Imagining Our Common Future

Imagining Our Common Future Conference

Click here for information on the Common Future Conference.

Can the Valley Feed Itself Presentations and Discussion

Imagine if.....

by Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow

May 12, 2007

Imagine if....

Every piece of open land as you drove through the valley was being tended for growing food, flowers or medicine, or green space or playgrounds.
We had our own creamery for bottled milk, butter and cheese
We had a food processing cooperative where you could press your sunflowers seeds into oil or grind your grain and then sell or barter your surplus to others who needed it.
We had a light-rail or bus service that ran from here to Montpelier and Burlington and other towns in Vermont
You could buy fresh food every day at a farmer’s market through spring summer and fall and there were so many farmers growing food that we needed that many markets.
We had our own valley composting system that processed all the waste from valley restaurants, inns and businesses.
People came to this valley, not only to ski and bike and vacation, but to study us as a model for community resilience and regeneration.
Mad River valley organizes its sun, wind and water to become a net prducer of energy.
Mad River valley became known not just as a ski town but as one of New England’s most visionary, whole communities
Our three schools were all serving locally grown food and powered by local wood.
We had our own energy bank that loaned all residents funds to become more efficient and renewable.
We mapped our forests to know that we could heat every home within our own watershed.
There were 50 small-scale neighborhood farms producing the majority of our food supply
You could walk on trails from Warren to Moretown
All our children knew what day the swallows and peepers return.
We were confident that our children and grand children could afford to live here.
Imagine if we had a parade every may 12 to honor Resilience Day… the day we decided to really love this land and to live within it.

Keep the conversation going at the

Mad River Valley Localvore community discussion board!

Can the Valley Feed Itself?

This was the topic covered in the morning session of the conference. We had a panel of four presenters who helped give us a good understanding of the why, where, what, and how aspects of this question. We then broke into three groups and at fifteen minute group intervals, the three groups rotated through a series of three questions in "creative cafes."

Panel information and the results of the the Creative Cafes is below.

Panel Presenters:

George Schenk of American Flatbread and local food advocate addressed the question why should we care about feeding ourselves?

Liza Walker of the Vermont Land Trust showed us the currently conserved land in the Mad River Valley. Click here to see her presentation.

Anita Kelman, Brookfield VT farmer, shared with us comparisons of key crops grown in the mid 1800's compared with today; evidence the we can grow a lot more than we are growing today. Click here to see her presentation.

Nils Behn of the Mad River Valley Sustainability Group gave us some statistical information on how much land is needed to feed the Mad River Valley. Click here to see his presentation.

Audio of the panel presentations coming soon.

Creative Cafes

Here are the ideas offered in the creative cafes. There are lots and lots of great thoughts here that need further discussion, development, and refinement. Some of these projects are already being worked on by the MRV Localvore Project and those items are in BOLD. To further discuss any of the ideas listed below and anything else related to local food in the Mad River Valley, we have set up a community discussion board - check it out and join in the conversation!

How Can We Grow and Raise More Food for the Mad River Valley?

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How can we increase local food consumption in the Mad River Valley?

How Can We Preserve and Increase Farmland Availability?

Category

Idea

Community/Home Gardening

Better use of forested food sources (wild edibles, etc.)

Community/Home Gardening

Edible landscapes

Community/Home Gardening

Have Victory or community gardens

Community/Home Gardening

Valley employers offer staff gardens

Community/Home Gardening

Backyard gardens with support groups

Community/Home Gardening

Something similar to green-up day but a garden-up day helping neighbors with gardens

Community/Home Gardening

Hold garden “raisings” (like barn raisings)

Community/Home Gardening

Incentives to organizations for individuals to take time out of their work day to grow food (similar to staff gardens) It needs to be more integrated so that it is a part of what they do and not a separate community service event.

Current Assessment

Get a better handle on how much food we are currently using (i.e. eggs)

Current Assessment

Figure out where the “holes” are in our food system

Awareness/Education

Weekly gardening classes

Awareness/Education

More education about growing and raising possibilities

Awareness/Education

Have gardening workshops geared to different levels

Awareness/Education

Mentorship programs with you connect farmers with newbie gardeners

Awareness/Education

Educate consumers on the cost of producing food

Farmer Assistance

Get youth involved in activities like haying

Farmer Assistance

Volunteer corp to help farmers (Americorp for ag)

Farmer Assistance

Labor banks; internships

Farmer Assistance

Make farming sexy again

Farmer Assistance

Community service projects where school kids work at farms.

