Come join Rural Vermont and Mary Lake on Saturday, March 18th at Center Farm in Montpelier for an on-farm slaughter and processing workshop. In the first half of this 2-part workshop, participants will learn how to humanely slaughter a lamb and then how to efficiently butcher and process a lamb in the second half of the workshop. Ticket Price: $70
In early February, the wonderful Mary Lake, Rural Vermont staff and farmers from across the country had a chance to fly to D.C. to present our Petition To Clarify The Personal Use Exemption in the FMIA to lawmakers - looking for champions for the initiative (more info)! We need Sen. Welch to take leadership in his Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry - reach out to your Senator Welch, Subject Line: Clarify On-Farm Slaughter is legal! And share with his staff why clarifying that on-farm slaughter is legal matters to you.
Read on to TAKE ACTION….
All Rural Vermont members are invited to join the Rural Vermont staff and Board for our first 2023 virtual forum. These Quarterly Forums are opportunities for our members to join our Policy team in a virtual forum to discuss particular issues which may be affecting your farm and / or community, and/ or that we are currently working on. Bring your questions, ideas, and concerns. We look forward to seeing you there. Not a member yet, but want to participate? Become a Rural Vermont member here.
This event is being held on Zoom. Pre-registration is required. Please REGISTER HERE!
Please join us Friday, February 24th at the Unitarian Church in Montpelier for a community conversation about the socio / economic / political / cultural / agroecological contexts of Cuba and the broader Latin America and Caribbean, as well as political updates, experiences of Vermont’s recent delegation to the Small Farmers’ Conference in Cuba, and opportunities for participation, engagement, and solidarity.
This event is co-hosted by the Vermont Agroecology School Collective.
5:30 - 6:30 Potluck Dinner
6:30 - 8:00 Community Conversation
Interested in supporting Cuba solidarity work but can’t come to the event? Learn how you can support here.
Yorlis Gabriel Luna, of the Asociacion de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC in Nicaragua), the Latin American Institute of Agroecology Ixem Ulew, and La Via Campesina, will lead us in taking a closer look at the agroecology and food sovereignty movement in Nicaragua, discuss the role of peasant revolutionary thought in Latin America, solidarity and trans-nationalism, and how it all applies to the Vermont context.
This presentation will be held on Zoom due to the pending snowstorm. Please RSVP!
Event will be held in Spanish with translation to English. Thank you to Andres Oyaga, Middlebury College, and the Vermont Agroecology School Collective for organizing and co-hosting this event.
A new biennium has begun! To help our constituents understand what has changed in the State House and support them in engaging with agricultural issues and the legislative process, we've created a simple reference guide. Within the 2023 Legislative Session Guide, you'll find info about how to keep up with the House and Senate's schedules, an overview of the legislative body's make-up, changes to the House Agriculture Committee and broader leadership, how to follow the bills you care about and inquire about testifying, where to find the many legislatively-mandated reports that are forthcoming, and MORE.
Rural Vermont’s mission makes clear that our work is grounded in assuring the essential needs and health of our communities locally - and human and non-human communities around the world. Connecting the people we work with, and the issues they face, with global communities and allied organizations and the issues they face is essential to realizing food sovereignty, and is a growing part of our work at Rural Vermont. Producers and communities all over the world are affected by many of the same global policies and dynamics which marginalize and disempower producers in Vermont. Two of the primary organizations who work globally which we are members of are the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) and La Via Campesina (we are members through NFFC, and pursuing individual membership).
In November, Rural Vermont staffers Mollie and Graham and board member Nour traveled to Cuba along with a number of Rural VT members as delegates to the 8th annual International Agroecology Encounter, hosted by the National Small Farmers' Association of Cuba (ANAP), and co-coordinated by La Via Campesina North America, the Caribbean Agroecology Institute, and the Cuba / US Agroecology Network. We traveled to many farms and farming cooperatives, saw presentations from many farmers and researchers, and grew relationships with small farmers, agroecological organizations, and other delegates from all over the world.
Cuba is a global beacon for cooperativism and agroecology and its many decades of social, economic, and land reforms are also important and unique aspects of Cuba to understand. Agricultural producers are centered in the Cuban economy and politics - it is a constant refrain that “we want farmers to be able to farm”, meaning that cooperatives and the state substantially support distribution, processing, markets, and other needs connecting food production to its consumption.
However, Cuba is sadly in an economic crisis - largely due to the United States’ reimposed and strengthened sanctions (often referred to in Cuba as the “blockade”), sanctions which have been condemned yearly by a nearly universal vote at the United Nations (aside from the US and Israel) for 30 years. This blockade - like others like it around the world - intimately and pervasively affects the abilities of everyday people to live sovereign, healthy lives.
In the coming months, look for more community outreach from Rural Vermont around our time in Cuba and getting involved in exchange and solidarity with Cuban farmers. And look for more information on the formation of a VT Agroecology School - which will continue this thread of internationalism, farmer to farmer based education, and cooperativism.
