Food from the Farm: Eating Local in Clinton County

We are fortunate here in the Northeast to have an abundance of agriculture, and hence, a wide variety of local foods. On Saturday, March 19, nearly 200 people gathered in Plattsburgh to enjoy a delicious meal prepared with local foods from Northern NY’s Clinton and Essex Counties. The event, “Food from the Farm: Eating Local in Clinton County,” was put on by Cornell Cooperative Extension in conjunction with Adirondack Harvest.

Local chef and owner of The Great Adirondack Soup Company, Chris Dominianni prepared a meal that featured local meat, produce, fruit preserves, and maple syrup. Participating producers included: The Bakery at Conroy’s Organics in West Chazy; Campbell’s Greenhouses in Saranac; Caton Acres Farm in Saranac; Everett Orchards in Peru; Fledging Crow Vegetables in Keeseville; Gonyo’s Sweet Corn & Vegetables in West Chazy; Hid-In-Pines Vineyard in Morrisonville; Jubert-Castine Farms in West Chazy; Northern Orchard in Peru; Parker Family Maple Farm in West Chazy; Quarry Garden Vegetable & Art Farm in Chazy; Rehoboth Homestead in Peru; Rulf’s Orchard in Peru; Saranac Valley Farms in Saranac; Shields Vegetables in Plattsburgh; Suprenant’s Berry Farm in Mooers; and Underwood Herbs in Plattsburgh.

The event provided a unique opportunity to meet the producers and get a deeper appreciation of our local farmers and enjoy a delightful meal.

Vermont Dairy Producers' Conference

The Vermont Dairy Producers’ Conference was held on February 24, 2011 at the Sheraton Hotel & Conference Center in South Burlington. There were 40 vendors and 230 registered attendees. Tony Kitsos from UVM Extension made the opening remarks and led the conference. Yankee Farm Credit Employees Mike Farmer, Kelly Richardson, Tom St. Pierre and Clara Hall were present at the conference. To read more about the conference please click here.

Paul Doton

The Board of Directors celebrated Paul Doton's service to Yankee Farm Credit at its meeting on March 25. Paul has been a director since 1998. He served as board chairperson 2007-2009. He will leave the board next month due to term limits.

Below are the board and CEO at the March board meeting:

Left to right: Rocki-Lee DeWitt, President and CEO George Putnam, Alan Bourbeau, Paul Saenger, Celeste Kane-Stebbins, Walt Gladstone, Chairperson Paul Gingue, Bryan Davis, Paul Doton, Vice Chairperson Rocky Giroux, Charlie Sniffen. Missing: Steve Taylor.

Paul, thank you for your leadership, guidance and wisdom over the years! Best wishes to you and Sherry.

Facebook

Yankee now has a presence on Facebook! Check it out.

2010 Annual Report

Our 2010 Annual Report is now available on our website. Thanks to all our members, employees and directors who help Yankee continue to be a successful Association. Special thanks go out to the Maxwell Family from Coventry for letting us share part of their history on our cover.

Dairy Challenge Training

On March 2nd Mike Farmer concluded a two day training session for the Northeast Dairy Challenge at Miner Institute. Yankee has sponsored and provided training for the Dairy Challenge program for 6 years. This years students include Cassie Osgood, Ashley Beaudoin, Dallas Carabeau, Ryan Carabeau, Nicholas Manning, John Franklin, and Cameron Clark. All 7 students are enrolled in the FARMS 2+2 Program at VTC and UVM and spend one semester at Miner Institute.


This year North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge will be held March 31 to April 2 and hosted by North Carolina State University & Virginia Tech. It will be held in Hickory, NC. Please check out the website at http://www.dairychallenge.org/ for the history and purpose of the Dairy Challenge.

What Ceres Might Say

Roger Allbee has a new blog, What Ceres Might Say, where he will write about Vermont's rich agricultural history. Roger was Vermont's Secretary of Agriculture from January 2007 to January 2011.

Roger is familiar to readers of this blog. In fact he was responsible for the start of this blog. The initial purpose of this blog was to document my trip to China in October 2007 as part of an agricultural delegation from Vermont led by Roger.

Ceres was the Roman goddess of agriculture, and there is a statue of her atop the golden dome of the Statehouse in Montpelier. I included the above photo with my column in the Summer 2007 issue of Financial Partner magazine: Ceres watches over an ever-changing landscape (5 MB PDF file, see p. 2).

Roger, welcome to blogging! I look forward to reading your posts about the history of Vermont agriculture.