For the first time since 2019, Rural Vermont members gathered in person together in Bethel for the Annual Meeting Celebration! The night was dedicated to Carl Russell- farmer, horselogger, poet, Rural Vermont Board Member Emeritus, co-owner of Earthwise Farm & Forest, and beloved friend, family, and community member who passed this spring. Memories, laughs, tears, and photos were shared commemorating Carl’s life. Thanks to a generous donation of mutton from New Grass Farmstead and the hard work of our caterer Willy Walker, we enjoyed shepherd’s pie and an assortment of salads, bread, and more. Drinks were enjoyed, compliments of Babe’s Bar, and beautiful music was played throughout the night by Spencer Lewis. Members enjoyed block printing cards and posters designed by Erok Gillard, including a new design inspired by Carl. There was an incredible silent auction with many incredible items and experiences, including longhorn earrings, overnight stays on farms, handmade knit hats, an original Bread & Puppet banner, an icelandic sheepskin, and more. After a wonderful dinner, members voted to elect new and returning board members. We are excited to welcome new members Amanda Andrews, Earl Hatley, and Stephen Leslie, and returning members John Cleary and Silene DeCiucies to the Rural Vermont Board of Directors! Our policy staff shared Rural Vermont’s current work on an agroecology school, our Quarterly Member Forum series, raw dairy and slaughter workshops, and much more. Thank you to everyone who contributed to and attended our 2022 Annual Meeting. Your support and presence made this a night to remember!
It’s been three years since the Payment for Ecosystem Services Working Group picked up their legislative charges. The group is running out of time, recommendations to the legislature are due by January 2023 and in many ways the direction of program development is still undecided. The group started its process with a vision for a paradigm shift regarding how agriculture is valued in Vermont. At Rural Vermont, we are advocating that PES in Vermont rewards land stewardship that greatly benefits ecosystems AND that these rewards have a meaningful economic value to the farm. Over the past year, the working group has explored how to anchor payments to measurable outcomes (such as soil health or carbon sequestration) through measurement, modeling or observation. It’s desirable to find direct scientific links between land stewardship and ecosystem services, but these approaches will create more work for farmers. Effectively, they would be compensated for the additional work they will be doing to create measurements and records rather than cashing rewards for the actual beneficial land stewardship. In addition, farmers and working group members identify existing shortfalls like a lack of knowledge of existing programs, a lack of overlap and coordination between state and federal programs, the need to duplicate paperwork to enroll, limited amounts of cost-share funds, and limited technical assistance to implement conservation practices with a need to train more staff.
Now, the Small Farmer Group organized by Cat Buxton, that Rural Vermont is part of, developed and shared a draft programmatic proposal that is based on combining and advancing existing programs. The group envisions an online platform that streamlines all program enrollment. This approach aims to ease access to existing programs while also investing into conservation planning through more technical service providers. More efficient technical assistance would support farmers transitioning to advance their land stewardship. The program would issue payments for ecosystem services based on tiered stewardship levels.
The PES Working Group took a poll earlier this week on all programmatic options currently on the table. While there’s neither a clear winner nor a decision made at this point, a majority of the members expressed a preference to assess how to combine existing programs and or how to enhance them instead of issuing a new stand alone program. As a next step, the PES WG is planning to gather more feedback prior to settling on recommendations in November.
Save the date! We look forward to hearing from you, join our next virtual Rural Vermont Quarterly Member Forum on 12/14/22 from 7-8:30pm to share your thoughts on Payments for Ecosystem Services.
In the meantime, check out the Small Farmer Group DRAFT PES proposal:
On September 20th, the Payment for Ecosystem Services and Soil Health Working Group (PES WG) reconvened after a summer break that began in June to consider options on how to invest the $1M in funding secured in the State’s budget. There are five options on the table, and the group is open to creating a hybrid option. Noticeably, none of the options presented meet what farmers indicated they are willing to accept on an annual basis. A decision will need to be made soon on how to spend the $1M already allocated to develop a pilot program. Rural Vermont supports a proposal that would invest the funds to further research how to best streamline existing programs and financial incentives with improving the interface operability of various programs and under consideration of service providers, as well as piloting farm teams that advance whole farm planning together with farmers.
The roadmap for the PES WG throughout the end of the year includes discussing how to best mix and match options for program development throughout September, soliciting feedback in October and starting to shape the cornerstones for the final report to the legislature at the end of November (report due on January 15th). At the September 20th meeting of the PES WG, all options that the smaller summer team discussed were presented and initially discussed. Those include:
One option on the table is to compensate farmers for generating soil health data - with no explicit link to ecosystem services, nor payments for improvements of the same. Rural Vermont is concerned that such a proposal not only doesn’t enhance ecosystem services here in Vermont, but it would pave the way for whomever has the data to sell the information as carbon credits elsewhere! We say NO to FALSE SOLUTIONS to CLIMATE CHANGE as nothing changes when carbon emissions are offset!