Farmer Assistance

Help farmers – give them an avenue to get help when needed (during busy harvest times).

Farmer Assistance

Get kids to help farmers.

Farmer Assistance

Have high school recruiters for farmers

Farmer Assistance

If you build it, they will come; if there is a market for local products, farmers will produce to meet the need.

Farmer Assistance

Facilitate connecting growers with markets

Farmer Assistance

Work with farmers to let them know what we want.

Infrastructure

More greenhouses for extended season growth

Infrastructure

Town owned infrastructure

Investment

Extensive CSA bank (i.e. a 5 year CSA where you invest in the farmer to get a major growing initiative going)

Investment

Venture capital for Ag projects

Investment

Create a fund to set people up to grow and raise food for the community

Investment

Keep local money local – invest in the local community (there may be laws that prevent that)

Investment

Funnel more money into food development

Investment

Grain “futures”

Investment

Farm “futures”

Land Use/Availability

People in the valley might be willing to donate or lease land.

Land Use/Availability

Agricultural Land “bank”

Land Use/Availability

Get a better understanding of how much land is needed

Land Use/Availability

Have a barter system for prime land for specific crops

Land Use/Availability

Convince landowners that there is a better use for their lawns.

Land Use/Availability

There might be available land that people would be willing to donate for use.

Land Use/Availability

Open more land to growing; find people who have land and connect them to growers; have someone facilitate this

Land Use/Availability

Land stewardship

Municipal/Community Effort

Resource coordination

Municipal/Community Effort

Increase communications

Municipal/Community Effort

Need an ag and commercial council with commercial and municipal links

Municipal/Community Effort

Do pilots on a small scale to get some successes and then expand

Municipal/Community Effort

Need a new culture of local everything in town plans

Municipal/Community Effort

Partner up for more regional efforts

Regulations

Need more favorable raw milk rules

Regulations

Ag regulations need to be more user friendly

Misc

There are four categories – need to appeal to all four (professional farmers, semi communal – joint use of common land such as community gardens, homesteaders and semi-homesteaders, backyard gardeners

Misc

Increase capacity for composting

Misc

How do we assure this endures beyond today?

Misc

Need a bottom up approach

How Can We Increase Local Food Consumption?

Category	Idea
Accessibility/Availability	Farmer – Chef connections
Accessibility/Availability	Provide economic incentives to local businesses to stock local foods
Accessibility/Availability	Outreach to organizations that serve large groups (i.e. schools, senior center, ski areas)
Accessibility/Availability	Identify laws on the books that prevent access to local foods
Accessibility/Availability	Partner with Sugarbush and Mad River Glen, restaurants and resorts
Accessibility/Availability	Create more markets for farmers- grocery stores
Accessibility/Availability	Facilitate/coordinate farmer connections to stores
Accessibility/Availability	Consumers should demand local foods from markets- show we want it
Accessibility/Availability	More than 1x/week farmer’s market- Wednesday nights?
Accessibility/Availability	Create map showing all farms in the Valley
Accessibility/Availability	Help schools with sourcing/coordination of local foods
Accessibility/Availability	Help Sweet pea, Schoolhouse Market to bring down prices, providing macro CSA, reducing risk
Accessibility/Availability	Cooperatively run, centralized farm stand where farmers share shifts
Accessibility/Availability	Winter indoor farmer’s market (3)
Accessibility/Availability	Get Mehuron’s to offer more local foods
Accessibility/Availability	Maximize use of Sweet Pea
Awareness/Education	Sharing recipes
Awareness/Education	Tours of local farms and homesteads
Awareness/Education	More events- markets, chicken events, Taste of the Valley focusing on local foods
Awareness/Education	FUN- reach out to a wide spectrum of citizens
Awareness/Education	How to reach people who don’t recognize local foods???
Awareness/Education	Educate people about affordability of local foods
Awareness/Education	Re-educate consumers about seasonality
Awareness/Education	Education around “what can we grow here?”
Awareness/Education	Educate about wild foods- walkabouts in all seasons
Awareness/Education	Weekly Localvore potlucks at the Warren Town Hall
Awareness/Education	Workshops to learn how to grow and cook local foods
Awareness/Education	Education about storage, traditions, workshops on canning, etc
Awareness/Education	Improve marketing/awareness
Awareness/Education	Labeling local products in stores (2)
Awareness/Education	Long-term challenge
Awareness/Education	Local foods pledge- $100/month—maybe exchanged for “green money”
Awareness/Education	Use media- weekly recipe, articles, TV shows
Community Economics	Local currency
Community Economics	Encourage barter (2)
Community Economics	Encourage entrepreneurs
Current Assessment	Measure how much we’re eating now- baseline indicators
Funding	Write a grant to get $$ for a paid coordinator position
Funding	% of local taxes – passed at town meeting – to fund infrastructure, facilities
Funding	Help support farmers with $$ to grow new things- share risk
Funding	Re-funnel state and federal money from all dairy to diversified farms
Infrastructure	Butcher/slaughterhouse in the MRV—cooperative? Or some kind of local inspection?
Infrastructure	Infrastructure for processing- ex. milling grain
Infrastructure	Central coordination- database, infrastructure availability, resource bank/directory
Infrastructure	Central canning facilities (2)
Infrastructure	Educate architects/builders on how to build a root cellar or pantry (2)
Infrastructure	Incubator for small biz processors
Infrastructure	Community root cellar
Infrastructure	Community kitchen, shared freezer, storage, root cellars
Land Use/Availability	Combine land use with dairy and veggie farms
Municipal/Community Effort	Create Valley-wide Food and Energy Council- an overarching group combining MRSG, Localvores and other allied groups
Regulations	Relax state standards on animal processing
Schools	Focus on children- school meals- offer choices to kids
Schools	Encourage parents to eat with their kids at school and help set an example
Schools	Warren School as a model for others in the region
Schools	Local foods in schools- make it required – or at least a certain percentage (2)
Schools	Educate the kids- ripple effect on families
Schools	Have kids participate in growing the food
Schools	Gardening education in schools
Schools	Schools serve local foods
Misc.	Community connections with each other
Misc.	Encourage farmers and gardeners to bring surplus to the food shelf (2)
Misc.	Fact: 12% of food consumed in VT is “local” vs. 0.2% nationwide

