in the future. By supporting local
farmers today, you are helping to ensure that there will be farms in
your community tomorrow.
From the VPON Community Pages
Archives:
Land,
Bread and History: A Research Report on the Potential for Food
Self-Sufficiency in Vermont
by George C. Burrill and James R. Nolfi, 1974
introduced by Anita Kelman; Links to Burrill/Nolfi reports follow
article. (Originally posted in the May 07 VPON Monthly News and
Views.)
What I hope is that an examination of this
almost forgotten report, removed from the shelf and dusted off, leads
to a realization of just what it is we have lost by our consignment of
the majority of our food production to other locales. What could we
hope to gain by taking some of that back? It's a discussion that's
worth happening.
I was aware at some level of course, that grain and soybeans were
currently grown in Vermont. I knew a few farmers who were in fact doing
just that. As an inspector for VOF (Vermont Organic Farm)
certification, I had visited several farms growing wheat and soybeans.
I just had assumed that this was only a “fringe” element of
our agriculture; after all everyone knows that the Midwest is where the
bulk of our grains and soybeans are grown. And I assumed that
this had always been the case.
That was until I happened upon a report from the 1970's: Land, Bread
and History: A Research Report on the Potential for Food
Self-Sufficiency in Vermont by George Burrill and James Nolfi. Perusing
the many tables of data in this volume, I was astounded to realize that
my assumptions were totally off-base. Consider that back in 1880,
Vermont produced 3,742,280 bushels of oats. By 1970 that had fallen to
a mere 144,410 bushels. In 1850 we yielded 535,955 bushels of wheat,
but that had dropped to 19,912 bushels by 1970. The same pattern holds
true for other grains such as barley; 420,761 bushels in 1890 but down
to 2,640 bushels by 1970, and rye, 230,993 bushels in 1840 but a
minuscule 650 bushels by 1970!
This pattern was not confined to grains however. It held true for
livestock; 266,296 hogs in 1850 but only 3,780 by 1970, and sheep;
1,681,819 in 1840 but only 6,715 by 1970.
The same was found for fruit and vegetables with potato production
falling from 8,869,751 bushels in 1840 down to 279,566 by 1970,
pears-20,763 bushels in 1910 but only 1,030 in 1970 and plums-10,756
bushels in 1920 but a mere 60 bushels in 1970. The same holds true for
most of the other categories in the data tables.
So what happened? Well a hint of this lay in Table I, which examined
the relationship of population and land area in farms. Back in 1870,
with a population roughly half of our current level, Vermont had
4,528,804 acres in farms. The 1970 figures show a drop to 1,915,520
acres in farmland. It seems clear that we had drastically reduced the
land area devoted to farms and likewise the population involved in
active farming. We were no longer growing most of our food but were
importing it from elsewhere.
The significance of this radical change was not lost on me. It was
apparent that we had been capable of growing significant quantities of
a variety of food here in Vermont; everything from oats, barley and
buckwheat to cherries, plums and currants. We had at one point been
largely capable of feeding ourselves, with a varied diet of grains,
animal products and fruit and vegetables. At present, we find ourselves
capable of self-sufficiency in food only in dairy. As we import much of
our livestock grain, even this is questionable.
So what does this mean? Well it means many things to me. It is apparent
for one that most of our food dollars are going elsewhere. If we grew
more of the food we ate, we could keep more of that money here in
state. Growing more of our own food would preserve a working
agricultural landscape, and many jobs in farm and food related
employment. As well, importing food from elsewhere comes with an
emissions price tag; transporting the majority of our food to Vermont
requires the use of fossil fuels, with corresponding greenhouse gas
emissions.
Our current situation requires that we depend upon the tractor trailers
continually arriving here from elsewhere, stocking our stores with food
not grown here. The recent news regarding our food supply has not been
good; devastating storms in other parts of the country, melamine
contaminated wheat and rice gluten out of China, e-coli contaminated
spinach. While we can't prevent disastrous weather events here in our
own state as well we know, growing more of our food has the potential
of providing more control over the quality of what we eat.
What I hope is that an examination of this almost forgotten report,
removed from the shelf and dusted off, leads to a realization of just
what it is we have lost by our consignment of the majority of our food
production to other locales. What could we hope to gain by taking some
of that back? It's a discussion that's worth happening.
FOLLOW THESE LINKS TO THE BURRILL/NOLFI REPORTS:
Land, Bread and History: A Research Report on the Potential for Food
Self-Sufficiency in Vermont -
http://vtpeakoil.net/docs/VTfood.HTM
Energy Utilization in Vermont Agriculture -
http://vtpeakoil.net/docs/Energy_VT_Ag.HTM
Developing a Community Level Natural Resource Inventory System -
http://vtpeakoil.net/docs/NR_inventory.HTM
Thank you to George Burrill for granting
permission to store these reports on the VPON website.