More information about farmer survey results from UVM
35 farmer interviews were conducted by a UVM research team for the PES Working Group with an emphasis on acceptable compensation levels and additional bureaucratic burdens for farmers. Farmers like Paul Doton (CRWFA) expressed independently that they feel overburdened and frustrated by the process of enrolling and implementing multiple different programs and practices without sufficient technical and financial support. In a letter to the PES WG sent on 9/19/22, Paul Doton states:
“Fundamentally, we have too many programs to navigate, and they don’t work together - in fact in many ways they negate each other.”
While we’re waiting for the PES WG website to feature a link to the report, you can view and download the full UVM report on farmer interviews now on UVM scholarworks.
Nearly all farmers surveyed indicated that they would weigh administrative workload with perceived program benefits. Aside from the pre-existing focus on soil health, existing programmatic shortfalls and opportunities have not been discussed. Farmers flagged a need for more access to technical assistance, which is in alignment with a Vermont Farm To Plate priority strategy # 12 that recommends funding at least 25 more full time technical assistance providers. The UVM report suggests that a PES program should at the very least compensate farmers for paperwork burdens on a per acre basis. Farmers also voiced concerns about how undifferentiated per acre payment rates across different farm types would favor the participation of farms with more acres and those which were less intensively managed. The PES Working Group originally envisioned a program that would facilitate a “paradigm shift” in agriculture. We support Paul Doton’s expressed vision in this week’s letter to the PES WG:
“What I would like to see come out of the PES Working Group is for farmers to have a clearer picture of what is involved with getting help to begin with, including knowing upfront what the criteria is, what the procedure will be, and having streamlined access to funding. We should be figuring out how to put programs together to get maximum benefits to the farmers and to ecosystem enhancements. Let’s give farmers options, not mandates.
We need to complement federal programs, avoid state-level duplication of efforts, and to build improved communication between agencies and agriculture service providers.”
Along these lines, we expressed support via public comment for investing into more service providers, whole farm planning, tiered stewardship levels and the development of an online platform similar to VT Health Connect that would streamline existing programs and financial incentives in a consumer friendly manner during the ongoing PES WG process.
More on PES Small Farmer Group
Rural Vermont is part of the PES Small Farmer Group that supports an approach that would invest the $1M in research and focus groups with agriculture service providers. Goals are to inform and further develop programmatic improvements that enhance and streamline existing programs and financial incentives to improve soil health, enhance crop resilience, increase carbon storage and stormwater storage capacity, increase biodiversity, and reduce agricultural runoff by also lowering bureaucratic burdens on everyone involved. (See White River NRCD proposal here)
The PES Small Farmer Group includes NOFA-VT (Maddie Kempner), the VT Healthy Soils Coalition (Cat Buxton), Guy Choiniere (Choiniere Family Farm), Stephen Leslie (Cedar Mountain Farm, Cobb Hill Creamery), The White River Conservation District (Jennifer Byrne) Rural Vermont (Caroline Gordon) and more allies and supporters from the farming communities across the grassroots (on farm) and tops (organizations).
The group met throughout the PES WG process to include farmer voices in the decision making process around program development. Aside from promoting educational outreach to farmers to ensure a transparent public process, the group advocated for farmer surveys to inform key elements of program design. Farmers developed and submitted their own visions and ideas with support from the group, such as the CSP+ proposal that Guy Choiniere co-developed and Stephen Leslie’s vision for a VT Soil Health Protection and Restoration Act based on whole farm planning with service providers (read a comparison of these and more farmer concepts submitted here).
From August 4th through the 6th, Graham and Caroline represented Rural Vermont at the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) Summer Gathering in Gloucester, MA. It had been nearly 2 and half years since our Coalition last met in-person in Birmingham, AL - and it was a joy and relief to be working and sharing time together face to face again! Gloucester is a particularly potent place for us to all meet as NFFC has a shared leadership with the National Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA - formerly “Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance”), an organization of community based fisherfolks facing similar challenges as small family farms, which is based in Gloucester.
Rural Vermont has been a long time member of the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), and has been reinvigorating its relationship with NFFC over the past few years. NFFC’s mission is, “to mobilize family farmers, ranchers, and fishers to achieve fair prices, vibrant communities, and healthy foods free of corporate domination.” Though Graham is Rural Vermont’s representative on the NFFC Board of Directors, and sits on its Executive Committee, all of our staff have different touchpoints with NFFC based on our different domains of work and issues. NFFC and all of its member organizations are incredible partners to, and resources for, Rural Vermont. These relationships provide not only invaluable stories, friendship, and information about the greater context of our work across geographies and demographics which directly informs our actions and perspectives (from local to international); but also enable us to grow power collectively in unity and across differences, contributing to campaigns and movements for more transformative change that we would otherwise be more isolated from.
At this meeting we made time to talk about critical issues facing our communities and how to address them together, in particular we discussed the upcoming Farm Bill and how to strategically advance racial equity throughout our work. NFFC 2023 Farm Bill Platform includes as priority campaigns:
ending the dairy crisis through a pricing reform with supply management and price floors;
farm justice issues like debt relief for BIPOC and family-scale farmers and improving agricultural credit terms, and farm foreclosure moratorium;
an anti-land grab campaign that includes strengthening land access for BIPOC producers, tracking corporate land investments and more.
