These initiatives are all good food for thought, but we need to bear in
mind that Vermont is a special case. In recent decades it has been
transformed by the invasion of permanent residents from moneyed classes
that represent the upper tier of the two tier US economy that has emerged
in these decades. Without their money flowing through the local economy,
and particularly the food economy, the kinds of changes that this article
describes would be much more difficult. I have farmer friends in Vermont
who can do things that are unimaginable in most other places in the US.
We can take ideas from what is happening in Vermont, but we should be
careful not to be misled by how easy it is in Vermont to put those ideas
into practice.
Karl North
Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
www.geocities.com/northsheep/
"Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard
"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying
On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:27:14 -0400 Katie Quinn-Jacobs
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Today in the NYTimes, a case study in what can be accomplished by
> merging progressive values, business acumen and activist farmers.
>
> -- Katie Quinn-Jacobs
>
>
> Uniting Around Food to Save an Ailing Town
>
>
> By MARIAN BURROS
>
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/marian_burr
os/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
> Published: October 7, 2008
>
> THIS town's granite companies shut down years ago and even the rowdy
>
> bars and porno theater that once inspired the nickname "Little
> Chicago"
> have gone.
>
> Facing a Main Street dotted with vacant stores, residents of this
> hardscrabble community of 3,000 are reaching into its past to secure
> its
> future, betting on farming to make Hardwick the town that was saved
> by
> food.
>
> With the fervor of Internet pioneers, young artisans and
> agricultural
> entrepreneurs are expanding aggressively, reaching out to investors
> and
> working together to create a collective strength never before seen
> in
> this seedbed of Yankee individualism.
>
> Rob Lewis, the town manager, said these enterprises have added 75 to
> 100
> jobs to the area in the past few years.
>
> Rian Fried, an owner of Clean Yield Asset Management in nearby
> Greensboro, which has invested with local agricultural
> entrepreneurs,
> said he's never seen such cooperative effort.
>
> "Across the country a lot of people are doing it individually but
> it's
> rare when you see the kind of collective they are pursuing," said
> Mr.
> Fried, whose firm considers social and environmental issues when
> investing. "The bottom line is they are providing jobs and making it
>
> possible for others to have their own business."
>
> In January, Andrew Meyer's company, Vermont
>
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandposses
sions/vermont/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>
>
> y, was selling tofu
>
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tofu/inde
x.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
>
> from locally grown beans to five customers; today he has 350. Jasper
>
> Hill Farm has built a $3.2-million aging cave to finish not only its
> own
> cheeses but also those from other cheesemakers.
>
> Pete Johnson, owner of Pete's Greens, is working with 30 local
> farmers
> to market their goods in an evolving community supported agriculture
>
> program.
>
> "We have something unique here: a strong sense of community,
> connections
> to the working landscape and a great work ethic," said Mr. Meyer,
> who
> was instrumental in moving many of these efforts forward.
>
> He helped start the Center for an Agricultural Economy, a nonprofit
>
> operation that is planning an industrial park for agricultural
> businesses.
>
> Next year the Vermont Food Venture Center, where producers can rent
>
> kitchen space and get business advice for adding value to raw
> ingredients, is moving to Hardwick from Fairfax, 40 miles west,
> because,
> Mr. Meyer said, "it sees the benefit of being part of the healthy
> food
> system." He expects it to assist 15 to 20 entrepreneurs next year.
>
> "All of us have realized that by working together we will be more
> successful as businesses," said Tom Stearns, owner of High Mowing
> Organic Seeds. "At the same time we will advance our mission to help
>
> rebuild the food system, conserve farmland and make it economically
>
> viable to farm in a sustainable way."
>
> Cooperation takes many forms. Vermont Soy stores and cleans its
> beans at
> High Mowing, which also lends tractors to High Fields, a local
> compositing company. Byproducts of High Mowing's operation ---
> pumpkins
> and squash that have been smashed to extract seeds --- are now being
>
> purchased by Pete's Greens and turned into soup. Along with 40,000
> pounds of squash and pumpkin, Pete's bought 2,000 pounds of High
> Mowing's cucumbers this year and turned them into pickles
>
> For the past two years, many of these farmers and businessmen have
> met
> informally once a month to share experiences for business planning
> and
> marketing or pass on information about, say, a graphic designer who
> did
> good work on promotional materials or government officials who've
> been
> particularly helpful. They promote one another's products at trade
> fairs
> and buy equipment at auctions that they know their colleagues need.
>
> More important, they share capital. They've lent each other about
> $300,000 in short-term loans. When investors visited Mr. Stearns
> over
> the summer, he took them on a tour of his neighbors' farms and
> businesses.
>
> To expand these enterprises further, the Center for an Agricultural
>
> Economy recently bought a 15-acre property to start a center for
> agricultural education. There will also be a year-round farmers'
> market
> (from what began about 20 years ago as one farmer selling from the
> trunk
> of his car on Main Street) and a community garden, which started
> with
> one plot and now has 22, with a greenhouse and a paid gardening
> specialist.
