Findings

About a month has passed from the initial inspiration for "How Does My Food Come From?" of investigating the interrelations between Localvores and local food systems to the completion of our project, and the way that we all think about local food systems has matured substantially. It has always seemed so easy to eat locally, just spend a bit more money and buy your food at the farmers' market, right? What really goes into eating truly local was eye-opening to say the least.

The benefits of eating locally produced foods are numerous and well established. Your money goes to members of the local community, farming is sustained in the Champlain Valley, The food is fresher and healthier for you, you save fossil fuels by avoiding both the mechanization of large-scale agriculture and the transportation of foods from farms to vendors, and you are using your purchasing power to support something that you truly value instead of the distant and disconnected farms of large-scale commercial agriculture.

Instead of investigating the tired topic of reasons to commit to buying local produce, we decided to investigate the numerous models of local agriculture and their advantages and drawbacks. Through interviewing farmers from many different types of local food systems and taking an introspective look at our own consumption, we found both bountiful hope and large hurdles that still must be surpassed.

The Intervale has developed into not only community agriculture, but a community of farmers who are all stakeholders in each others' success. The interrelations between the farms which all occupy the same Winooski River floodplain is a microcosm of the local agricultural movement. While Pitchfork Farms is only 6 acres, their impact is that of a much larger farm. Members of the community are encouraged to visit the intervale and the farm, volunteer, and engage in the production of the food that they so regularly purchase off the shelf at the supermarket. This engagement is vitally important in transcending the "cheap food" concept that we are so accustomed to. The opportunity afforded to volunteers to participate in daily farming activities allows them to experience the true amount of labor that goes into producing food, and fosters an understanding that rich food costs more than we are used to. This paradigm shift is one of the major road blocks to transitioning from conventional, subsidized food to a more local, logical food system.

Bread and Butter Farm takes connecting the consumers to the producers one step further with their summer Burger Nights. For one night a week community members come to the farm and participate in a truly special event. The food is local, the music is local, and the people all come together to spend one night together eating food from the very farm at which it grew. Bread and Butter farm transcends the idea that volunteering is the only way that the community connects with farm. The burgers, bread and salads are modest in price, but resplendent in flavor.

Common Ground Farm functions not as a commercial farm, but as a student-run organization. Five students work full time, many volunteer, and the food is distributed exclusively through a Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA model. Shares are sold at the beginning of the season, and delivered weekly throughout the summer. CSAs are a great educational tool, serving both to engage us in the farming of our food and to teach us to eat seasonally, cooking what you get when you get it and making dishes with vegetables you may or may not be familiar with.

Lewis Creek Farm also has a CSA system as well as an on-site farmstand, but most of its food is distributed through Black River Produce to restaurants and vendors throughout the Champlain Valley.  So even if restaurant patrons don't know exactly where their spinach salad came from, they can rest assured that they are supporting local agriculture through the Vermont Fresh Network.  And although the farm is not fully organic, its locality is perhaps more important than the fact that some pesticides and fertilizers are used, and best agricultural practices are still followed on Lewis Creek Farm, ensuring the availability of high quality foods in perpetuity without the need to add exorbitant amounts of synthetic fertilizers to the soils to maintain their productivity.  Hank Bissell, who runs the farm, is a steward of the local foods movement, having played a large role in the establishment of the Burlington Winter Farmers' Market, making healthy, local food available to community members year round.

The final aspect of our inquiry was to test the feasibility of actually eating local for a period of time. Scott attempted this and encountered hurdles that none of us had anticipated. Being early spring, the selection of locally produced food available in northern Vermont was limited, and he found that he was not familiar with all of the vegetables that he was able to purchase at the farmers' market. There was also the issue of products that are essential to the diet that we are used to just aren't always available from local sources. Not only is it complicated to eat seasonally, but even in Burlington it is difficult to avoid non-local goods for a period of two weeks. On a daily basis we are tempted by the availability of prepared foods on campus. Eating fully local would require menu planning, a practice common for restaurant chefs ordering their produce for the week, but a bit out of the ordinary for your average college student. Lastly there is the issue of the budget. When attempted on a conventional foods budget, purchasing enough local foods for a week is very strenuous.