NFFC has also offered its solidarity and support to Rural Vermont in pursuing potential changes to federal law in the Farm Bill or otherwise to protect itinerant slaughterers and on-farm slaughter.
The Payment For Ecosystem Services and Soil Health Working Group was created by the legislature in 2019 to explore a State-wide system for valuing the ecological benefits generated by land managers. Rural Vermont is participating in and encouraging farmer participation in the process and, in 2021, has promoted farmer discussions hosted by the Conservation Districts, and submitted a sign-on letter to the working group recommending to facilitate a democratic decision-making process with farmers. In 2022, the working group hired a UVM research team to, among other tasks, conduct a farmer survey with a focus on payment levels. Part of that research were 31 interviews with farmers that UVM conducted. To date we are missing the delayed qualitative analyses of the farmer discussions in 2021 as well as the farmer interviews in 2022 that could reveal a diverse range of farmers perspectives on what a Just Transition in agriculture could look like through payment for ecosystem services in Vermont.
The analysis of the 2022 UVM survey was presented to the working group in June and is available online here. Take some time to look into the survey results. Rural Vermont regrets that the survey was not broad enough to inform the direction of program development like payments for practices vs. outcomes, or assess the potential for improving existing programs to achieve desired outcomes. Instead, the survey had a focus on gauging the feasibility of paying farmers for conducting soil tests, and what payment levels would be accepted as compensation. The PES working group agreed upon a vision and objectives for program development before the summer break (final objectives here; program design poll here). The proposed pilot program would compensate farmers for the additional workload required, including data gathering and associated paperwork, soil sampling, and consultations when they meet standards based on the measured outcomes in the soil (e.g., improved carbon sequestration), in the field (e.g., more diverse cover crops to support biodiversity), and at edge of field (e.g., increased stormwater retention).
Rural Vermont engaged through public comment and shared that some farmers have a preference for financially rewarding the soil health practices they already do or adopt to do and to gauge options for combining or improving existing programs to lower bureaucratic burdens on farmers (while also highlighting that such analysis was a critical part of the 2019 legislative charges). While staying vague, it is positive that the PES WG aims in their objectives to streamline existing data acquisition through programs and to “coordinate with, be additive to, and be compatible with existing funding programs to the greatest extent possible.” An outcome based program was the preference of the watershed alliances who initiated the legislation in 2019. In contrast, a 2021 NOFA white paper “Farmers Share Experiences and Challenges Adopting Healthy Soils Practices - A Report from the Northeast Organic Farming Association on Two Years of Collaborative Work” states:
“Incentives for healthy soils practices adoption were the second most-discussed topic. Recorded commentary shows a preference for payment for practice, while a smaller number of farmers suggested that payments should be outcome-based.”
We acknowledge that farmers are also represented on the working group, with Scot Megnan (FWA), Paul Doton (CRWFA), Ed Pitcavage (Philo Ridge Farm). In addition, Maddie Kempner is representing NOFA-VT and Cat Buxton, who is officially representing the VT Healthy Soils Coalition, also serves on the Rural Vermont board. A few farmers also submitted and presented their visions for program development directly to the group - learn more here. As part of the small farmer group facilitated by Cat Buxton, Rural Vermont continues to engage with the process and to gauge opportunities to include visions like those of Stephen Leslie and CSP+, that the White River Conservation District worked on with Guy Choiniere.
It is unclear to Rural Vermont at this point what the missing qualitative analyses will reveal about farmer preferences and trends that may compare or contrast to the PES WG objectives. Noticeably, the PES WG lists as “farmer engagement” in their objectives to “partner with existing agencies and initiatives across the state to increase public understanding and appreciation of the role agriculture [plays] in healthy landscapes and the importance of ecosystem services for a healthy environment and quality of life.”
Rural Vermont works collaboratively to ensure that the processes and outcomes of any “PES” programs in VT are equitable, informed by a diversity of farmers’ voices, adequately consider varied ecological outcomes, and are situated within a greater context of a transition to an agricultural and food system that is economically, ecologically, and socially just.
Send us feedback and your thoughts on Payments for Ecosystem Services and the PES WG to caroline@ruralvermont.org.
Through Rural Vermont’s membership with the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), we have been a member organization of La Via Campesina as long as it has been present in North America. La Via Campesina is the global movement of peasant agriculturalists numbering in the hundreds of millions, and some say it is the largest grassroots movement in the world. It is composed of member-based grassroots organizations across the globe, who work collaboratively to grow collective and local food sovereignty through agroecology.
Agroecology is the systematization of ancestral, indigenous, peasant, farm worker, and migrant ecological knowledge applied to food and farming systems. Agroecology is the basis for food sovereignty, the right of peoples to collectively build and defend their own food systems, based on ecology, culture and social justice.
Before, during, and after the opportunity to visit an agroecology school in Morelos, Mexico, Mollie at Rural Vermont has worked with the Agroecology, Seeds, and Biodiversity Collective of the North American region of La Via and local partners to co-organize an Each One Teach One Agroecology Encounter here in Vermont at the Center for Grassroots Organizing in Marshfield. The event last weekend celebrated and explored the emergence of a new agroecology and movement building school in VT, as a part of a growing network of schools across the Americas in partnership with La Via Campesina and numerous local partners This work builds off of existing and successful models of agroecology schools in Central and South America, based on farmer to farmer technical agroecological education, popular political education, and traditional ecological knowledge, while being rooted in the specific and unique needs of local communities.
