Harlow Farm is "Sharing the Harvest"

Paul Harlow - photo courtesy of VT Foodbank

This great post from the Vermont Foodbank features Paul Harlow, the farmer behind Harlow Farm and Westminister Organics. He is also a recipient of a loan from the Vermont Farm Fund and we are so proud that we could be a part of his recovery after Tropical Storm Irene.

Harlow Farm: Sharing the Harvest

For nearly a century, the 150-acre Harlow Farm in Westminster, Vermont, has produced healthy, nutritious food for both Vermonters and our neighbors throughout New England. The farm’s commitment and benefit to the Vermont community continues to spread as one of the largest donors of fresh local produce to the Vermont Foodbank.

In any given year, Harlow Farm can donate as much as 56,000 pounds of produce through the Foodbank’s Gleaning Program. The farm plays a significant role in helping the Foodbank grow our network of volunteer support and expand our ability to distribute more fresh, local produce throughout the state.

Paul Harlow is a third generation farmer. His grandfather purchased the farm in 1917 and in 1965 the family converted the farm from dairy to vegetables. As one of the largest organic vegetable farmers in New England, Paul donates lettuce, kale, collards, carrots, beets, peppers, broccoli, cabbage, summer squash, zucchini, winter squash, pumpkins, and more.

“The quality and quantity of produce that Harlow Farm donates is exceptional,” says  Vermont Foodbank Program Manager Michelle Wallace. (See “Insight Look: Program Manager.”) “Paul has been incredibly generous to the Foodbank, entrusting us to drive in his fields and bring volunteers twice a week to harvest excess produce. He offers more food than we have the staff and volunteer power to gather. With more volunteer help, we could be gleaning two to three times more food.”

READ THE REST OF THE POST AT THE VERMONT FOODBANK BLOG

Connecting happiness to our local food system (Pt. 2 of 2)

By Heather Davis, Food Systems Monitoring and Evaluation Research Associate at the Center for an Agricultural Economy

See the first part of this blog

How does measuring happiness and well-being relate to the work I do at the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) and the general work of the organization?  The CAE’s mission is to, “bring together community resources and programs needed to develop a locally based food system that supports the desire of rural communities to rebuild their economic and ecological health.”  We, as an organization, must reflect on why we want to develop the local food system in the first place?  What are our intended outcomes of doing so?  We need to have a vision of the larger impacts of our work.  What benefits does our work have for individual citizens and the community as a whole?

There are four main outcomes of a healthy food system that have developed through my work here and are also reflected in other work that I have come across in my research, which also happen to reflect well-being, in general:

• Healthy Communities
• Robust & Equitable Local Economy
• Food Security
• Healthy Environment

A portion of my work here at the CAE has been measuring the health of the local food system and the well-being of the Hardwick-area.  My Master’s Thesis, A Framework for Monitoring Local and Regional Food Systems, which I worked on while here at the CAE, took a holistic approach to measuring the health of food systems and includes all the various elements that make up a food system (Farms, Food Waste Recycling, Processing, etc), as well as those four outcomes.  This also includes measures on well-being to reflect “Healthy Communities” as one of the intended outcomes of a healthy food system.  Some of the specific indicators relating to this that were developed include:

·   Percent of respondents who participate in bartering

·   Percent of farms who participate in bartering

·   # of Buffalo Mountain Co‐op members (total members & working members)

·   # of members of North Country Farming Network

·   Percent of registered voters who voted in most recent mid‐term election

·   Percent of respondents who indicated that they currently volunteer

·   Average score on community satisfaction index

·   Average score on the “Well‐being Index”

·   Homeownership rate

·   Crimes against property: Number of property crimes / 1000 pop.

·   Crimes against people: Number of crimes against people / 1000 pop.

The intentions of the above indicators (there are a total of 200+) are to get an accurate sense of community vitality, engagement, and well-being.  Other indicators look specifically at details relating to farming, food processing, etc.  The data for this portion of the larger framework is being collected from area organizations, state and federal data sources and via community survey.

In rural areas where farming is integral to the community - and even in more urban areas where we’re seeing the development of more urban agriculture and increased engagement in the production of food – we need to consider the health of the food system when considering our greater well-being, and vice versa.  Food is one of our basic human needs and for true well-being we need to have healthy food and a healthy food system.

The Measuring What Matters Conference and these conversations will be part of the ongoing process of creating the state-mandated well-being index for Vermont.  It really is exciting to see this coming together – another way that this small and humble state is leading the way!

Meet Sweet Rowen Farmstead

A recipient of a Vermont Farm Fund Emergency Loan in 2011, Paul Lisai of Sweet Rowen Farmstead recently celebrated a May 2012 grand Re -opening of his business and processing house. This is what he had to say about how the VFF Emergency Loan helped him get to this point.