We started with a simple inquiry: "how does my food come from?". What we uncovered was far more complex than we had anticipated. The multifaceted answer to the simple question has economic, social, and climatic contributing factors. To establish truly local food systems will require a shift in our Americanized point of view about how much of our income we spend on our food, which is relatively small compared to what individuals in other cultures spend.  It will also require more engagement and education about local food systems. Finally, we found a false sense of seasonality engrained in the way we think about what to cook and eat. If we want to eat local, we will have to eat apples in the fall, root vegetables in the winter, and tomatoes in the summer; all foods are not available all of the time. However, our case studies were all very promising. There are many people across the Chittenden Valley participating in the localvore movement, we are very lucky to live in a community where eating truly local is a very tangible concept. It would require the aforementioned augmentations to change the way that we live and eat, but as the aptly named band Rage Against the Machine's front man Zach De La Rocha says, "What better place than here, what better time than now?"

Real Estate Markets Reflect Local Food Movement

An article on VTDigger from last summer says that prices for rural land are rising steadily in Vermont, driven not simply by an increase in the number of people interested in starting a farm, but also by consumer demand for local food and Vermont-made products.

The article quotes former state Agriculture Secretary Roger Allbee as saying, "This is real, and it’s explosive.  Today’s consumers are more concerned about where their food came from; they are concerned about food safety and the environment; and they like to connect with the person who grew their food."

Despite support from localvores and Vermont's current-use program, which limits property taxes on conserved land like farms and forests, new farmers find it difficult to break into the real estate market, especially in dairy, because they don't have the capital to buy land.

That's where the Vermont Land Trust and the State Housing and Conservation Trust Board come in, easing the financial burden on farmers by purchasing development rights to ensure that land remains conserved beyond the current owners.

Another popular option for new farmers is leasing land, which gives them the means to get started without putting themselves in huge debt.  This is especially important given continued interest of real estate buyers who simply want rural land to enjoy as it is, but who need a little extra income from leasing to support the purchase.

The long of the short of it is that the local food movement in Vermont has become a tangible force in the state's real estate and agricultural industries, which make up a huge portion of the state's economy.  With any hope, the momentum will continue into the uncertain future of the American food system, ensuring that Vermonters will continue to have access to plenty of healthy, wholesome food.

'Working Toward a Just, Equitable, and Local Food Sytem'

This research paper, published in the Social Science Quarterly journal, examines who in the Vermont community is eating local foods. The researcher, Thomas Macias, looked through three different lenses to understand local food systems. The first one, food equity, helped Macias see which part of the population is eating local food; this lens helps refer to the differences in social class, race, and gender. The next lens was social integration, which helped quantify the importance of human connection and how that can relate to food systems. Lastly, natural human capital was used as a lens, which helps look at what kind of jobs are in the community.

These three lenses were used to look at three different models of the local food system: community-supported agriculture (CSA), community gardens and organic market farms. Through looking at these models with the social lenses, Macias found which model was best for each section of the local society.  In solving the problem of food equity, none of the models of local agriculture were best for getting food to people of lower income. The best model of local farming over all lenses was community gardening, which proved to be a good way to keep the lots of the community involved, interacting at a low price. The only negative of community gardening is that it is a huge time commitment, so individuals working 2 jobs or long days cannot participate as much.

Bread and Butter Farm

Bread and Butter Farm is located in Shelburne, VT.  The farm was sold to Adam Wilson and Corie Pierce 3 years ago through the Vermont Land Trust.  They were able to save the land from development and instead kept it for farming purposes  It is only a few miles from the center of Burlington, and allows for an easy opportunity to experience Vermont farm life.

