sustainable agriculture
How to Grow Your Own Beer Hops
Photo: Flickr By Lynn McIlwee BrewingWork.com Ever thought about growing hops in your backyard or at the brewery? Hops are pretty easy to grow and are a hearty plant that will return year after year if you tend to them properly. Tips on How to Grow Your Own Beer Hops When and Where to Buy […]
Alumni Advice: Calley Hastings Finds the Sweet Spot in the Specialty Food World
A decade ago, Fat Toad Farm started out as a simple experiment in homesteading. Calley Hastings ‘07 and her family hand-milked a French alpine doe named Jupiter in their Brookfield garage to make goat’s milk caramel sauce for friends and to sell at the local farmers’ market. Back then, the family never dreamed they would […]
Pitchfork in the Road: Graphic Designer Lara Dickson Finds a Second Career at Next Chapter Farm
By Sarah Tuff Dunn A few years ago, Burlington’s Lara Dickson was living high on the hog in graphic and web design, feeding off 20 years of freelance and independent contract work. Today, the 46-year-old is literally living with the piglets as the one-woman wonder behind Next Chapter Farm, a 15-acre enterprise in West Berlin, […]
Kate McNellis Goes from Sewing Clothes to Sowing Flower Seeds
By Sarah Tuff Dunn Of the millions of profile titles on LinkedIn, the one that belongs to Kate McNellis is one of the most poetic: Flower farmer at Stray Cat Flower Farm. Dig a little deeper, however, and discover that McNellis, who graduated from UVM in 2000 with a degree in environmental studies, wasn’t always […]
Kim Bayer Helps Envision Michigan’s Food Hub Future
Kim Bayer, center, of the Washtenaw Food Hub. By Mariette Landry While working as project manager and co-founder of the Washtenaw Food Hub, a 16-acre historic farm located north of Ann Arbor, Mich., Kim Bayer enrolled in UVM’s 10-month Food Hub Management Professional Certificate Program. “There were so many great things about the program,” she […]
Food Hub Management Alumna Pushes the Boundaries of Local
By Mariette Landry Five years ago, UVM Food Hub Management program graduate Lisa Reeder worked part-time to provide sales, purchasing, and warehouse support at Local Food Hub in Charlottesville, Va. From there, she moved on to Grower Services and Purchasing, and in 2013, she became Local Food Hub’s Value Chain Coordinator. In this role, Reeder […]
Farmer Training Students Look Ahead to Building a Sustainable Food System
Amount made from selling fresh produce at the UVM Farm Stand: $6,000. Pounds of harvested food donated to the local food shelf: 2,150. Number of bed feet planted in the fields: over 40,000. Number of farmers, agricultural specialists, extension agents, and UVM professors who students were exposed to: over 50. Number of days on the […]
A ‘Major’ Interest in Food Programs at Campuses Across the Country
The demand for college and university classes focusing on food systems is growing far and wide. As the food movement grows, a surge of interest in food as an academic subject is happening in all corners of the country. Colleges and universities are offering courses such as “Food Studies: Harvest to Health,” “Anthropology of Coffee […]
Certificate Student Helps the Texas Food System Find its Footing
(Photo: Farmers’ market in Dallas by John Tornow/Flickr) Texas and Vermont are two places where residents feel a tremendous amount of state pride and the roots of agriculture tend to run deep. But when it comes to local food systems, The Lone Star State and The Green Mountain State are very far apart. Texas produces […]
Nutritionist Experiences the Healing Power of Farming
Photo: Corinne Steel, right, a student in the UVM Farmer Training Program, talks about the power of farming and why food matters. We talked to UVM Farmer Training Program student Corinne Steel – a nutrition consultant and holistic health coach transplanted from Oakland, California – about how she has been transformed by local food and […]
