What We Learned at the 2016 Vermont Grazing & Livestock Conference

Posted by Guest Author  |  March 18, 2016

By Jenn Colby and Cheryl Herrick

The Vermont Grazing and Livestock Conference is the Center for Sustainable Agriculture’s largest outreach event of the year. Every January, we welcome more than 300 people to share, learn, network, and enjoy a bit of quality family time away from the farm.

While every year is a deeply inspiring one, the 2016 event is one that we keep learning from. As we meet as a staff and talk with our farmer and service partners, we continue to uncover both common-sense wisdom and a pervasive sense of (dare we say it?) optimism in the information that was shared.

One thing we especially note: Vermont’s grass farmers are passionate, incredibly knowledgeable, and grateful to spend an intensive day learning with Jim Gerrish and focusing on Advanced Grazing.

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Photo: Don O’Brien/Flickr

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Northeast Kingdom Summit Looks for Opportunities to Grow Local Food Economy

Posted by Guest Author  |  March 16, 2016

By Taylar Foster

Farms in the Northeast Kingdom are seeing more opportunities to diversify, to expand what they grow or raise, and to stay financially viable. This means freezing produce, raising a new breed of livestock, or hosting weddings or dinners on the farm.

As production increases, so does the need for people power for this part of the food system. Since 2001, food-manufacturing jobs in the Northeast Kingdom surpassed similar numbers for the state of Vermont, increasing 127%, from 132 jobs to 299 by 2014.

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Why You Need to Watch Cooked, Michael Pollan’s New Netflix Series

Posted by Cynthia Belliveau  |  March 14, 2016

In Neil Genzlinger’s Feb 17, 2016, New York Times review of Michael Pollan’s four-part Netflix docu-series based on his book “Cooked,” he writes that Pollan “is food-shaming us again…a gentle sort of shaming, and informative, but unless you’ve previously been converted to Pollanology through [his writing] you’ll come away feeling mighty guilty about what you eat.”

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A New York Literary Agent Finds Cheese-Making Success at Consider Bardwell Farm

Posted by Erica Houskeeper  |  March 9, 2016

Becoming a cheese farmer was the furthest thing from Angela Miller’s mind when she purchased 300-acres in West Pawlet in 2001.

While searching for a second home in the Green Mountains, the New York literary agent and her husband, Russell “Rust” Glover, fell in love with a former dairy farm on Route 153 in a quiet corner of Rutland County.

It was a far cry from the vacation home they had recently sold on Long Island’s Shelter Island, which had grown increasingly crowded and exclusive over the years.  The unglamorous West Pawlet, by contrast, had few people and an abundance of open land. Continue reading →

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Got Milk with Dignity?

Posted by Guest Author  |  February 29, 2016

By Annalena Barrett

Vermont has become somewhat of a food systems mecca. With more “Eat More Kale” stickers per capita than likely any other state, it’s easy to get trapped in a utopian vision of the food system. While the beautiful old barns and cows grazing on open pasture are certainly present, there is an important component seldom depicted or talked about. This, of course, is the hand that does the milking. In Vermont, the hands that keep our dairy economy moving are often migrant farmworkers hailing from Mexico. Currently, about 1,500 migrant farmworkers sustain the Vermont dairy industry.

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