Jack Vorster
Greenman Farm & Build

Jack Vorster runs Greenman Farm & Build where his passions for local food, carpentry and the natural world come together. Originally from California, Jack raises his organic pastured chickens, ducks and turkeys at Four Springs Farm in South Royalton. Jack was an engaged farmer activist (as you’ll see/hear in the interview below) in getting Act 93, the parted poultry bill, passed in 2024. Act 93 makes it easier to buy and sell poultry cut-ups in Vermont.

To learn more about Jack and his work as a citizen/farmer activist, please watch the video below:

To read the edited highlights of Jack’s interview, see below :

All right, big picture. How did you get your start in farming and then how did you become connected to Rural Vermont? 

Well, I started farming in California, which is where I'm from originally. I was going to school for engineering and it became clear about halfway through school that it was not for me.

No, I didn't have interest in working in defense or in medicine or whatever it was. I wanted to be outside and working with my hands and I had an existing passion for food and cooking and farming seemed like an interesting combination of the outdoor hands-on good food question. And yeah, so I got my first gig on a biodynamic veggie farm in California and then went down to Chile and farmed in Patagonia, which was really, really eye-opening cool experience and that led me to farming in Maine and working and managing a veggie farm there and then found my way down to Virginia into livestock farming and now I'm here.

How did you become connected to Rural Vermont? 

Ah, I became connected to Rural Vermont because I right now we're on Jinny Cleland's land and she's been in the Rural Vermont community for a while and I was actually supposed to cater a Rural Vermont gig last year and then I broke my wrist a few weeks before and there was no way I was going to do it and so that was kind of my intro and then Caroline of Rural Vermont bought a turkey for me last year and I bugged her about why we can't do poultry parts and cut-ups in Vermont, uninspected facilities in Vermont and she told me we're working on it and we kept in touch and have been working with Rural Vermont on that since.

What are current challenges farmers are facing in your area and what specific policies are impacting you for better or worse? 

Yeah, I mean current challenges are the ever-present financials of farming. That's definitely a thing. That's why I'm farming part-time.

Totally possible to do it full-time. Not saying it's not, but for me right now getting into it, the financial viability of taking on debt and building up equipment seems much less stressful not starting out full-time. So yeah, the financials and within that there's just the cost of living.

I mean weather I feel like has been, like last year the floods and everything, a huge challenge for farmers. I think that there's a policy that is definitely being worked on that affects us small poultry farmers such as myself. This poultry parts bill that just passed is a really big deal that allows us to cut up and sell poultry in unexpected facilities.  I think being able to find consistent good help is something that I don't deal with because I'm a one-man show, but I know farmers who do farm full-time and they are looking for full-time help and it's just hard to find people right now. So yeah, I think about all those things.

What is your utopia? What do you dream the future of farming could look like? Are there any steps you see that could move us closer? 

Yeah, my utopia definitely revolves around farming and agrarian lifestyle. I don't think that is the vision for everyone, but I think a more land-based, earth-based existence, not in like a hippie-dippie way, even though I kind of am hippie-dippie, but for the general populace, just being more connected to like how our day-to-day lives impact the natural world and just being more tied to that. I think it would benefit everyone in a really healthy way.

I think that there is such a huge need and calling right now for people to get into, I guess, blue collar work of working with your hands and learning hard skills. As economies and stuff have shifted towards all the computer-based and office-based work and being able to just pay for things and not know how to do them yourselves, we've lost this huge respect and appreciation for hard labor, actually accomplishing real things. So my utopia would definitely see a large swath of people from all walks of life.

It takes everyone to float the boat, see people get into working with their hands and learning how to do things. I think it would solve a lot of problems. And in general, my utopia would be a smaller-scaled existence for people than it is right now.

I think that there's a lot to be gained from the local community and support and just the bias of me as a farmer of more local food systems are just so much healthier for everyone. Organic, not organic. I don't care about the labels specifically, but good growing practices, knowing where your food is coming from, leaving the land better than you found it, just creates a much healthier ecosystem for everyone to grow up and live in and prosper in.

And keeps money local, doesn't send it to big corporations or overseas or whatever you want to say. It just, yeah, keep money local, keep it helping each other.

Jack’s interview was coordinated and administered by 2024 Rural Vermont Communications Intern, Melissa MacDonald.