Action Alert 3/14/8

--Farm Fresh MILK bill passed out of House Agriculture Committee!
--Farm Fresh MEAT bill passed out of Senate Agriculture Committee!
--Rural Vermont Annual Meeting with JOEL SALATIN
--Other Rural Vermont events - BENNINGTON POT LUCK and KING CORN CHOWDER
--Other upcoming events

***FARM FRESH MILK bill moving!***
The Farm Fresh Milk bill has made the crossover deadline! THANK YOU to all the folks who came out to the hearings this week while the House Agriculture Committee held hearings on the bill (we will have sound files of all of the hearings posted on our website soon: www.ruralvermont.org). The committee worked really hard each day to try to give us what we were asking for. However, they identified an issue that we could not resolve in time to meet the deadline. So, the committee decided to do a "strike all" amendment. This means that our bill as originally introduced is completely gone. What they did instead was to rewrite the bill so it will simply raise the limit of how much milk you can sell to 50 quarts/day. The bill is now very short (one page). It's not yet posted on the web, but we will let update our website when it is. The House Agriculture Committee passed the bill today with a 9-0-2 vote. That means 9 were "yes," zero "no," and two absent. Reps. Partridge and Ainsworth were absent. Reps. Zuckerman, Perry, Bray, Stevens, Malcolm, Godin, Lawrence, Spengler, and McNeil all voted yes.

So, things are pretty much as they were - no standards, and no rules from the Agency of Agriculture, and the limit will be 50 quarts/day once the bill passes (this could be a few more weeks - it still has to go through the senate and get signed by the governor).

IN ADDITION, during the testimony, the committee realized that the Agency of Agriculture was not allowing farmers to advertise that they had raw milk for sale. This is apparently not okay for them to do, so YOU CAN NOW ADVERTISE that you have raw milk for sale! This is not in the bill - it is an immediate change. The Agency has already changed their website to reflect this new policy. Hang your signs out!

Even though it might seem like a small change, it's important to know that the House Agriculture Committee was actually very supportive of the bill and what we wanted, and we have a very good chance to come back next year and get more. The issue that held them up was a jurisdictional issue. Apparently, the state has a statutory obligation to oversee food safety issues. We needed some sort of a connection between our certification structure and the state having oversight. We were working to find a model that would satisfy both the committee's concerns and our desire for some independence for the certification program. We came very close during the negotiations, but the clock just ran out before we could figure out all of the details.

The bill as it came out of committee is a good step forward. We made a lot of progress in terms of educating legislators and building support for significant expansion of ability to sell raw milk in Vermont. The next step is that the full House of Representatives will vote on the bill. This vote is scheduled for TUESDAY MORNING, around 10 am. If you can come, let us know. After that, the bill will go to the Senate Agriculture Committee. Stay tuned for a schedule. We will want folks to come out to those hearings!

ON MONDAY AND TUESDAY: Please let your Representatives know that you support H.616 as it came out of the House Agriculture Committee. This is a good step forward, and will allow Vermont farmers to build a market, as well as work toward a significant expansion in sales next year. Call your reps at 802-828-2228 on Monday and Tuesday morning to leave message asking them to support the bill. If your rep is on the House Agriculture Committee, please THANK them for their support, and their hard work on the bill.

***FARM FRESH MEAT BILL MOVING!***
At the very last minute before the crossover deadline, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed a bill (S.322) that calls for a study about on-farm slaughter of red meat. The bill as introduced did not have this requirement; however, the committee added it just before passage. The bill is not yet posted on the web as passed by the committee, but it should be soon. We'll update our website as soon as it's available. This means that the Farm Fresh Meat bill still has a chance to pass this year. The Senate will vote on S.322 next week, and then the bill will go to the House and be considered by the House Agriculture Committee, who can choose to put the language from H.749 (the Farm Fresh Meat bill) into S.322. This is a great development, and we are very hopeful that the House Agriculture Committee will be support on-farm slaughter of red meat this year. For more information on this issue, visit our website: http://www.ruralvermont.org/nais.html.

HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP THE FARM FRESH MEAT BILL!

1) On MONDAY AND TUESDAY: Call your Senators at 802-828-2228 and leave a message asking them to SUPPORT S.322 as passed by the Agriculture Committee. If you don't know who your senators are, you can ask the person who answers the phone. You'll just have to tell them what county you live in.