For some quick introductions to Cuba and Cuban agroecology - see this short film from Belly of the Beast (which includes Rural VT member farmer Tom Gilbert).
Members Critique Power Push to Use Ecosystem Services as a Market Solution for Pre-existing Shortfalls: The last PES (Payment for Ecosystem Services) and Soil Health Working Group meeting finally addressed what had been unspoken - the increasingly clear power dynamic tailoring the development of new programmatic solutions in agriculture addressing climate challenges to the interests of Big $$. Despite the final decision away from outcome-based solutions, the final report seemingly read to satisfy the interests of private investors. These private investors may still glean lessons from the process and continue to push for market-based solutions that are sound, viable, and regenerative while also addressing the complex issues within the agricultural sector. Didi Persehouse, a VT Healthy Soils Coalition member, offered an initial critique that eventually led to several working group members expressing similar concerns.
The last PES (Payment for Ecosystem Services) and Soil Health Working Group meeting finally addressed what had been unspoken - the increasingly clear power dynamic tailoring the development of new programmatic solutions in agriculture addressing climate challenges to the interests of Big $$. Despite the final decision away from outcome-based solutions, the final report seemingly read to satisfy the interests of private investors. These private investors may still glean lessons from the process and continue to push for market-based solutions that are sound, viable, and regenerative while also addressing the complex issues within the agricultural sector. Didi Pershouse, a VT Healthy Soils Coalition member, offered an initial critique that eventually led to several working group members expressing similar concerns. Read Rural Vermont's public comment as submitted in the meeting below:
Public Comment to the PES WG
Caroline Gordon for Rural Vermont 1/10/23
After 3 years of PES and Soil Health Working Group process a question arose for Rural Vermont. In how far was the PES WG process aware of/ and influenced by Wall Street interests around developing new market assets through monetizing ecosystem services? Throughout the process, the Small Farmer stakeholder group, that Rural Vermont is part of, was advocating for the PES WG process to be a democratic one that is farmer-led. We celebrate that advocacy effort in the unison approach towards improving the Conservation Stewardship Program, an idea that emerged from our group. Before the PES WG closes today, I want to flag that there was a strong continuous push towards establishing a new outcome based solution and that it’s questionable, while not explicit, in how far that push has been informed by private investor networks with access to large capital from international markets like RAIS, the Regenerative Food Network and others. Another indicator for the predominant macroeconomic framework projected often by the PES WG was demonstrated in the way farmer participation was facilitated. Rural Vermont recommended to “Facilitate a Participatory Decision-Making Process with Farmers” in May 2021, submitted with support form Cat Buxton, the White River NRCD, CLF, CAFS and Cedar Mountain Farm. That initiative was not discussed by the PES WG but reduced to a survey that measured the farmers’ “willingness to accept” - a terminology used in the capitalizing nature context. Following the farmers survey around WTA, program development options did not aim to meet that minimum bar of what farmers seek to gain from a PES program. When the PES WG decided against the approach to develop a new outcome based program the farmer input was not helpful anymore. I echo Didi Pershouse who flagged earlier today eloquently how that power dynamic towards market solutions is now being reflected in this critical draft final report and it is a huge relief that the group has been able to address that so constructively today.
While the PES WG will be more or less resolved now, I want to encourage all of us to be more aware about the context of private investors seeking to develop trillions of dollars in assets by capitalizing on nature and how that affects Vermont, our public interests, and those on the ground. Moving forward please join Rural Vermont in dialogue with lawmakers to share what you learned about the complexities and difficulties surrounding agricultural programming, for example surrounding cost share agreements (and so much more), and seek to keep this discourse a public one so that any policy decisions can be farmer-led. I know that most of the working group members entered this process with an open mind, like Didi, Jill, Maddie and Scott shared, they didn’t see a pre-set understanding of what PES means. Along those lines, research like the report from NEED (Coleman, A.F., Machado, M.R. (2022). Ecosystem Services in Working Lands Practice and Policy in the U.S. Northeast: Successes, Challenges, and
Opportunities for Producers and Extension (1st ed). Kansas City: Extension Foundation. ISBN: 978-1 955687-11-9.), about Ecosystem Services in the working lands across the northeast has identified over 1,300 existing programs that benefit ecosystem services that are outside of the commodifying nature context that could be understood as PES programs for that reason - even though they are practice based.
Before I close, I’m excited to share that:
Very soon the qualitative analysis of farmer participation that the Conservation Districts organized with support from UVM and others will be released. Retrospect that documentation will support to advance CSP and the broader effort to take farmers' expertise seriously in addressing other pre-existing shortfalls of existing programs at the root moving forward.