This Encounter marks the beginning of a long term school and movement building process here in Vermont, inspired and influenced by the global movement. Due to town limitations on the number of people we could have in attendance at the encounter and the “speed of trust” nature of this initiative, we’ll continue working with local farmers, farmworkers, organizational partners, and Rural Vermont members to grow this process, with support from collective connections to the greater movement and our international partners and friends.
We spent the weekend listening, learning, and growing relationships that have sown seeds we hope will grow strong in the coming months and years as we co-create this opportunity here. Be in touch with Mollie to learn more.
We celebrate the publication of the UVM survey before the summer break. The “Results of the 2022 Vermont Farmer Conservation & Payment for Ecosystem Services Survey” will inform the development of a PES program for Vermont.Vermont made historic investments in soil health this session and included $1 million for the development of the state’s Ecosystem Services program in the FY 2023 budget.
We are proud to share that our current Board Member Noah Nour El-Naboulsi made significant contributions in his lead role as UVM Research Assistant in development and rollout of the surrey. More grassroots farmer participation in program development has been an advocacy goal of Rural Vermont and allies since the working groups existence in 2019. Find the report here.
Background about the Payment for Ecosystem Services Working Group and Rural Vermont advocacy and organizing in the realm:
The related Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) Working Group was established in 2019, had their timeline extended twice and is now approaching the final phase for submitting a programmatic proposal by the beginning of the 2023 legislative Session. The PES working group is charged to present a legislative proposal that outlines how the state can improve soil health, enhance crop resilience, increase carbon storage and stormwater storage capacity, and reduce agricultural runoff through either modifying existing incentives or creating a new, so-called PES, program. This work goes back to an initiative of three farmer watershed groups, The Champlain Valley Farmer Coalition Inc., Franklin-Grand Isle Farmer's Watershed Alliance and the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance, who were “working together to launch a pilot project hiring farmers to produce better ecosystem services across Vermont.” Upon this initiative, the collaborative working group process was created to develop a program.
Rural Vermont and allies secured seats at the table for representatives of the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition (VHSC) and diversified farmers. Cat Buxton, who also is a current Rural Vermont board member and the co-founder and board member of the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition is part of the working group representing VHSC. Cat is also facilitating a group around small farmers and other stakeholders who inform the working group process with programmatic proposals like CSP+ and through public comment. Rural Vermont had also partnered with the White River NRCD and the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School to provide an overview of the working groups progress and recommendations on how to move forward early in 2021. Advocacy goals for Rural Vermont always included to ensure any development of a new program is not creating insurmountable bureaucratic costs and burdens for farmers that hinder enrollment or doesn’t pay off for them. Reasons why Rural Vermont took stake in the legislative charges that outline a process based on the assessment of existing programs and financial assessments as well as the opportunity to change or combine those to ease enrollment, and set more functional incentives that would address soil health, enhance crop resilience, increase carbon storage and stormwater storage capacity, and reduce agricultural runoff. Through public comment and sign-on letters (e.g. “Recommendation to thePES & Soil Health Working Group to Facilitate a Participatory Decision-Making Process with Farmers, May 24, 2021) Rural Vermont and allies called upon the working group members early on to ensure the process of program development is led democratically by the working group and based on farmer input. In the future, a good implementation of the Environmental Justice Policy (signed into law as Act 154, 2022) now mandates such “meaningful participation” of those most affected by policy decisions. With this in mind, we celebrate the efforts made to involve farmers strategically in program development and to allocate capacity to UVM to undertake a survey with Vermont farmers on the issue. Stay tuned for a summary of the report in our From The Statehouse Blog soon.
Resources:
UVM report “Results of the 2022 Vermont Farmer Conservation & Payment for Ecosystem Services Survey”
Meeting notes and materials, recordings and registration for upcoming meetings of the PES WG here: PES WG MEETINGS AND MATERIALS | Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets (vermont.gov)
Back in the field, Rural Vermont’s Legislative Director met with Jon Cohen, farmer and owner of Deep Meadow Farm - a 50 acre organic produce farm in Ascutney. Caroline caught Jon planting sweet corn - check it out:
On May 11, 2022, Olena Borodina, representing the Civil Society, on behalf of Nyéléni Europe and Central Asia Food Sovereignty Network, addressed the 33rd session of the FAO Regional Conference for Europe. Borodina spoke to the numerous crises and resulting struggles the Ukrainian people have endured, especially the small-scale farmers, pastoralists, small scale and artisanal fisher people, Indigenous Peoples, migrant and agricultural workers, consumers, and NGOs she represents, and how their experience demonstrates the importance of strengthening local food systems. She explains:
“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. "Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations." The differences between these two concepts are accentuated in times of war and social or political unrest. On one hand, the primary need becomes the simple right of access to food and water that determines the very existence of human life. In a period of military conflict, humanitarian aid that provides food and water to those most in need is based on food security.”