I took Dorset Road to get to the farm; which was found right after all of the housing developments eased into a more typical Vermont landscape.  After pulling into the farm I immediately saw Maurice Leduc, who was the previous owner of the farm.   He waved to us as we pulled into the farm store, only to meet another member of the team, Erik (the resident baker of the delicious bread!).

Bread and Butter Farm produces milk products from 100% grass fed cows.  These cows are milked once a day, which lowers production rates, but allows for the highest quality of milk.  They are also rotated from their pastures 2 times daily, which allows for increased productivity and health of the soils.  Lastly, the manure from the cows is composted and used once again in the hay fields.

Beef and pork products are also sold at the farm.  These animals are all allowed to graze and rotate among the pastures as well. They raise the pork on leftovers from the bakery and dairy production which allows for complete recycling of the nutrients.

They also harvest greens in passive solar greenhouses.  These greenhouses keep the ground thawed to allow the harvest of greens, such as kale and spinach, throughout the winter months.

Although Bread and Butter Farm offers a great array of food products, they also find it very important to connect with local communities.  Their method of growing community is through hosting weekly "Burger Nights" throughout the summer.  Their motto for these events is, "good food, good music, good people."  When I spoke with Erik he said that "Burger Nights" began last summer.  In the early months there were around 100 attendees, but by the end of the summer at least 400 locals would arrive, ready for a great night.

These nights are 100% local as they offer burgers from cows raised right on the farm that you can actually go meet! (well sort of!)  The bread is made the day of the event and all of the salad greens are produced in the farm's greenhouses.  If you are not in the mood for a juicy burger you can certainty go down the route of a delicious veggie burger from the farm down the road.  These nights are great opportunities for the community to not only have a great time but to really see where their food comes from.  I would encourage anyone and everyone to attend one of these "Burger Nights," as I plan to as soon as they start up again in the warmer months!

Bread and Butter Farm is a great example of a local farm that is run almost entirely by community support.  All of the production is local, and they treat their animals with the highest level of care.  They recycle nutrients when possible and don't wear out any of their valuable resources.  Most importantly they are able to connect back to the community by allowing open access to their farm at all times and offering community events.  Bread and Butter Farm should be used as an example for other farms to encourage the best possible farming techniques.    

The Farm to Plate Initiative

Farm to Plate initiatives looks to double local consumption of Vermont raised food

In 2009, Vermont state legislature created the Farm to Plate initiative with the goal of designing a state food and agriculture strategy. The initiative is seeking to "Increase economic development in Vermont's food and farm sector", "Create jobs in the food and farm economy", and "Improve access to healthy local foods". Specifically, as the article's title alludes to, the initiative is looking to double the amount of local food consumption in the state over the next decade. According to a report, if this goal were reached, 1,500 jobs would be created in Vermont, and the state's economy would be boosted by as much as $135 million. Obviously, both job creation and an income boost would benefit Vermont, but having greater access to sustainably and locally produced food would be of equal value to Vermont's citizens. In October of 2011, the Farm to Plate initiative held a conference in Fairlee, Vermont which was attended by about 150 Vermonters, all seeking to work together to make this initiative a reality. At the conference, the attendees gathered in small groups to discuss issues such as the prevalence of local food in Vermont cafeterias, the potential of in-state butcher training programs, and creating a network to link farmers and potential landowners throughout the state. To retain the initiative's momentum, the event organizers proposed that groups should meet again later in 2011, and follow up with another meeting in the first quarter of 2012. While this initiative is a good step in the right direction to helping Vermonters become more conscious of where their food is grown or produced, the proposed followups need to materialize, and more similar initiatives should be created.

Hanna's Foodshed Map

Check out a map of where Hanna's food came from for a day, meal-by-meal:

What is farmed in your home town?

Great interactive agricultural land use GIS map!
 This agricultural land use map really puts in prospective what we farm and where we farm it. You can change the data by year and get a (recent) historical perspective as well as what crops are farmed in each region.Franklin, Chittenden and Addison counties are quite heavily farmed when compared to the rest of the country!

CropScape