2) THIS WEEKEND: Write a THANK YOU note to the Senate Agriculture Committee. Send a Hand-Written (not email!) note to the committee to tell them why this bill is important to you, and thank them for getting it done before the crossover deadline. You can send your note to:
Senate Agriculture Committee
c/o Senator Sara Kittell
VT Statehouse
115 State Street
Montpelier, VT 05633

3) CONTACT RURAL VERMONT if you are already selling red meat that is slaughtered on the farm. We need to hear your stories and we want to keep you up-to-date on how YOU can help to get this bill passed this year. Please contact Shelby at 802-223-7222 or shelby@ruralvermont.org if you are raising animals and want to slaughter them on the farm.

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** RURAL VERMONT'S ANNUAL MEETING **
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It's time to celebrate another year of moving our state closer to Rural Vermont's Vision for Vermont Agriculture!
The night will feature:
-a keynote speech by JOEL SALATIN, farmer and author of _Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal_ and other books
-board elections
-an awards ceremony
-a silent auction (bring your checkbook!).
It's a POTLUCK: bring a dish made from local ingredients to share!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
6:30 - 9 pm
Royalton Academy
Route 14, ROYALTON
FREE for Rural Vermont members!
Everyone else: $15 (join today on our secure website: www.ruralvermont.org)

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OTHER RURAL VERMONT EVENTS
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**POTLUCK AND DISCUSSION**
Monday, March 17, 2008
Unitarian Church in North Bennington
6 to 9 p.m
Free and open to the public!
Join Rural Vermont for a potluck dinner followed by a screening of the film Deconstructing Supper. After the film there will be time for a discussion on the film and the three major issues Rural Vermont is currently working on. Please come to hear about how you can help us to achieve our vision of Food with Dignity - Living Soils, Thriving Farms, and Healthy Communities. Bring a yummy dish and a friend!

*** DINNER AND A MOVIE with King Corn Director Aaron Woolf ***
Saturday, March 29
5 pm dinner with Aaron Woolf at That’s Life Soup (YUMMY! - CORN CHOWDER!)
6:30 pm King Corn film screening at City Hall
dinner only: $35 / dinner and movie: $40
Rural Vermont hosts a fundraiser featuring Aaron Woolf, director of the much anticipated and celebrated film King Corn. Come to Montpelier on Saturday, March 29 for an intimate dinner party with Aaron Woolf at That’s Life Soup, followed by an early evening screening of King Corn at City Hall. There will be a limited number of dinner tickets sold, and they are only available through Rural Vermont, so get yours today! Dinner tickets are $35 each, and the film tickets are available to dinner-goers at a reduced cost of $5. Much thanks to the Savoy Theater, the Green Mt Film Fest, and That’s Life Soup for supporting this fundraiser. All proceeds will go to Rural Vermont's work to achieve our vision of living soils, thriving farms, and healthy communities. To order tickets or for more info, call Rural Vermont at (802) 223-7222 or email Shelby at shelby@ruralvermont.org. To find out more about the film, visit www.kingcorn.net.

**HEMP MOVIE & DISCUSSION**
Come to the Lovin' Cup Cafe in Johnson to check out Hemp and the Rule of Law followed by a discussion led by local hemp advocate Eileen McKusick. Hemp and the Rule of Law relays the story behind agricultural hemp; the US's past involvement with hemp as a major agricultural crop and the current controversy surrounding farmers and state rights to return it as such. For a detailed film description and reviews, visit http://www.tinroofvideo.com/
WHEN: Tuesday, April 1st @ 7 pm
WHERE: Lovin' Cup Cafe, Main Street, Johnson

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OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS
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** Health, Beauty, and Strength with Nourishing Traditional Diets **
Come watch the 5-hour lecture series on nutrition by Sally Fallon based on her cookbook, Nourishing Traditions. The DVD presentation includes the importance of animal fats in our diets, health benefits of raw dairy, how to prepare grains and legumes, benefits of lacto-fermented foods, and much more. The lecture will be shown in 70 minute increments.
When: Every Wednesday in March (3/5, 3/12, 3/19, 3/26) at 7 pm
Place: Heartbeet Lifesharing, Kaspar House, Hardwick
Fee: Free of charge
Registration/More info: Kara Fitzgerald, 472-5598

Cooling the Planet with Zero Waste
A Community Meeting with Gary Liss and Richard Anthony
Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 6:30pm
T.W. Wood Gallery at VT College (call 229-9383 ext.304 for directions)
RSVP to specialprograms@cvswmd.org if possible. But join in, either way!
Come to this community meeting to learn about Zero Waste and offer your energy and ideas toward moving the central VT region along this critical path! Want to learn more about Zero Waste now? See www.cvswmd.org/zero_waste/ . Gary Liss and Richard Anthony are leading Zero Waste consultants with more than 70 years of combined experience in solid waste and recycling, and have worked on more Zero Waste plans for communities than anyone else in the nation. They are currently working with the CVSWMD to help develop new Zero Waste initiatives. Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District 802-229-9383 www.cvswmd.org