>
> Last month the center signed an agreement with the University of
> Vermont
>
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/univ
ersity_of_vermont/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
>
> for faculty and students to work with farmers and food producers on
>
> marketing, research, even transportation problems. Already, Mr.
> Meyer
> has licensed a university patent to make his Vermont Natural
> Coatings,
> an environmentally friendly wood finish, from whey, a byproduct of
> cheesemaking.
>
> These entrepreneurs, mostly well educated children of baby boomers
> who
> have added business acumen to the idealism of the area's long
> established hippies and homesteaders, are in the right place at the
>
> right time. The growing local-food movement, with its concerns about
>
> energy usage, food safety and support for neighbors, was already
> strong
> in Vermont, a state that the National Organic Farmers' Association
> said
> had more certified organic acreage per capita than any other.
>
> Mr. Meyer grew up on a dairy farm in Hardwick and worked in
> Washington
> as an agricultural aide to former Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont.
> "From
> my time in Washington," Mr. Meyer said, "I recognize that if Vermont
> is
> going to have a future in agriculture we need to look at what works
> in
> Vermont, and that is not commodity agriculture."
>
> The brothers Mateo and Andy Kehler have found something that works
> quite
> well at their Jasper Hill Farm in nearby Greensboro. At first they
> aged
> their award-winning cheeses in a basement. Then they began aging for
>
> other cheesemakers. Earlier this month they opened their new caves,
> with
> space for 2 million pounds of cheese
>
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cheese/in
dex.html?inline=nyt-classifier>,
>
> which they buy young from other producers.
>
> The Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese at the University of
> Vermont is
> helping producers develop safety and quality programs, with costs
> split
> by Jasper Hill and the producers. "Suddenly being a cheesemaker in
> Vermont becomes viable," Mateo Kehler said.
>
> Pete Johnson began a garden when he was a boy on his family's land.
> Now
> his company, Pete's Greens, grows organic crops on 50 acres in
> Craftsbury, about 10 miles north of here. He has four moveable
> greenhouses, extending the growing season to nine months, and he has
>
> installed a commercial kitchen that can make everything from frozen
>
> prepared foods and soup stocks to baked goods and sausages. In
> addition
> he has enlarged the concept of the C.S.A. by including 30 farmers
> and
> food producers rather than just a single farm.
>
> "We have 200 C.S.A. participants so we've become a fairly
> substantial
> customer of some of these businesses," he said. "The local beef
> supplier
> got an order for $700 this week; that's pretty significant around
> here.
> We've encouraged the apple producer who makes apple pies to use
> local
> flour, local butter, local eggs, maple sugar as well as the apples
>
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cooking_a
nd_cookbooks/apples/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
>
> so now we have a locavore apple pie."
>
> "Twelve years ago the market for local food
>
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/l/local_foo
d/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
>
> was lukewarm," Mr. Johnson added. "Now this state is primed for
> anything
> that is local. It's a way to preserve our villages and rebuild
> them."
>
> Like Mr. Johnson, Mr. Stearns of High Mowing Organic Seeds in
> Wolcott,
> who is president of the Center, knew he wanted to get into
> agriculture
> when he was a boy. His company, which grew from his hobby of
> collecting
> seeds, began in 2000 with a two-page catalog that generated $36,000
> in
> sales. Today he has a million-dollar business, selling seeds all
> over
> the United States.
>
> Woody Tasch, chairman of Investors Circle, a nonprofit network of
> investors and foundations dedicated to sustainability, said: "What
> the
> Hardwick guys are doing is the first wave of what could be a major
> social transformation, the swinging back of the pendulum from
> industrialization and globalization."
>
> Mr. Tasch is having a meeting in nearby Grafton next month with
> investors, entrepreneurs, nonprofit groups, philanthropists and
> officials to discuss investing in Vermont agriculture.
>
> Here in Hardwick, Claire's restaurant, sort of a clubhouse for
> farmers,
> began with investments from its neighbors. It is a Community
> Supported
> Restaurant. Fifty investors who put in $1,000 each will have the
> money
> repaid through discounted meals at the restaurant over four years.
>
> "Local ingredients, open to the world," is the motto on restaurant's
>
> floor-to-ceiling windows. "There's Charlie who made the bread
> tonight,"
> Kristina Michelsen, one of four partners, said in a running
> commentary
> one night, identifying farmers and producers at various tables.
> "That's
> Pete from Pete's Greens. You're eating his tomatoes
>
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tomatoes/
index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>."
>
> Rosy as it all seems, some worry that as businesses grow larger the
>
> owners will be tempted to sell out to companies that would not have
>
> Hardwick's best interests at heart.
>
> But the participants have reason to be optimistic: Mr. Stearns said
> that
> within one week six businesses wanted to meet with him to talk about
>
> moving to the Hardwick area.
>
> "Things that seemed totally impossible not so long ago are now going
> to
> happen," said Mr. Kehler. "In the next few years a new wave of
> businesses will come in behind us. So many things are possible with
>
> collaboration."
>
>
> --
> _______________________________________________
> For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County
> area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
>
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