This February, NFFC National Program Coordinator Jordan Treakle and Mollie Wills, a grassroots organizer from NFFC member group Rural Vermont, joined delegates from five additional North American La Via Campesina (LVC) member organizations to attend a Youth Encounter in Mexico. The Youth Articulation is an autonomous organizing space within La Via Campesina where people aged 35 and under strategize to advance food sovereignty within our local communities, policy circles, and food systems. The first in-person North America Youth Encounter since 2019, the gathering offered an important opportunity to discuss the issues and realities we face as youth and strategize opportunities for action
We were hosted in Mexico City by the youth of La Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autónomas (México UNORCA). Conversations were lively as we debated core and emerging themes within La Via Campesina and beyond, including agrarian reform, peasants’ rights, popular peasant feminism, and identity diversities (sexual, gender, cultural, etc.). We found common ground in our struggles, and agreed that unity in diversity can only be achieved by working together on shared strategies - work based on relationship-building, trust, and communication. We reiterated the power and importance of grassroots leadership, movement building, and youth participation in policy making.
This youth gathering took place as La Via Campesina celebrates its 30th anniversary fighting for peasant rights, agroecological practices, a people’s trade agenda, and food sovereignty. LVC has grown into the leading voice for farmers, peasants, fisherfolk, and rural communities in international policy and in the United Nations system, advancing a common vision for justice in our food systems, and grounding community efforts to put that vision into practice.
After engaging with Mexican youth for contextual analysis, debate, and agroecology exchanges in Mexico City, we traveled to the Universidad Campesino Sur, a peasant agroecology school in the state of Morelos. Here we began a strategic planning process to further define the priorities and goals of the LVC North American Youth Articulation, including the continued need to strengthen the relationships and trust between youth in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. We also had the opportunity to visit agroecological farms in the region, and learn about the history of Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapato and agrarian land reform in Mexico.
Above all, the experience reminded us that as youth, we are the future of agriculture. Our realities across North America differ greatly, yet we are united by our shared struggle. Our work on food sovereignty proves to be more fundamental and universal than ever as we face an uncertain and rapidly changing future. In tumultuous times, it is our relationships, trust, and solidarity with each other that lay our shared foundation for a Just Transition to a livable future.
By Mollie Wills and Jordan Treakle
A delegation of La Va Campesina members gathers in Morelos, Mexico at the memorial of Emiliano Zapata, a peasant revolutionary instrumental in agrarian land reform.
April 17th was the International Day of Peasant Struggles, and May 1st is International Workers Day - in many parts of the world it is known as Labor Day. This International Workers Day, we can share our solidarity, celebration, and commitment to human rights, dignity, and deep structural change with our local and global communities: from our local farm workers and Migrant Justice, to our international peasants in La Via Campesina, who are entering their 4th decade of organized collective struggle!
Migrant Justice has been organizing for two years to get Hannaford’s to commit to the Milk With Dignity program. On May 1st, May Day, which is International Workers’ Day, there will be more than 30 actions at Hannaford’s stores around the northeast region. See more information at their website and in this Email Blast. Farmworkers in VT face particular challenges with accessing and / or affording healthcare, housing, childcare and other essential services - and many face the constant threat of deportation. Milk with Dignity promises better standards of living and work for farmworkers as well as a better financial return for farmers.
Throughout April, La Via Campesina is calling upon its members and allies to plant native and indigenous trees in their farm, neighborhood, backyard or garden – as a symbol of our collective existence, persistence and resistance. They are calling for mobilization at the June World Trade Organization ministerial meetings in Geneva. We share our solidarity with this message from La Via Campesina on its 30th anniversary:
“The world is in a difficult place at the moment. The food crisis continues to deepen while hunger and social injustices worsen each day, further aggravated by a COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, conflicts, wars, and financial speculations. It highlights the absolute failure of the transnational capital and agribusiness system enabled by free trade agreements and industrialized monoculture soaked in toxic agro-inputs. This industrial system displaces peasants and degrades the environment and productive resources while supplying our countries with expensive, imported and unhealthy foods. Rising global food prices and costs of farm inputs push peasant communities everywhere deeper into hunger, poverty and debt.
We, La Via Campesina – the peasants, indigenous peoples, rural populations, agricultural workers, and youth in urban and rural areas, propose and promote Food Sovereignty as a solution to build the national productive capacity. Food Sovereignty is a principle rooted in the peasant and family farm sector through supportive public policies, guaranteed prices, credits, and other support forms—including direct marketing between producers and consumers and genuine agrarian reform.”
Full statement from La Via Campesina…
Call for mobilizations in the face of the WTO ministerial meeting - June 2022 in Geneva, Switzerland
Since the creation of the WTO in 1995, La Via Campesina has been denouncing the neoliberal and free trade policies that are destroying the peasantry and destabilizing local food systems worldwide. From Seattle (1999) to Cancun (2003), from Hong Kong (2005) to Buenos Aires (2017), we have been fighting against the imposition of a free trade order in the service of big business and billionaires. On the 10th of September 2003, while protesting outside the WTO ministerial in Cancun, Mexico, peasant from KPL -South Korea Mr. Lee Kyung-Hae sacrificed his life by stabbing himself. That tragic incident exposed the destructive effects of WTO and its trade liberalization efforts on the lives of millions of peasants globally.