After the fire at Ploughgate Creamery I needed to find a new place to process my milk and I settled on the idea of building a new creamery on our family's land in East Albany.  I started looking into funding options.


Getting the initial loan from the VFF gave me more confidence to find resources to make building the creamery happen and although things can always happen faster, I feel like the farm is on the right track...


I think these loans are only the start of something that can be much larger and i hope that there are bigger funding opertuniy's available to farmer in the future - I can't understand why someone would want to invest there money in any thing other then farming. - Paul Lisai, owner of Sweet Rowen Farmstead in Albany, Vermont

Vermont is Taking Big Steps in Cultivating Happiness!!

This two part post is written by Heather Davis, our Food Systems Monitoring and Evaluation Research Associate. Heather collects data for the Center for an Agricultural Economy and helps us understand whether we are achieving our goals when it comes to our programming and monitoring our results. 

Vermont is Taking Big Steps in Cultivating Happiness!! (part 1)

by Heather Davis

Happiness.  What does it really look like?  How do we achieve it?  How do we measure it?  Where does responsibility lie in achieving this state?  With us as individuals?  With the state to support policies that will enhance happiness and well-being?  Or both?  These are the questions that Vermonters are now asking themselves due to a new law passed this year, S.237, which calls for the State of Vermont to measure the well-being of its citizens.  The indicators and the associated data that are being developed for this state initiative will be a real asset in decision-making; for the state budget, for local businesses and organizations, in creating laws and policy, and for individuals in making decisions about their own lives.  This is exciting and progressive stuff!

On May 30^th, I spent the day at the University of Vermont attending the Measuring What Matters: Pathways to Sustainable Well-Being in Vermont conference, sponsored by the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Gross National Happiness USA, and Common Good Vermont.  I am a data geek and I love measures, so the idea of measuring our well-being in a way that is more representative and accurate than the traditional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) method really appeals to me.  Monitoring progress toward goals is the only way we can really know if we are really making our way toward those goals – and what a more worthwhile goal than happiness!  This conference was really up my alley!

After some wonderful speakers, there was some great discussion in the break-out group I attended addressing the question of measuring well-being.  Some of the words that emerged to describe happiness and well-being include “Thriving,” “Community,” “Time balance,” “Resiliency,” “Work-life balance,” “Relationships,” “Access to nature,” and “Basic needs,” and “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” 

After coming up with the definition of happiness and well-being, the next step will be to develop ways to measure these things.  This can be the more difficult part of the process: it’s very important to find the right measures (indicators) – if you measure the wrong thing, you’ll get misleading results and/or the information will not be useful at all.  This problem can be seen in the over-emphasis of measuring GDP.  The U.S. and other countries have generally focused on this measure – which describes the total sum of all economic activity – and have used it to tell us how “well” a nation is doing.  This approach is very problematic for many reasons – not the least of which is that our well-being goes far beyond economics.  Yes, economics is an important part of well-being – to a point – but there are many more factors that we need to pay attention to, such as those mentioned above.  If one of these factors is languishing we need to do something to address it – both as individuals and collectively as a community, state, or nation.  This is why measuring the elements that contribute to happiness is so important – “What you measure affects what you do. If you don’t measure the right thing, you don’t do the right thing” -Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz.

The idea of measuring well-being, beyond the traditional and problematic measure of GDP, began in Bhutan in 1972 when the new young king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, declared that his country would be measuring the Gross National Happiness of his people, which was a more well-rounded way to measure well-being.  It has taken some time (Bhutan was way ahead of the curve here), but the idea has caught on in recent years and several other countries, states, the UN have now begun the process of measuring well-being in a more holistic way.

Now, Vermont is part of this progressive group and will be measuring the well-being of its citizens.  This conference was the first step in this process.  Stay tuned for next week when I discuss the connection between happiness and our local food system! 

Facing Your Fear of Financial Statements

We all have fears, but if you have a small farm or business, you need to face a fear of understanding your finances head on. Check out our latest blog post from Heidi Krantz, Certified Business Counselor at the Vermont Food Venture Center. 



Your Fear of Financial Statements
a word of encouragement for small business owners
by Heidi Krantz


One of the most common challenges faced by start up and early stage business owners is FEAR OF FINANCIALS. This topic seems daunting to many yet it is a skill set that is critical to the success of your business. I’d like to encourage and challenge folks to face this fear and learn to use the information available in a few key pieces of financial information to manage their businesses with more skill and even enjoyment!


READ MORE HERE

When One Door Closes...