LIVING CONSCIOUSLY THROUGH THE EARTH CHANGES-WHAT A WAY TO GO:Fri, March 21, 7 pm; Yestermorrow Design/Build School, Rt 100, Warren. This film series is intended to help awaken people to the multiple inter-related crises of peak oil, global warming, species extinction, and population over-capacity as well as offer a vision for another softer path that we can choose to walk. "What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire" is a film in which a middle class white guy comes to grips with peak oil, climate change, mass extinction, population overshoot and the demise of the american lifestyle and offers a glimpse of what may lay ahead once we get off the tracks. Info: Robert Riversong at 496-4422

"Health & the Hive: A Beekeeper's Journey"- a New Film!
On Friday, April 25 at 7pm there will be a free showing of the film "Health & the Hive: A Beekeeper's Journey" at the Ilsley Library Meeting Room in Middlebury, Vermont. The film, made by Vermont filmmaker Jan Cannon, features several beekeepers, including Todd Hardie of Honey Gardens Apiaries in Ferrisburgh (honeygardens.com), and Ross Conrad of Dancing Bee Gardens and author of Natural Beekeeping (dancingbeegardens.com). The film will appeal to gardeners, farmers, healers and the sick. It will interest chefs, eaters, localvores, and people concerned about the environment and the impacts of industrial agriculture. Filmmaker Jan Cannon lives in Charlotte, and recently made a film about Bill McKibben's climate change march from Ripton to Burlington last year. He has been working to raise awareness on environmental issues through filmmaking. (www.jancannonfilms.com). Todd Hardie of Honey Gardens and Jan Cannon will be at the showing for this Vermont film debut. Todd recently showed the film to several audiences in Colorado, Seattle, and Portland, OR, and Ohio,where it was very well received. To find out about future showing dates, visit honeygardens.com.

**Whole Farm Planning Training Program – First Session April/May
We invite anyone who works directly with farmers to enroll in this educational opportunity. This is a unique opportunity to expand your skills and expertise in a topic much needed by your farmer clientele. Whole farm planning is essential for many farmers looking to expand, diversify, transfer assets to the next generation, and improve environmental conditions and farm profitability. This training will involve three intensive sessions. Each session will last 3-4 days. The first session will be held in April/May, 2008, the second session in September/October 2008 and the third session will be held in February/March, 2009. The sessions will focus on:
-farm/family goal setting,
-farm resource delineation,
-on-farm decision making,
-farm financial planning and analysis,
-reading the land/environmental monitoring,
-grazing planning
All expenses for the training will be paid through a Northeast SARE Professional Development Grant. Covered expenses include travel, room and board, and supplies and materials. Additionally, a program mentor will assist participants through the use of a list serve, interactive web site and other distance education methods.Farmer-educators will receive an additional $300 per session as a stipend for their time and to help defray costs while they are away from the farm. Participants will be required to attend all three sessions and work with at least two farms between sessions to implement the knowledge and skills gained during their training. Farmer participants may use their own farm as one of the two required. Two concurrent training sessions will be offered. One set of sessions will be held in central NY and the other will be held in central New Hampshire. Twelve participants will be accepted for each training site (NY and NH). The training is targeted at educators across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. For more information about the New York sessions call Phil Metzger at (607) 334-3231, Ext. 4 (Central NY RC&D). For information about the New Hampshire sessions, call Seth Wilner at (603) 863-9200 (UNH Cooperative Extension).

**2nd Annual Northeast Animal Power Field Days
September 26 – 28, 2008
Tunbridge Fair Grounds, Tunbridge, VT
The Northeast Animal Power Field Days is a celebration of sustainable farming and renewable resources promoting conservation, stewardship, small farms, healthy forests, and the roles that they play in vital communities. This 3-day conference will feature working animal and equipment demonstrations in field and forest settings, workshops, exhibits, networking sessions, and an auction and swap meet on Sunday. Workshop topics will include grazing management, working with draft animals, livestock health, getting started with animal power and more. For more information, go to: www.animalpowerfielddays.org or contact Carl Russell and Lisa McCrory, info@animalpowerfielddays.org, 802-234-5524. Join our discussion forum; www.draftanimalpower.com.