Our mobilizations have made it possible to block the free trade negotiations. After our big mobilization in Hongkong 2005, the Doha Development Agenda which started in 2001 has been in limbo and there are no new major WTO agreements ever been adopted, especially in agriculture. However, The WTO was established based on the Marrakesh agreement in 1994; it still forces countries to open their markets to multinational companies and prevents the implementation of ambitious public policies in favor of peasants’ economy. In addition, bilateral and regional free trade agreements have multiplied.
Neoliberal policies and the imposition of free trade have greatly weakened peasantry around the world. They push countries to give priority to export crops and to depend on imports to feed their populations. They increase the grabbing of resources by multinationals, to the detriment of peasants and local communities. They contribute to the exacerbation of climate crisis by fostering monoculture plantations, deforestations, overexploitation of soils and water and dwindling our biodiversity.
Today, with the pandemic of COVID-19, with the extreme events linked to global warming and with the war in Ukraine and other places, it is clear that making people's food security dependent on international trade and TNCs is criminal. This must stop. The WTO must get out of agriculture. Food sovereignty must be the basis of agricultural and food policies in each country and at the international level.
In June 2022, the WTO ministerial meeting will meet in Geneva. The WTO is struggling to seek relevance again in a world battered by inequality, hunger, extreme poverty, wars and a once-in-a-century pandemic. La Via Campesina calls on civil society to mobilize to denounce this criminal organization and defend people’s food sovereignty. We have reiterated in our International Day of Action against WTO and Free Trade Agreements that for us– the global peasant movement of peasants, indigenous people, farmworkers, migrants, fishers and pastoralists – the only permanent solution that we have historically advocated for is that WTO and FTAs stay out of any agricultural discussions. Food cannot be subjected to the whims and fancies of a free market where only those who can afford it can eat it.
The UN Human Rights Council will also meet at the end of June in Geneva. This will be an opportunity for peasant movements from all over the world to affirm that the alternative must be based on peasants' rights and to demand procedures for the implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Rural Workers (UNDROP).
End WTO! Food Sovereignty and Peasants' Rights now!
The University of Vermont is inviting livestock farmers to a national-level survey on transboundary animal disease prevention, to gather behavioral attitudes that drive the adoption of biosecurity at the farm level.
The livestock industry is vulnerable to threats of an infectious outbreak of diseases, such as the foot-and-mouth disease and the African swine fever. These diseases are of a national and international threat to animal farming and have dire economic consequences. Decision making and human behavior at the farm level are at the heart of disease prevention, management and control.
The survey takes around 15 minutes to complete and to compensate for your time on a successful completion of the survey, you will be entered into a draw for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift-card.
Your participation is important!
If you have any questions please contact Richmond Baye:
Richmond Silvanus Baye
PhD Candidate | Research Assistant
SDPEG | CDAE | University of Vermont
Email: richmond.baye@uvm.edu
Phone: 802-310-7434
On Wednesday March 30th, Rural Vermont hosted a lively online discussion about the new documentary film “The Seeds of Vandana Shiva”. Working with the film’s director Camilla Becket of Becket Films and with sponsorship and promotion support from FEDCO Seeds and High Mowing Organic Seeds, Rural Vermont was able to offer free access to view this film from March 25-30. Over seventy people signed up to view the film and more than a dozen folks joined Rural Vermont staff, Graham Unangst-Rufenacht, and Board members, Cat Buxton, Marya Merriam, and Nour El-Naboulsi to share their impressions and responses to the film.
The film explores the life story and growing legacy of Vandana Shiva, the Indian nuclear physicist turned ecological activist and seed saving advocate who has been described as “Monsanto’s worst nightmare.” There were many common themes identified by participants in our discussion including Vandana’s unflinching commitment to speaking truth to power, her deep and respectful engagement with the people whose causes and needs she has championed, from women fighting deforestation in Vandana’s homeland of the Himalayan region of India, to farmers victimized by the so-called Green Revolution, and now advocating for and facilitating seed saving around the world through her organization Navdanya. One participant, who has been a seed saver for 25 years commented: “I feel really grateful to be alive at the same time as Vandana.”
The evening’s discussion concluded with an inspiring sharing of “What’s next?” - a question Vandana poses at the end of the film - revealing so many local and regional efforts that like Vandana are building community around vital needs through grassroots organizing.
Updates from our friends at National Family Farm Coalition!
* NFFC Dairy Farmers Finally Recognized, Rewarded in DairyAmerica Lawsuit *
More than a decade after filing a lawsuit against DairyAmerica and California Dairies for misreporting milk prices to USDA, NFFC dairy farmer members Gerald Carlin, Bryan Wolfe (later represented by Diana Wolfe) and Paul Rozwadowski, with non-member John Rahm, achieved some resolution: all US dairy farmers selling raw milk into the Federal Milk Marketing Order between January 1, 2002, and April 30, 2007, excluding DairyAmerica and California Dairies, were entitled to funds from the awarded $40 million settlement. Also significant was the end to this kind of misreporting by the two large processors.
