Join Rural Vermont for a chicken barbeque at our Quarterly Member Forum on Thursday, August 22nd from 5:30-8pm at the idyllic Four Springs Farm in Royalton. Come enjoy grilled chicken and a potluck picnic featuring high summer’s bounty; embrace your creative side at our art stations; catch up with friends, neighbors, and Rural Vermont news; and help us celebrate the passage of Act 93, the parted poultry bill that makes it easier to buy and sell Vermont poultry! The chicken at the center of our shared meal will come from and be prepared by Jack Vorster of Four Springs Farm.

Everyone is welcome! Free for Rural Vermont members and their families. For everyone else, there’s a sliding scale fee of $10-$15 per adult and kids are free. (Helpful Hint: Rural Vermont membership is $35/household – join today and attend for free!) Bring a picnic blanket or camp chair, place setting, and a salad, side, or dessert for the potluck. RSVP is required for planning purposes. We look forward to seeing you there!

8/18 UPDATE: This event is FULL and cannot accommodate walk-ins.

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Come join Rural Vermont and Mary Lake on Saturday, August 17th at NewGrass Farmstead in Wolcott for an on-farm slaughter and processing workshop. This is an opportunity to learn about the need for culling as part of livestock management and the benefit of on-farm slaughter to ensure quality of the entirety of life for the old beloved livestock animals. In the first half of this 2-part workshop, participants will learn how to humanely slaughter a culled ewe. In the second half of the workshop, participants will learn how to efficiently butcher and process a ewe.

The workshop will be hosted by Gwyneth Harris at NewGrass Farmstead where she specializes in raw cows' milk, Clun Forest sheep, pastured meats, small batch wool yarns, and working border collies...

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Check out this 2024 End-of-Session Recap for a summary of changes in policies that may affect you. Read the executive summary where we capture the session’s highlights or listen to the full audio recap here.  Many thanks to our wonderful communications intern Melissa MacDonald who recorded all legislative updates and to Noah Lafaso and Sadie Farris for their tireless coverage of 2024 committee proceedings for Rural Vermont. 

Read More Here…

Please help us to continue centering our work generating resiliency, accessibility, and inclusivity for Vermont farmers and the communities they serve. These efforts, big and small, work to preserve and maintain a vibrant Vermont agrarian landscape now and into the future.

Donate here, see our Mid-Year Progress Report here, and read our full appeal for your support here!

Governor Scott vetoed H.706 - the legislation significantly limiting the use of and exposure to neonicotinoids.   In preparation for the veto override session on June 17th, we encourage you to reach out to your representatives to express your support for this bill.  This was a very popular bill in the statehouse and across Vermont, but we do not know if there are enough votes in the House and Senate to override the veto at this point.  If you are a farmer or farmworker, your voice is very important right now to help representatives understand that this bill is supported by many farmers and farming organizations despite narratives from Governor Scott and others that it is “anti-farmer”.  Rural VT and the Protect our Pollinators Coalition have developed this sign-on for farmers, farmworkers, and food professionals in particular to show your support for this bill - but please directly contact your legislators as well!

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The 2024 legislative session has adjourned and, in the coming weeks, we'll be sharing a comprehensive recap of the bills that Rural Vermont prioritized, advocated for, and followed. Stay tuned! In the meantime, follow the link below to read on for select updates on bills and issues of interest to the agrarian community.

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Now available: informational/educational materials on avian flu (HPAI H5N1) from the UVM Northwest Crops & Soils Team to support biosecurity practices for raw milk and raw milk cheese operations.

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A series of last-minute amendments arrived at through a very poor and non-representative process that substantially affected H.612. Some are positive - like the establishment of a Cannabis Social Equity Working Group including members of our coalition; but some are negative enough that if they continue to be a part of the bill we will work against its passage.  We need your support now in getting Senators and House members to bring reasonable yet significant amendments to the bill or to vote against the bill as it goes to the Senate Floor, and likely again to the House over the coming days.    