With the rains and flooding from Tropical Store Irene on August 28, 2012, we lost the Hardwick Community Garden to the Lamoille River.

It was dispiriting to see all the hard work over the past few years disappear with the topsoil, vegetables and flowers only to be replaced with silt, sand and rocks. Just months before, in January, we had lost 2/3 of the garden first to flooding from an ice jam, a regular occurance in that part of the river, and then to the damage caused by the heavy machinery needed to break the jam and save the town from flooding. 


The following April, with the help of students from Sterling College and our dedicated group of gardeners, we moved stone and debris, re-tilled, raked in new compost, fixed beds and repaired the damage done. We were hopeful and excited as we planned our workshops, reached out to new gardeners and the local school who made up new gardens and got on with the business of community gardening. We had no idea what the end of summer and the height of harvest would bring - not just to us, but to the entire State of Vermont as people everywhere dealt with the loss of their businesses, homes, farms and livliehood in the wake of the massive flood waters that forever changed the topography of our State.

To say our gardeners and our staff were discouraged, is an understatement. With sadness and even some frustration, we made the decision to close the Community Garden. 

Yet, thankfully, that wasn't the end of the story. Once decided to close the gardens, we realized it would give us a chance to take a breath and assess what came next. Staying on the land by the river, owned by the Town of Hardwick, was no longer an option, but where would we go?  How would we pay for it? What does it mean for our very first program as a non-profit organization that lended us our first grant and foray into agriculture in Hardwick? 

With a handful of planning meetings under our belt, a letter from the Friends of Burlington Gardens assuring us a small and necessary grant for relocation, we have moved forward with plans to re-open the Hardwick Community Gardens on our property at Atkins Field in April 2013. Relocating the gardens to our property will assure that the gardens can continue on land designated for agricultural use and it's exposure to southern sun, access to water and higher ground a bit safer from flooding added up to an ideal fit for the new future of the gardens. 


Last week, on April 17th, community gardeners, students from Sterling College and staff from the Center for an Agricultural Economy, cleaned up the former site of the Hardwick Community Garden - taking down the tool tent, cleaning up the debris and lastly, removing the sign that marked the entrance. 

For me, as someone who has recently given up coordination of the gardens to my capable and community-minded colleague Heather Davis, the day was bittersweet, but I look forward to sharing the rest of the story over the next year as we prepare to reopen the new site on Earth Day 2013.

Yours in food, farming and affection,

Elena Gustavson
Program Director
Center for an Agricultural Economy

A few days after the flood in August 2011

Taking down the tent

Taking down the sign

The crew from Sterling College

Yay!

Pete's Greens Outlines Plans to Reinvest Donated Funds

This release, an excerpt below, was sent out Tuesday, Feb. 22nd. We are proud to call Pete Johnson a member of our Board and look forward to the details of his plans for reinvestment.

Catch an interview with Pete on VPR and WCAX on Wed., March 2nd and Thur, March 3rd.

Pete's Greens Outlines Plans to Reinvest Donated Funds

Owner Pete Johnson says community support will inform and inspire their work for years to come.

Destroyed barn was heart of farm operation.

Craftsbury, VT., February 22, 2011—Rising out of the ashes of a barn which was destroyed in a fire on January 12 at Pete’s Greens is an initiative to ensure that funding is available for other Vermont farmers in the future.

Recent donations through a variety of fundraisers will provide Pete’s Greens with an opportunity to rebuild the barn as a more efficient building that will better suit the farms needs. However, Pete Johnson, owner of Pete’s Greens, anticipates that within two to three years, the farm will be able to pay the money forward and has plans to create a fund that will support Vermont agricultural businesses.

“We have been so overwhelmed by how generous everyone has been and we want this money to live

on again another day,” said Pete Johnson. “The idea is that in a few years from now, we’ll start to put the money into a fund that will be managed by a committee or board made up of local folks. That money will go back out into the community to be used in a variety of ways: farm disaster relief, farm to school programs or loans to new or small farms. We are committed to paying it forward. It’s being given to us with such love and thoughtfulness that we really want the funding to do more good work down the line.”

READ MORE ON THE PETE'S GREENS BLOG 

Food Safety Bill is Finally Passed...So What Does it mean for Small Farmers?

The  excerpt below is from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition blog. It does a great job of summing up the (as of yet unfunded) s510 Food Safety Modernization Act which was signed into law by President Obama in early January.



On December 21, 2010, the House of Representatives voted 215-144 to pass the Senate version of the Food Safety Modernization Act, with the Tester-Hagan amendment protecting small farms intact. This final vote by the House ends weeks of procedural wrangling, and sends the bill to the President’s desk for enactment.