Join Rural Vermont during a NOFA-NH panel discussion on January 18th at around the concerns raised today: Food and Climate Panel: Carbon Market Pitfalls & Better Strategies for Regenerative Organic Farming Practices — Rural Vermont
Over 600+ signatories support clarifying language to the Federal Meat Inspection Act’s personal-use-exemption to confirm state laws that allow for on-farm slaughter (like Vermont's 6 V.S.A. 3311a) without state or federal meat inspection. Together with partner organizations, Rural Vermont circulated the On-Farm Slaughter Petition throughout November and we are still gaining some more organizational supporters in December. While the majority of support came from Vermont, we are excited to share that this is a joint effort from supporters from 38 states.
VIEW THE PETITION (to date) HERE
In the upcoming weeks, we will share the petition with lawmakers in D.C. and hope to gain champions for this food sovereignty initiative.
Stay tuned as we will share more farmer testimonials and information soon!
Reach out to caroline@ruralvermont.org with your questions and comments.
It's giving season! Why support Rural Vermont? According to Board Member John Cleary, "On issue after issue, Rural Vermont shows up in ways that no other organization in the state does... In my 20+ years of working on agricultural and community issues, here is my essential observation - If Rural Vermont wasn't there, the work wouldn't get done. Thank you for joining me to support your organization."
Donate here and read John's full appeal for your support HERE!
2023 priorities for organizing, education, advocacy and action are shaped at the intersection of many influences: our relationships with our membership, our Board, our Staff, our allied organizations, coalitions, and allied movements locally and globally. During the legislative session, we actively track legislation throughout the Statehouse and keep our members updated on a diversity of bills and conversations, providing opportunities to engage. This is an overview of some of the many issue areas we work on and support. For more info and to keep up with Rural Vermont, follow us on Facebook and/or Instagram, sign up for our mailing list or e-newsletter, or become a member and attend our Quarterly Member Forums.
Join Rural Vermont and partner organizations National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA), and Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) in urging Congress to support clarifying language to the Federal Meat Inspection Act’s (FMIA) personal-use-exemption that will affirm state laws - like Vermont’s! - that allow for on-farm slaughter without state or federal meat inspection. Read more and sign on here!
We want to thank all our members for making Rural Vermont's 2022 Annual Meeting a great success and evening! We welcomed new Board members, enjoyed an incredible meal of Shepherd's Pie featuring New Grass Farmstead mutton, shared memories of Carl Russell, celebrated the highlights of our past year, and (re-)connected with friends and supporters from near and far! Read the full recap here.
On Tuesday, November 1, 2022 from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM, Rural Vermont is again partnering with experts at Vermont Legal Aid to offer farmer-specific support around all things related to healthcare plan enrollment. The goal is for this webinar to be tailored to the needs of the farming community. Free and open to all. Please register (required!) and submit your healthcare questions about these topics and more in advance so we can do our best to cover everything!
On Saturday, November 5, 2022 from 11:00AM - 2:00PM at Union Brook Farm in Northfield, Emily Virzi and Rose Thackeray of Union Brook Farm in Northfield teach participants to slaughter, butcher and process turkey in a way to get the best results for a succulent turkey. Registration fee is on a sliding scale ($45-75), with a recommended price of $60. Participants get to take home ground turkey! Limited capacity, register now!
It's been a long time since Rural Vermont's members gathered in person for our annual meeting, but 2022 is the year this treasured tradition returns! Please mark your calendar and plan to join us for: Rural Vermont's Annual Meeting & Celebration on Saturday, October 22nd from 5-8pm at the Bethel Town Hall. Rural Vermont's staff, Board, and members will gather for a night to remember with music, a shared meal, art-making, and more. We'll be electing new members to the Board and honoring Carl Russell, Rural Vermont Board Member Emeritus who passed away this summer. Find more details and RSVP today!
Our policy, education, and organizing work is rooted in what we hear from our community members, and the community members of our organizational allies. In order to provide more opportunity for you - our members - to provide input to, and to ask questions directly of, our staff members, we’ve decided to offer online forums at least four times a year. The next Quarterly Forum is Wednesday, Dec. 14th from 7-8:30pm. Learn more and register today!
Thank you for being part of Rural Vermont’s community! Help us amplify the momentum we’ve built together with your special gift today. Right now, every donation is being matched dollar for dollar. Double your gift and impact! Read our full appeal for your support HERE.
Rarely have we seen as many bills related to agriculture and forestry as in the 2022 session - we covered 19+ bills that were either directly related to our policy priorities, that we supported, provided testimony for, or monitored for you, our constituents, members and supporters. More importantly, these bills have not just been introduced, but the majority of them have made it through passage by the general assembly. Read all about it in our final Legislative Update for 2022 HERE!
Rural Vermont's 2021 Impact Report is here! We are happy to report that, over the last year, Rural Vermont has strengthened our organizational foundation and celebrated several key policy gains. Alongside and because of our community, we've made great progress in advancing our collective work to build healthy, resilient, and equitable food systems. Thank you for being part of this community that guides, fuels and funds our efforts.
Enjoy the short read - packed with photos, testimonials, and highlights - and please let us know what you think!