By Chris Howell

If there’s one takeaway from the Vermont Farm to Plate Annual Network Gathering that took place in late October, it’s that our regional food system is in very good hands.

Vermont’s Farm to Plate Network encompasses agricultural production and processing businesses, government entities, educational institutions, distributors, retailers, funding bodies, and dozens of nonprofits from food justice to technical assistance providers. Continue reading →

In my last post, I spoke with UVM alum Susan Vaughn Grooters about the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria in our food supply due to the subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal agriculture. In this post I share Susan’s ideas on how we can address this threat to human and animal health.

When I asked Susan about potential approaches to addressing antibiotic resistant foodborne illness outbreaks, she gave a straightforward answer. “We have a system that is in grave need of fixing. The solution to unsanitary conditions in industrial animal production shouldn’t be dosing animals with antibiotics to keep them healthy and to make them grow faster. The solution is to change production practices.” Continue reading →

I recently had the chance to speak with Susan Vaughn Grooters, an alumna of the UVM Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, about her current work at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Here is a summary of our engaging discussion about the serious threat to human and animal health posed by the use of sub-therapeutic antibiotics in animal agriculture.

When I started my conversation with Susan by asking her about her career path, she responded back with a question: “I like to ask, ‘what gets you out of bed in the morning?’ I see grave injustices in our food supply. The reason I get up every morning is that I feel driven to do something about them.” Continue reading →