As we reported in a previous blog post, the food safety bill hit a roadblock after passing the Senate in late November because a provision requiring the collection of user fees violated the Constitutional mandate that all revenue-generating measures must originate in the House. House leaders then attached the bill as an amendment to two separate spending bills, neither of which were able to gain sufficient support.


Then, on Sunday, December 19, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) circumvented the original technical mistake by attaching the bill to a House-originated measure (HR 2751) authorizing a cash-for-clunkers program – a “shell bill” with bipartisan support. The Senate approved this shell bill by voice vote. The final bill passed today by the House mirrors the bill passed three weeks ago by the Senate.


It includes six NSAC-supported amendments championed by:


* Senators Jon Tester (D-MT) and Kay Hagan (D-NC) to give very small farms and food processing facilities as well as direct-market farms who sell locally the option of complying with state regulation or with modified, scale-appropriate federal regulation.

* Senator Sanders (I-VT) providing FDA authority to either exempt farms engaged in low or no risk processing or co-mingling activities from new regulatory requirements or to modify particular regulatory requirements for such farming operations.

For the rest of the blog post and to read the other amendments, visit NSAC.

Green-Aid Seedbomb Vending Machine

Below is a post by our VFVC intern, Michelle Skolnik, who has recently moved to the Northeast Kingdom. She shares her perspective about keeping our spaces green and cared for, no matter where you live.

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Green-Aid Seedbomb Vending Machine
by Michelle Skolnik

A friend recently shared a project with me, that was created by Common Studio, a California-based design practice. She sent me a video that the designers made about their Green-Aid Seedbomb Dispensers, which you can watch here:



A “seed-bomb” is a ball made of clay, compost, and seeds which can be placed just about anywhere with water and sunshine and the seeds will grow right out of the ball. Common Studio recognizes that seed-bombs have been around for a while—which they trace back to New York City in the early seventies. Though the popular term may have been coined in the seventies, the idea seems to have been around since the 1930s. I could not find a credible resource to reference, but a basic Google search suggests that “aerial reforestation” (dropping seeds from flying airplanes) started in the 1930s and has since been tried by many organizations across the world.

Common Studio’s Seedbomb Vending Machine is “an interactive public awareness campaign, a lucrative fundraising tool, and a beacon for small scale grass roots action that engages directly yet casually with local residents” about a common urban issue: the lack of greenspaces and care for the urban environment.

Though the seed-bombs can’t transform a concrete lot into a garden, they can serve as a visual trigger to remind people that transformation can occur, and I see this Seedbomb Vending project as a great conversation starter and as a clever awareness campaign. However, I don’t think this project needs to be limited to cities. A lot of recent attention has been brought to “reclaiming” and transforming urban spaces into green spaces worth caring for. And though I certainly support that idea, I think it is equally as important to encourage people who already live in beautiful greenspaces to take responsibility for them. Here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, we are fortunate to be surrounded by beautiful mountains, foliage, woods, and agricultural land. For the most part, people seem to care a great deal about them—especially the numerous family farms that exist because of their immaculate care of their personal environments. However, people who live outside of cities are still prone to what many consider to be “urban problems,” like being careless of personal impact on the environment, littering, being wasteful, and lacking access to good, healthy food. Maybe we don’t need to be tossing seed-bombs around to remind us that the place we live can be beautiful, but we might replace seed-bombs for plastic toys in supermarket vending machines to help ease us off desiring 25 cent trinkets that will end up as landfill. Instead of treating our kids to a gumball that they will chew and collect sugar from, why not treat them to a seed-ball that they can drop anywhere and watch grow? Maybe these little vending machines could get people excited about using their yards to grow food or about volunteer to maintain walking trails.

I don’t expect these Seedbomb Vending Machines to accomplish that much in the way of social change, but it is nice to see what kind of innovative ideas people have to engage their communities with important issues. Creativity is one of the most useful tools we have, and I feel that the more of these sorts of projects we are exposed to the better for our own brainstorming. For more information about Common Studio and their GreenAid Machines, you can visit their website at: http://thecommonstudio.com/.

Pies for People, Soup for Supper- Bringing awareness to hunger, one pie at a time.

Hardwick, VT- November 9th, 2010-The squash is harvested, pureed and frozen, the volunteers are signed up and the recipes have been double checked. All that’s left is to bake the pies, cook the soup and deliver the food.

With just a week before our first bake night at Sterling College, we find ourselves reflecting on the past few weeks, our last two Pie events and our message as two mission-driven organizations.