Once awards were dispensed among thousands of eligible farmers, remaining funds were shared among several organizations representing the interests of dairy farmers, including Family Farm Defenders and NFFC.
We salute the plaintiffs' dedication to the effort to end price misreporting, which led to thousands of family farmers being underpaid for their raw milk by tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
* Here's a shareable link to The Federation's release on the favorable ruling regarding intervention in USDA $4 Billion ARP Act Debt Relief Litigation. *
USDA Announces Program to Expand Meat/Poultry Processing Capacity
The Meat and Poultry Processing Capacity Technical Assistance Program (MPPTA) will provide technical assistance to meat and poultry grant applicants and grant-funded projects. There are $23.6 million available in competitive grant funding.
To learn more about the MPPTA program, or to initiate a request for technical assistance under this program, visit https://www.ams.usda.gov/. For information on other USDA Meat and Poultry Supply Chain Initiatives, visit www.usda.gov/meat.
Bipartisan House Agriculture Committee Support Food Aid
In a letter to Secretary Vilsack and Administrator Power, Committee Chair David Scott, Ranking Member Glenn Thompson and 36 House Members requested that resources in the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust (BEHT) be used to address ongoing humanitarian food crises. In part, the letter reads:
"The immediate need for aid, particularly commodities, will likely increase in light of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is a large producer of wheat and grain, and if production levels drop it is likely that we will see corresponding pressure in the global grain markets. This may be compounded by further shocks to global grain, energy, and fertilizer supply, as Russia is rightfully sanctioned for its actions."
A new Farm to Plate report will be released in the next couple of weeks that highlights what has been learned retrospectively in the past 10 years about the Vermont food system (see the presentation to the legislature here and recording here). Figures show that overall farmland in production in the past decade decreased by 3.2% or 40,000 acres. The decrease occurred especially in dairy by 20% or 105,000 acres. While sales appear to stagnate over time, presenters emphasized that dairy is the most significant agricultural sales sector with over $505 million. Pasture land showed the largest decline with 67,000 acres and the Sustainable Jobs Fund stated a trend of grazing being used less in the dairy industry due to continued consolidation. Positive trends include an increase of acres in vegetables by 17%; oil, seed and grain acreage by 49%; beef farm acreage by 9%, hog and pig by 25%; and sheep and goat farm acreage increase by 8%.
These past weeks we have witnessed and responded to recent actions of the federal Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets (VAAFM) that compromise VT’s on-farm slaughter law, threaten the practice and tradition of on-farm slaughter, and undermine the active democratic work done by Rural VT, VT’s on-farm slaughter community, and VT’s supportive legislative body to improve this law for over a decade.
As we feel our local democratic process being threatened, we recognize that at a national level, we are at a critical juncture in our nation’s democratic trajectory. A number of States have advanced voter suppression laws and more gerrymandered districts disproportionately affecting the agency and representation of the working class and people of color. Meanwhile, efforts to enact new legislation to protect and expand voting rights federally have faltered in the face of a lack of political will and leadership and systemic anti-democratic structures which enable minority control of government. Equal access to the right to vote and equal representation are essential components of a liberal democracy - and provide the foundation and leverage for much of what we do as an advocacy organization, and what you can do as a citizen advocate, to affect policies like on-farm slaughter, raw milk, healthcare, and more. The passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act is essential to our work, and to the just and equitable representation of our communities.
Last week was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Aside from his work on voting rights, MLK spoke to and embodied the deep need for embracing the intersectionality of the issues facing us as a society - and he received substantial pushback, at times from allies and certainly from opposition; but he persisted, whether that be integrating the critique of the Vietnam War and militarism, or picketing with striking workers in support of just working conditions. At the National Family Farm Coalition, and at Rural VT, we are asking ourselves how we can support the protection and expansion of voting rights. We need agricultural organizations, individuals, and businesses - all of our voices - to join in solidarity with the movement to achieve these fundamental rights. We may face pushback, we may hear that we’re “out of our lane” or won’t have any impact or to trust the people in power - and at times like these we can also remember what MLK wrote in his letter from the Birmingham jail about the need to pursue justice and equity regardless of the barriers before us and the excuses for delay:
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negroes’ great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s “Counciler” or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.””
Curious about On-Farm Slaughter? Wondering what to expect when you attend one of our workshops?
Check out this recording of one of our educational workshops on the slaughter and the processing of poultry guided by Elizabeth Roma:
Elizabeth is a professional butcher and farmer who lives in South Royalton and co-owns Putting Down Roots Farm with her husband Russel- a diverse vegetable and animal farm. Early on in the pandemic 2020, she founded Roma’s Butchery, a whole animal Butcher Shop that offers eggs, pork, beef, lamb, and chicken products as well as lunch.
The poultry slaughter workshop demonstrated the slaughter of chickens at Putting Down Roots Farm, and participants learned about the tiers and requirements for the on-farm slaughter of poultry.