The Miscellaneous Cannabis Bill (H.612) contains changes to existing law which could have a substantial negative impact on outdoor cultivators; and does not contain recommended substantive changes supporting an equitable adult-use marketplace, medical patients and caregivers, and reparative social equity investments which Rural VT and the VT Cannabis Equity Coalition have been advocating for for years.  

The VT Cannabis Equity Coalition is a coalition of 5 member-based not-for-profit organizations (Rural VT, NOFA VT, VT Racial Justice Alliance, the VT Growers Association, the Green Mtn +Patients’ Alliance) collectively representing thousands of constituents of VT lawmakers, individuals in the legacy and regulated cannabis community, farmers, farmworkers, medical patients, caregivers, and more….yet we often struggle to be heard in committee and have our recommendations acted on, and this session we have seen the narratives of independent lobbyists, the largest and most capital intensive licensees, and a single conflict between one cultivator and one municipality dominate the conversations in committee and consequently what ends up in proposed amendments to H.612.  We need your support!

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Today on April 17th, we mark the International Day of Peasant Struggles, an annual action day that brings rural communities together to commemorate the Eldorado do Carajás massacre in 1996 and to honor the resistance of agrarian workers worldwide who persist in their struggle for social justice and dignity.

Central to this struggle is the right to food sovereignty, and the rights of people and communities as articulated in the 2018 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas: “Peasants and other people living in rural areas have the right to land, individually and/or collectively (...), including the right to have access to, sustainably use and manage land and the water bodies, coastal seas, fisheries, pastures, and forests therein, to achieve an adequate standard of living, to have a place to live in security, peace and dignity and to develop their cultures.” 

Read More Here…

Join us Friday, May 3rd, from 9am - 3pm at Foote Brook Farm, 641 VT-15 W, in Johnson, VT for a tree planting work brigade! We will be transitioning riverbank farmland impacted by the 2023 flooding into a riparian buffer zone to increase climate resiliency and adaptation on the farm. Work brigades are a popular education tool used around the world to strengthen communities, build trust and solidarity through collective labor, connection, mutual aid, and knowledge sharing. This is the first in a series of agricultural brigades hosted by the Vermont Agroecology School Collective (an independent project of Rural Vermont).  Lunch, refreshments, agroecological education and tools provided. RSVP required for planning purposes. 

Vermont’s ability to feed itself relies on thriving community scale farms working together towards food sovereignty and community resilience. We hope you can join us! 

Please RSVP HERE…

Our annual overview of Rural Vermont's priorities, activities, and progress is a quick and visual read that we hope you'll enjoy. As you'll see in the pages of our latest Impact Report, Rural Vermont's 2023 was spent amplifying the voices and needs of the agrarian community at the State House and beyond, offering a robust and diverse schedule of educational workshops and social gatherings, and standing in solidarity with local and global food sovereignty efforts and movements.

Read the 2023 Impact Report Here…

Rural VT and a number of other organizations and individuals within and without the Protect our Pollinators Coalition are working to pass H.706; a bill to support the just transition away from the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in VT.  H.706 was resoundingly passed out of the House and now is in the Senate Committee on Agriculture.  The Coalition has drafted this Farmer Letter of Support as one way for us to further show how important this bill is to the greater agricultural community.

Read More Here to Sign on…

In this legislative update we are sharing the latest status updates on the bills we’ve been reporting on so far and introducing you to additional bills that are relevant to the agricultural community. Those include legislative priorities of the migrant farmworker community, the Senate’s river corridor legislation, and a couple of bills from the House related to financial assistance to the forestry sector, land improvement fraud, and miscellaneous agricultural subjects. 

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H.81 would ensure owners and operators have the autonomy and ability to repair their equipment themselves and/or determine who they would like to repair it. Currently, farmers and loggers must rely on dealerships and non-legally binding agreements (MOUs) for repairs on modern equipment.  H.81 provides the choice for farmers and loggers to repair their own equipment, go to an independent repair shop while also maintaining the option to go to a local dealer. 

