We are stronger and more vibrant when we live and work in solidarity with one another
Every Vermont farmer should have equal right to prosper
Farming can heal the land
Farmers are health care providers
All Vermonters should have access to locally produced, nutrient dense food
Healthy soil makes healthy humans
As we reflect on 2024, we are proud to share the progress and impact made possible through our partners, members, and supporters. Our 2024 Impact Report highlights Rural Vermont’s achievements, challenges, and milestones that continue to define our work. We invite you to explore the stories, successes, and data that illustrate how, along with you, we are making a lasting difference in our rural agrarian communities.
The 2025 Legislative Session is currently scheduled to wrap up on May 23rd with little to no committee activity projected for the last week of the session. This update is focused on priority issues and action items - your support matters! Read the 5/8 Legislative Update to see where things stand with Cottage Foods, Right to Farm, Cannabis, and much, much more.
H.321, the miscellaneous cannabis bill, is currently in the Senate Committee on Economic Development. Rural VT and the VT Cannabis Equity Coalition, the Land Access and Opportunity Board, VT NORML, and the Lt. Governor John Rogers have all come to common ground on a list of priorities and suggested statutory language as an amendment to the bill.
Our proposals have the support of membership based organizations collectively representing thousands of VT residents, we have more direct stakeholders of every license type supporting all of our priorities and language than any other proposal, we have more organizations and businesses behind us than any other proposal (more than 70 based on the sign-on to our original proposals), and we have the CCB’s very own surveying of Tier 1 producers and its mandated reports attesting to many of the priorities we have. We understand our priorities and recommended statutory language to objectively have more support and more hands in crafting them than any other proposals that have been put forward.
On April 17, we mark the International Day of Peasant Struggles, an annual action day that brings rural communities together around the world to honor the ongoing struggle and resistance of agrarian workers everywhere in their pursuit of justice, dignity, and food sovereignty.
In Vermont, we commemorate this day during a week where we have witnessed Palestinian man Mohsen Mahdawi detained in Colchester during a scheduled citizenship interview, despite his decade long status as a lawful U.S. permanent resident, an arrest that Vermont federal delegation Sanders, Welch, and Balint have called “immoral, inhumane, and illegal.” This detention occurred as protesters gathered to condemn the arrest and detention of Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk from Turkey, who was taken into custody by US Homeland Security agents in plain clothes and brought to Vermont before landing in an ICE detention center in Louisiana.
Also this week, agrarians gathered for a Farmer Day of Action outside of USDA offices in Middlebury to speak about the impact of USDA program cuts, tariffs, and the immigration stresses on themselves as farmers and farmworkers.
There is a continued need to stand up for ourselves, our friends, neighbors, and demand justice, dignity, and safety for our communities during a dangerous time where our constitutional rights are at stake. We encourage our network to show solidarity and for each individual to take mindful steps within your reach. Our work here in Vermont is part of and connected to an unwavering global fight for farmer and farmworker rights, and against genocides, wars, violations of people's sovereignty, constitutional rights, and the corporate control and domination over our food system.
Rural Vermont stands with Vermont farmers and farmworkers, alongside La Via Campesina, the international movement of peasants, youth, women, men, and diversities, migrants, rural and landless agrarian workers, fisherfolk, and indigenous peoples, who come together in unity with hope, connection, and unwavering determination to confront the multifaceted crises agrarian communities face here at home and around the world.
“The continuous and often brilliant efforts that Rural Vermont provides to our agricultural community, by not only exploring the impacts of current research, policies and politics on that community, but also speaking out to those that create those policies so they might be better informed about what they are doing. This is a key role for the Vermont community at large if we are to keep our working landscape and its farmers successful.”