At the processing workshop, participants learned how to cut a whole bird. Farmers who slaughter their poultry on-farm can only sell them as whole birds – which can be unusual and tricky for customers.
Did you know? Elizabeth's expertise and engagement through testimony were essential for the 2021 increase in allowances for the On-Farm Slaughter of livestock.
On-Farm Slaughter is part of peoples’ food sovereignty, enabling the processing of poultry and livestock on the farms the animals were raised, supplying the increased need and demand for local food and resilient food systems.
Interested in attending a live, in-person workshop? Stay tuned! More livestock and poultry On-Farm Workshops will be happening in 2022!
On December 13, Danone North America announced that they will extend Horizon farmer contracts in the northeast for 18 months, an increase from the 12 months they initially gave the 89 northeast farmers the company is dropping as they cease sourcing milk from the region. Horizon/Danone also committed to providing a small transition payment for the affected dairy farm families, a nominal amount compared to the requests and needs of the group. These minor acquisitions are not enough and don’t come near to fulfilling the needs and demands of producers. We continue to work with affected farmers directly, support the demands of the organic producer group, engage in legislative Task Forces focused on dairy farmer support and revitalization, participate in national and international dairy policy reform, and advocate for systemic changes that support farmers through transition as we adapt to a changing climate and build more resilient food systems.
Full update from NOFA-VT here, who have been leaders on this issue.
From NOFA-VT:
NOFA Vermont is convening a cohort of experienced farmers (those who consider themselves beyond start-up phase) who are looking to use what they have learned in their early years of farming to develop a plan for long-term viability for the farm. This program will help you clarify your goals, improve the financial tools used to guide the business, and create a clear path forward for the farm.
This intensive program will consist of 4 sessions that each include a group presentation with question and answer time, breakout working sessions, check-in time with business planners, and time for group sharing, learning, and feedback. Meredith Davis (see below for her bio) will be the lead instructor with support from NOFA-VT Farm Business Advisors Bill Cavanaugh and Jen Miller.
The cohort will meet on-line from 10:00-3:00 on January 13th, January 27th, February 10th, and March 3rd.
The goals of this program are for farmers to:
Develop business and personal goals to guide business decisions for the next 3-5 years.
Review the business financials and discuss what the growth potential is for the business under different scenarios.
Consider questions that are facing the farm (e.g. purchasing equipment, expanding staffing, paying down debt, how much to save for retirement) and learn how to evaluate the options using financial analysis.
Learn from other farmers about what metrics they use to evaluate if things are on track. Decide which metrics matter most for their own farm.
Create a farm budget that reflects decisions made during the course. The program will be 4 days, running every other week in January-February. Part of the day
To apply for the cohort, please complete this short intake form.
About the Instructor:
Meredith Martin Davis is a business advisor who has been working with farms and businesses for over 25 years. She spent 10 years at High Mowing Organic Seeds, most of that time as General Manager. Prior to joining High Mowing, Meredith worked as business advisor at the Micro Business Development Program, the Women's Small Business Program, and in her own consulting practice. She served as the Executive Director of the Women Business Owners Network, and taught business classes for Champlain College, Woodbury College, and the Small Business Development Center. Meredith has a double-major in Economics and Geography from Dartmouth College. She lives in Elmore, Vermont with her 3 daughters.
If you have any questions please reach out to Bill Cavanaugh, 802-434-7154 or bill@nofavt.org
The Federation's Motion to Intervene in Miller v. Vilsack has been Denied as Black Farmers Continue to Face Economic Displacement:
Contact: Dãnia Davy, Director of Land Retention & Advocacy - daniadavy@federation.coop; 404 765 099
East Point, GA — On December 8, 2021, Judge Reed O’Connor denied the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund’s (“Federation”) Motion to Intervene in the Miller v. Vilsack lawsuit currently pending in the US District Court Northern District of Texas. The Federation is very disappointed by the Judge’s ruling. We are saddened that while the farmers challenging the constitutionality of Section 1005 of the American Rescue Plan Act are given liberal opportunity for their voices and experiences to be uplifted, the Court has chosen to silence the voices of our member-farmers who are the most severely impacted by the ongoing delayed implementation of the Emergency Debt Relief for Farmers and Ranchers of Color program which Congress passed in an effort to address the gross racial disparities in COVID-19 and farm subsidy benefits from the USDA under the previous Administration. Further, this decision prevents our member-farmers from sharing their experiences of the ongoing race-based discrimination they face in their interactions with local FSA offices as evidence in this case.
We remain encouraged that Secretary Vilsack and the entire Administration have unwaveringly called for racial equity in agriculture to directly confront the institutionalized system of race-based discrimination and its devastating impacts on farmers and ranchers of color. Black farmers continue to speak for themselves through their Federation and stand in solidarity with all farmers of color whose farming operations have borne the disproportionate burden of the legacy of racism in agriculture.
The Federation is in active discussions with our legal counsel, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, Public Counsel, and Winston-Strawn, to evaluate our next steps. We are also actively advocating for an explicit racial equity lens in any and all agricultural, environmental, and climate legislation so our nation can equitably support all small family farmers and build back better than ever.