Read More Here…

We anticipate H.706 reaching the House floor this week. Despite this bill moving favorably thus far through committees - there are indications it may face more resistance on the floor. It is critical that community members, in particular farmers and farm workers, contact their representatives in the House, urge them to support this bill, and explain why it is important to you that they vote in favor of a just transition away from the widespread use of neonicotinoid pesticides. Please find a sample message, link to your Reps' contact info, some more details about the bill, and helpful info to share with your Reps by clicking below!

Read more here….

The Vermont Conservation Strategy Initiative (VCSI) is underway - and it is important that we use our voice to influence it! Act 59 was passed in 2023 with a goal to conserve 30% of Vermont’s total area by 2030 and 50% by 2050.

As Vermont is developing a new conservation plan - its policies and regulations more broadly - must protect and support food sovereignty, and the rights of people and communities articulated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas: “Peasants and other people living in rural areas have the right to land, individually and/or collectively (...), including the right to have access to, sustainably use and manage land and the water bodies, coastal seas, fisheries, pastures, and forests therein, to achieve an adequate standard of living, to have a place to live in security, peace and dignity and to develop their cultures.” - Article 17, UNDROP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, 2018)

Find our Action Alert here…
Find out more about 30x30 here…
Check our our 30x30 infographic here…

Last week, the Agricultural Working Group of the Vermont Conservation Strategy Initiative (VCSI) considered a presentation by Ryan Patch, Agriculture Climate and Land Use Policy Manager at the Agency of Ag, covering land use in agriculture in Vermont from 1840 - 2024. We recommend you view his very informative slideshow here. Since the peak of agriculture in Vermont in 1880, when there were over 35K farms representing 84% of the entire VT landmass, ag production in the state has consolidated into 12% of the total land use today. In a business as usual scenario, makers of Act 250 project that 39% of the current agricultural land will produce less or no food due to being impacted as a “critical resource area,” namely river corridor, wetland, high elevation or as slope or soils with shallow bedrock. American Farmland Trust estimates that Vermont will lose between 41K to 61,800 acres by 2040 to development. The remaining 61% are under high pressure for development. How will the group decide about the question of which farmland should be protected from development for food production in the future? In our last update we shared that New England Feeding New England projects a need for an additional 989,000 acres across the North East U.S. to produce only 30% of food consumed in VT by 2030.

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In early December 2023, as part of the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), Mollie Wills of Rural Vermont took part in the 8th International Conference of La Via Campesina (LVC), in Bogota, Colombia, joining 185 member other organizations from 83 countries. La Via Campesina, often referred to as the world’s largest social movement representing over 200 million farmers, peasant, fisherfolk, pastoralists, and other food providers, celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2022, and continues to be the preeminent political organization for rural communities globally. Mollie joined Jordan Treakle of NFFC and other North American-based delegates from allied organizations Family Farm Defenders, Farmworker Association of Florida, Union Paysanne, and the National Farmers Union of Canada. The key message resonating throughout the conference from  the more than 400 delegates affirmed that :

“We, the peasants, rural workers, landless, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, artisanal fisherfolk, forest dwellers, rural women, youth and diversities and other peoples who work in the countryside around the world and united within La Via Campesina, declare that “Faced with global crises, we build food sovereignty to ensure a future for humanity!”

Read More Here…

Having a hard time keeping up with the processes of the legislature? Or navigating the legislative website to find hearings of interest? Trouble finding recordings on YouTube? Listen up, Rural Vermont! is a new Rural Vermont webpage that features all 2024 VT legislative hearings (as video recordings) relevant to agriculture. We’re also featuring highlights on social media that relate to our policy priorities and have included audio recordings of our latest legislative updates so that you can listen along during your chores or commute….you can find the 01.26.24 Legislative Update to read or listen HERE….