How Can We Preserve and Increase Farmland Availability?

Category	Idea
Better use of readily available land	Reach out to connect on this issue with out-of-state landowners.
Better use of readily available land	Utilize school lands with more programs for kids.
Better use of readily available land	Till your lawn and replant it!
Better use of readily available land	Focus on the current best lands in the Valley and start to put them to use.
Better use of readily available land	Identify land buyers and sellers who are interested that farming exist on their land.
Better use of readily available land	Allow agriculture as a use in all zoning districts.
Better use of readily available land	Help individuals and families to do at least some of their own small-scale growing.
Current Assessment	Create land banks including data of soil/topography specifics to help match up desired usage with what is available and best suited per task, connecting would-be farmers with landowners receptive to the idea of sharing for our community.
Current Assessment	Get organized as regards overall quantities being grown of various crops so that the right proportions for a balanced diet are harvested within different areas of the Valley. Network with adjacent neighborhoods.
Current Assessment	Crunch numbers to determine subsistence needs for the Valley, including second homeowners and allowing for varying levels of future urban/suburban migration.
Current Assessment	Assemble the information on population, land needs and labor/equipment needs to arrive at an operable scenario with numbers.
Education/Communications	Educate public through real estate industry of the community agricultural value of lands for sale.
Education/Communications	Foster a societal “brain-shift” from competition to collaboration.
Education/Communications	Visualize ourselves and our land as a thriving market.
Education/Communications	Better communicate that the demand for local farming is critical and encourage landowners to use lands for agriculture.
Education/Communications	Educate and promote local farming and our connections to the food cycle within the community.
Education/Communications	Educate landowners about the farming value of their lands, especially those in the most valuable soil regions.
Food Production	Diversify our crops to be more suited to varying land characteristics.
Food Production	Establish food banks to support small growers by redistributing surplus to cover others’ shortages.
Food Production	Have a “gleaning day” each fall to salvage surplus production from becoming waste.
Food Production	Make it clear that local food markets exist and are expanding to pull in more local consumers and make it easier to purchase local food.
Food Production	Establish “new” businesses – canning and jarring and root vegetable storage, etc.
Food Production	Encourage crop diversification so we don’t become the Mad Zucchini Valley.
Food Production	Promote volunteerism to get as many as possible involved at least nominally in farming activity.
Land Preservation Strategies	Examine zoning statutes which might support and encourage land use for farming.
Land Preservation Strategies	Work for tax stabilization for farmers and better benefits through Current Use program.
Land Preservation Strategies	Develop creative partnerships for funding land conservation or purchase, as well as for renting or leasing land to farm.
Land Preservation Strategies	Help promote participation in Land Use Value program (“Current Use”).