Jan 10, 2011
6:30 – 7:30 pm at Green Mountain Girls Farm, 923 Loop Road in Northfield
A sliding scale fee of $5-10 is requested to defray expenses, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
We all love local food and seeing our family farms succeed, but how do these businesses so important to our communities and economies succeed? The legal issues behind bringing fresh, delicious food to our tables can be staggering. Law for Food is a new organization dedicated to providing affordable legal services for farmers and food entrepreneurs.
In order to help clear away some of the confusion around farming and food businesses, Law for Food is partnering with Rural Vermont to put on an exciting lecture series on all kinds of legal issues these businesses might encounter.
Every second Monday from January to April at 6:30 – 7:30 pm at Green Mountain Girls Farm, 923 Loop Road in Northfield, attorneys Adam Prizio and Kenneth Miller will discuss a different legal topic and answer attendees’ questions. A sliding scale fee of $5-10 is requested to defray expenses, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
This Monday, January 10th the lecture will be “Employment and Labor for Farms and Food Businesses”. The presentation will focus on hiring and managing employees, handling on-farm work stays, internships, and volunteer labor. Other topics include worker’s compensation, unemployment, H2A visas, and workplace safety. More than a dry discussion of law, this class will examine the real costs of hiring and training workers in the context of the financial realities of an agricultural business, with a view to understanding how business owners can manage the business, and their employees profitably.
The series will continue with lectures concerning “Financing Food, Getting Started, and Staying in the Game”, “Leasing and Using the Land”, “Keeping the Land in the Family Business”, and “The Ins and Outs of Starting and Maintaining a Successful Food-focused Business”.
Rural Vermont is a nonprofit advocacy group founded by farmers in 1985 that advocates, activates, and educates for living soils, thriving farms, and healthy communities. For more info, call (802) 223-7222 or visit www.ruralvermont.org.