Each year, there are hours of coordination leading up to the event. There are dozens of phone calls (and even more e-mails), soliciting donations of ingredients and talking to potential volunteers, coordinating the use of kitchens, freezers, and deliveries so that the timing is just right for our recipients. Once the coordination is nailed down, we move immediately into two nights of baking and cooking, where a cadre of volunteers make crusts and pies, season and stir vats of soup, wipe counters, sweep and mop floors, all the while jamming to tunes over a set of speakers in Sterling’s spacious kitchen. One week before Thanksgiving, it’s a mad scramble to deliver the pies and soup, intact, to their various homes. It’s an exhausting 6 weeks and we often ask ourselves the following questions: Are we making an impact? Is the message getting out? Thankfully, we can answer both questions with a resounding “Yes!”.

According to the USDA, 14.6% of our population was food insecure in 2008. That represents over 49 million people, of whom 16 million are children. Those are staggering numbers.

On a local level, we directly impact hundreds of people when they eat the pies or soup at community dinners, school lunch, as a snack at one of the senior centers or as a client of the local Food Pantries. On a regional level, we hope to inspire others to work with food security organizations towards a solution for hunger from a local perspective using fresh, healthy ingredients. Neighbors helping neighbors. A community feeding their community.

We know that we cannot end hunger with a slice of pie or a bowl of soup, but if our Pies for People, Soup for Supper event gets people talking, involved and working towards a solution, then we support those who take on hunger every day.

If you would like to be involved in our event, please consider donating to our Food Access Fund or donate directly to your local food bank, food pantry or any other organization that strives to create food access and security. Thank you for your support.

Contact:

Elena Gustavson, Program Director
Center for an Agricultural Economy
elena@hardwickagriculture.org or 802.472.5840, ext 2
Contact:
Tim Patterson, Media Director
Sterling College
tpatterson@sterlingcollege.edu or 802.586.7711, ext 124

Observations from the Global Food Security Conference in Montreal

Heather Davis is the Center for an Agricultural Economy's Graduate Research Fellow. She is monitoring local food systems in both the NEK and Hardwick as well as focusing on gathering community input about Atkins Field at Cooper Brook. Recently, she was in Montreal at the Global Food Security Conference and we asked her to write about her experience and thoughts about her time there. 
-Elena

~~~

Food and agriculture have been hot topics in recent years, and this past week I had the opportunity to dive deeper into international food security issues at the Third Global Food Security Conference at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. The focus of this years conference was on nutrition and water challenges as it relates to global food security.

After what was described at the conference as three decades of neglect of international agricultural development programs, recently there has been renewed interest in and recognition of the importance of these programs, as well as connecting agricultural development to improved nutrition outcomes. It is estimated that one billion people on this earth are hungry and the United Nations Millennium Development Goal #1, regarding slowing and reversing the growth of hunger and poverty, is not being met in most countries. In light of this, however, some of the work that I was exposed to at this conference demonstrates the exciting and positive projects, research, and innovations that are happening to address these challenges around the world.

In the past, it had been assumed that increased food security and improved nutrition would automatically follow when there was increased economic growth. It is now understood that the picture is much more complex than this. Whose economic status is improving? Are women targeted in these projects at all? What is the debt burden that small farmers are taking on and what is the impact of this debt? Are there high levels of mechanization of agriculture and what impact does this have upon, not just productivity, but the labor force? What crops are being grown: subsistence and/or cash crops? What is the balance of all of these issues (and more!) that really helps to improve peoples’ lives, food security, and nutritional status?

As was emphasized during the conference repeatedly, in development much attention is now upon small-holder farmers (<5 acres) and women, who are the majority of these small farmers in the world. Supporting women who farm, and not just focusing on farm income, but assuring that the crops that are grown are diverse, nutrient-dense, and are consumed within the household has been shown to translate into better household food security and improved nutrition.

Dr. Timothy Geary, director of McGill’s Institute of Parasitology, spoke to the importance of addressing water-borne pest and parasite problems because these can interfere with nutrient absorption as well as human productivity. Dr. Noel Solomons from the Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment, Aging and Metabolism in Guatemala spoke about research his organization has done that demonstrated that a high microbial environment (unsanitary conditions) negatively effects child and infant growth. Dr. Victoria Quinn, of Helen Keller International, spoke of the successes her organization has had in promoting small gardens and poultry production among women and how that has translated into improved nutrition for their families.

Of course, the picture is still much more complex than this. Soil health is one thing that was not addressed which I think is very important to pay attention to. How can we have nutrient-dense crops when we are farming on nutrient-starved soils? The complexity of addressing issues of food security, both domestically and internationally, illustrates another point that was reiterated throughout the conference: the need for inter-agency, inter-disciplinary coordination in our efforts to eliminate hunger.

Few would argue that hunger is an acceptable thing in this world. No one enjoys the thought of children, or even adults, who are stunted, wasting or dying due to the lack of food - we are more humane than that. So, let’s take the resources we have and the incredible progress we have made through research and experience and make reaching the Millenium Development Goal #1 a reality, then moving beyond that to making poverty and food insecurity a thing of the past.

Students Cook, Community Eats

Youth cooking for the community. How nice is that? Last week, students from Craftsbury Academy and Sterling College, teamed up to provide "the goods" for United Church of Craftbury Common's monthly Community Supper, which happens the 3rd Wednesday of every month--this year, falling on October 20th.

Kindergartners and 1st graders came together to make pies, while 4th graders tried their hands at kneading breads and high school students will be pressing cider. Sterling students are putting their hands and minds to work in making the meal itself which will consist of beef stew and lentil soup.
I, Eliza, CAE intern, had the joyous opportunity this morning to go over to the elementary school and witness the high-energy, "organic" process of 4th graders reveling in the processes of yeast, the feel and taste of dough, and the muscle required for kneading. Andy Messinger, Sterling senior, started off the class very appropriately with a mini-lesson on the anatomy of the grain kernel and the difference between whole wheat and white flour. Noise, color and the energy were abundant as the group dutifully washed their hands and then broke into randomly assigned groups of 3. Each group was given warm water and chance to scoop out 4 teaspoons of yeast into the water. The whole class was entranced by the yeast, and comments ranged from "it smells like eggs" to "look at them growing!". They then worked together very equitably to mix in the white and wheat flour whilst stirring the mixture all together. Add a dash of salt and then the real fun began as they all rolled up their sleeves and had a blast kneading the dough. Judging by the glowing faces and enthusiastic remarks, there was no doubt that fun was had.

I learned that the pie making with the kindergartners was an equally delightful experience, and feel sure that fun will be had by the older students as well. I hope many of you made it to the meal last Wednesday and tasted the labor of love, fun, laughter and learning that went into this month's community meal. 

Eliza Mutino
Sterling College, 1st Year
CAE Intern/Work Learning Program

A Global Work Party in the Northeast Kingdom

350.org, is an international campaign, whose mission is to "inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis-to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet".

On October 10, 2010, 350.org, with the help of millions of people around the world, organized a global work party, where communities worked on projects that would help them cut carbon and build toward a "clean energy future". The event was also about putting pressure on our leaders to pass policies meant to make real change towards clean energy and reducing emissions.


Sterling College-Craftsbury Common, VT
credit to Ethan Darling of Albany, VT

The number, 350, represents the upper limits of the parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) that our planet can withstand so as to prevent both human and natural disaster. Currently, we are at 392 ppm, a number that scientists say is the highest concentration this planet has ever seen. Ever.

This means atmospheric changes that will, if it hasn't already, the affect our human and natural world. It means swaths of land lost to rising seas; rapid, possibly permanent changes in weather patterns; increase in disease; loss of habitats which result in loss of animal species; drought.

So, what did we do on 10.10.10? We had a party.
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All over the area-Hyde Park, Albany, Stowe, Elmore and Johnson, events were happening from trash collecting to wood chipping to "dormstorming". In Hardwick, there was a 3pm rally at Hazen Union where politicians like Shap Smith, Lucy Leriche and others participated as well as performances the Woodbury Bluegrass Highlanders and Yanks in the Attic. In Craftsbury, Sterling College and musician Chris Dorman organized a giant leaf raking of the Common area, trail building and grain threshing workshop to be followed by a celebratory concert and live webstream of Chris' album Sita.


Hardwick, VT


So, did we save the polar bear on Sunday? No. Will global warming likely continue? Yes. Did many of us share a sense of purpose, community and hope? Absolutely.

National School Lunch Week

The School Nutrition Association has deemed this week as National School Lunch Week to bring awareness around the importance of healthy school lunches for productive and happy students.

Here in Vermont, we are fortunate to have two incredible organizations that focus on awareness, education, implementation and integration of fresh, healthy foods in our school systems.

Vermont FEED, a collaboration between Shelburne Farms, Food Works at Two Rivers and NOFA-VT works with schools and communities to raise awareness about healthy foods and nutrition as well as the role Vermont farms and farmers play in making that happen.

Green Mountain Farm to School (GMFTS) works towards promoting beneficial relationships between farms, schools and communities both economically and educationally.

If you are interested in getting healthy, local, farm fresh food in our educational system, contact these organizations to see how you can get involved.

And, as a great resource, also check out the Center for Ecoliteracy's pdf guide to the framework needed for a healthy school lunch, Rethinking School Lunches.

Happy eating!!

What Can Hardwick Really Teach the Rest of America? - A book review of "The Town That Food Saved"

by Melissa Pasanen

Book titles are always tricky, but the title of Ben Hewitt’s new book, “The Town That Food Saved,” put me on hyperbole alert before I even saw the advance proof. To be fair, that was only partially the fault of the title.

You’d have to live under a rock in the Vermont food and farming world to be ignorant of what’s going on around Hardwick, the Northeast Kingdom town that is the subject of this book and of the identically titled article by Hewitt published on Gourmet magazine’s website in October 2008. In fact, anyone interested in food and agriculture in Vermont is so aware of all the attention paid by everyone from Emeril Lagasse to Dan Rather that the very mention of Hardwick often prompts eyeballs to roll even as people acknowledge that yes, there are good things going on in Hardwick. There is perhaps a wee bit of jealousy involved but, more importantly, a justified feeling that there are other places in Vermont doing valuable work to re-imagine and rebuild a local food system so why does Hardwick get all the press – and now a full-length book?

Hewitt, thankfully, is sensitive to the aggressive claim his title makes and also, as a seasoned freelance journalist, he is fully aware of how the media can build a nice little story into the next best thing since sliced bread – or rather, a hearty unsliced loaf of local baker Charlie Emers’ bread, as good an icon as any to represent a return to a pre-Wonder bread food system. For journalists, Hewitt points out early in his book, Hardwick’s agriculture-based renaissance offered a story that “was just so damn…perfect…neatly wrapped in recycled paper and adorned with a big, fat biodegradable bow.” In the end though, thanks to Hewitt’s capable and insightful storytelling, Hardwick makes a very useful case history of how one rural, downtrodden town has been reinvigorated through efforts to grow new businesses that happen to be food-based at a time when America seems to have finally accepted that our industrialized food system needs to change.

While Hewitt spends some time on facts and analysis, mostly he lets the characters drive his narrative and illustrate his points, making the book a truly engaging read. Hardwick provides good material and Hewitt has an eye and ear for illuminating and often entertaining detail. (Although there are few cases of TMI - as in the case of Tom Stearns’ expertise at armpit farting.) Among the many colorful personalities, though, if there are heroes in this book they’d come in the unlikely form of Ralph and Cindy Persons, a couple “on the wrong side of 50” who might start their day with apple pie and cold pizza along with a Bud Light and Clamato “breakfast beer.” The Persons operate a mobile slaughterhouse and, Hewitt argues, “have done more for their town’s food security, quality, and accessibility than anyone else…For $50, Ralph and Cindy will come to your home, shoot your pig in the head, make a deep slice in its throat to sever the jugular veins, hoist it into the air…, skin it, remove its viscera…, and saw it neatly in half.” Their chapter concludes with Ralph Persons explaining, “I like to tell people little things…Like how to cook heart so the whole family will love it, or make liver so their kids will eat it.” Of course, Hewitt reflects, it’s little things like this that make all the difference.

The Persons are part of the old guard Hewitt describes – from multi-generation farmers to the back-to-the-landers of the 70s and early 80s – who have been doing the local food thing for decades or longer and just quietly go about their business while the media fusses over the new young crop of “visionaries.” This dichotomy, it turns out not surprisingly, is the biggest conflict in the story. As one of the old-school , hippie generation of local farmers, Annie Gaillard of Surfing Veggie Farm, puts it to Hewitt: “I think we’re all on the same page on how to make this a better planet, but they make it sound like there was nothing here before.” At least one of the lower key members of the new guard, Tom Gilbert of the Highfields Center for Composting , acknowledges this point: “There’s a lot of hype right now…We have not created a new food system in Hardwick; we’re just rebuilding and utilizing an infrastructure that was already there. I think we let the media get ahead of us.”

“The Town That Food Saved,” winds down with Gaillard extending a hand across the divide to become a board member of the Center for an Agricultural Economy, the nonprofit founded by the new generation. In the last scene of the book, Hewitt takes a spot at the bar of Claire’s Restaurant on Main Street and watches a mix of the people he’s spent time with during his research arrive to eat carefully prepared, locally raised food. He reflects on what Hardwick can teach the rest of the country about not only relocalizing the food system but also about reconnecting with each other and with nature. “We’ve forgotten that every economy is ultimately an economy that exists only with the blessing of the sun and the land…Yet we have fooled ourselves into believing that we can usurp these forces through the blunt application of wit and will and the technologies they give rise to,” he writes. “That time is coming to a close. Change or be changed: These are the choices. The people of Hardwick have chosen the former.”
It wouldn’t have made as catchy a title, but Hewitt has made his most important point: Food doesn’t save towns. People do.
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Melissa Pasanen is a South Burlington-based freelance writer and co-author of the New York Times notable cookbook, “ Cooking with Shelburne Farms” (Viking, 2007). She is food editor of Vermont Life and a regular contributor to The Burlington Free Press and Edward Behr’s Art of Eating.

Concept2's Annual Holiday Challenge Honors the CAE, SlowFood, Oxfam International and Feeding America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Meredith Haff
Concept2
(877) 887-7805
meredithh@concept2cts.com

WORK OUT TO FEED OTHERS IN CONCEPT2’S ANNUAL HOLIDAY CHALLENGE
Concept2’s 10th Annual Holiday Challenge to Benefit Food-Related Organizations

November 23, 2009 – Morrisville, VT – With holiday foods everywhere you turn this time of year, Concept2 offers a way to fend off holiday weight gain and stress while helping others in need with the 10th Annual Holiday Challenge. This year, the Holiday Challenge helps put food on the table for struggling families by supporting organizations whose mission it is to make sure our food is healthy, sustainable and that no one goes hungry.

Participants choose an exercise goal of 100K or 200K to complete between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then record their progress online in the free Concept2 Online Logbook. The Holiday Challenge rewards motivation and perseverance, not speed. Finishers are recognized with certificates of completion and honorary pins. In the past ten years, Concept2 rowers have rowed over 5.3 trillion meters! To include even more participants, Concept2 invites skiers to include their Concept2 SkiErg meters as well.

For every person who rows or skis at least 100K during the challenge, Concept2 will donate $.02 for every kilometer (1000 meters) to one of the following organizations: Oxfam International (oxfam.org), Slow Food USA (slowfoodusa.org), Feeding America (feedingamerica.org) and The Center for an Agricultural Economy (hardwickagriculture.org). For each kilometer beyond 100K, Concept2 will donate an additional $.04. There are awards in kids and adaptive categories as well.

“Keeping fit and eating healthy can be especially challenging at this time of year,” explains Concept2 Co-Founder Judy Geer, “and the Holiday Challenge provides a great goal to help participants stay focused.” The Holiday Challenge provides incentive to stay healthy during the holidays while also helping those in need. The not-for-profit organizations in this year’s Holiday Challenge were chosen based on their efficient use of funding, reputation and unique programming. Participants have a choice of which organization they choose to support.
In 2008, Concept2 first supported charitable causes through the Holiday Challenge; over $26,000 was raised for organizations working on environmental issues. This year’s goal to raise $30,000 requires the dedication of rowers and skiers to join together for a good cause, one meter at a time.

For more information on the 10th Annual Online Holiday Challenge, or for details on where to find a Concept2 Indoor Rower at a health facility near you, please visit www.concept2.com.

Concept2 was founded by Dick and Peter Dreissigacker in 1976. Fresh from Olympic training, the two brothers designed and manufactured carbon fiber racing oars, then went on to create the world’s first air-resistance indoor rower. The SkiErg, launched in 2009, builds upon Concept2’s years of experience in designing and manufacturing high-performance training equipment. For more information about Concept2, visit concept2.com.
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Two Paths Less Traveled-Recycling Takes Many Forms

An article by Alexandra Jump, for Livin' Magazine about Steve Gagner and our own Tom Gilbert, Executive Director of Highfields Center for Composting and one of our directors on the CAE board.

"Every once in a while you get lucky and you meet someone who is actively making change for the good. This is a story about two such individuals who are, in their own ways, making Vermont and the world we live in a better place. I don’t think they know each other or travel in the same circles. In fact from the outside, they are pretty different: One is a leader in the sustainable agriculture community and the other is an officer in the Vermont National Guard. One could be considered a liberal crunch muffin and the other a conservative joe, but dig a little deeper and you will find two men who have remarkable similarities. Both detest political labels and both are cleaning things up in their own way. "

Read the rest of the article here

Dan Rather Reports on Hardwick Area Food System

Dan Rather Reports visited the Hardwick area and its surrounding communities this last September. After visiting and interviewing local farms, businesses, and Monty Fischer, our executive director for the Center for an Agricultural Economy, the following segment aired on November 17, 2009 on HD Net.

Thank you to High Mowing Organic Seeds for posting this video for all to enjoy.

Hardwick Area Food System on "Dan Rather Reports" This video is made available to you from The Center for an Agricultural Economy via High Mowing Seeds on Vimeo.

Article-Local Banquet Winter 2008/2009

I know this article is a several months old now, but I found myself reading it this morning and appreciating it all over again.

Enid Wonnacott is the executive director of NOFA Vermont, where she has been for 20 years. She has watched change in the Vermont food system over the past two decades from a unique perspective that many of us have not had. Enjoy the read!

Read it here.