FarmStart - the first 5 years

Farm Credit East recently published an informative booklet about the first five years of the FarmStart program: Celebrating Five Years.

Yankee Farm Credit joined FarmStart earlier this year, just as the program was beginning its 6th year. So there are no stories in Celebrating Five Years about FarmStart investments in Yankee's territory. But we are working on potential FarmStart investments in our territory. As we make FarmStart investments in our territory, look for blog posts here.

10th Annual Flavors of the Valley

Jean Conklin, Loan Officer, and Desi Gauthier, Office Assistant, attended the 10th Annual Flavors of the Valley was held on Sunday, April 17th at Hartford High School. Billed as the premier expo for locally grown food in the Upper Connecticut River Valley, this event, organized by Vital Communities featured over 50 vendors. The Co-Op Food Stores of Hanover and Lebanon, NH and White River Junction, VT were the site sponsor. The event was attended by over 1,300 people and provided the opportunity to meet local farmers and chefs, buy local food, as well as sample tasty tidbits.

Vendors included: Blue Ox Farm, Bountiful Backyards Bees, Bunten Farmhouse Kitchen, Canoe Club, Cedar Circle Farm and Educational Center, Cedar Mountain Farm, Cobb Hill Cheese, Cobb Hill Frozen Yogurt, Country Critters, D Acres of New Hampshire, Delicata Catering, Edgewater Farm, Edible White Mountain, Flora Fauna Farm, Gizmo’s Pickled Plus, Green Mountain Flour, Harmony Farm, Hogwash Farm, Home Hill Country Inn and Restaurant, Hulbert Outdoor Center, Idlewood, The Restaurant/Marceau’s Fine Foods, Juniper Hill Inn, Killdeer Farm, King Arthur Flour, Lyme Inn, Murphy’s, NH Cheesemaker’s Guild, NH Dept. of Agriculture, NOFA-VT, Norwich Inn, Oak Knoll Dairy, Parmelee Farm, Piermont Plant Pantry, Red Kite Candy Company, Rocky Top Beefalo and Swine Farm, Spring Ledge Farm, Sugarbush Farm, Taylor Brothers Farm, The Song Garden, Thompson Goat Farm, Transition Town, Upper Valley Farm to School Network, Upper Valley Land Trust, Valley Food & Farm, Vermont Chocolatiers, Vermont Farmstead Cheese Company, Vermont Smoke and Cure, Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery and Walpole Creamery.

10th Anniversary Dairy Challenge

An innovative dairy educational program celebrated its 10th anniversary March 31-April 2 in Hickory, NC with 127 students from 30 colleges participating. Over 10 years, North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge (NAIDC) has helped prepare over 3,000 students for careers in the dairy industry. Farm Credit is a 5 star platinum sponsor of this event which hosts 4 regional and 1 national contest each year. The program is fully funded through the generous support of companies and producer associations serving the dairy industry, as well as a growing number of alumni and individual dairy farm owners.

Yankee's territory was well represented with 13 students on 4 teams representing UNH, UVM and Cornell as well as a member on an aggregate team formed to fill the 32 available team slots. Cornell received a Platinum Award and was represented by Jason McNamara(NH), Corey Kayhart(VT) Matthew Bull(NY) and Samuel Fessenden(NY). Both UNH and UVM received Gold Awards and were represented by Trevor Beaudry, Bridget O'Donnell, Nicol Antaya, and Nicole Guindon from UNH and Rayan Carabeau, Dallas Barabeau, Ashley Beaudoin, Nicholas Manning and Cassie Osgood from UVM.

Pictured above from Vermont are: Cassie Osgood, Wanda Emerich, Coach, Ashley Beaudon, Nicholas Manning, Ryan Carabeau

Pictured at left from Cornell are: Matthew Bull, Michael Van Amburgh, Corey Kayhart, Samuel Fessenden, Jason McNamara

Pictured at left are:

Bridget O’Donnell, Nicole Guindon, Nicole Antaya, Trevor Beaudry, Peter Erickson, Coach

2011 Northeast Youth Show Calf Summit

The 2011 Northeast Youth Show Calf Summit was held on April 1st and 2nd at Cowtown Holsteins in Derby, Vermont. The Calf Summit is open to all youth in the northeast that are interested in showing dairy cattle of any breed. In this fourth year of the Summit the approximately 150 participants attended clinics and workshops to learn more about showing and the dairy industry from some of the biggest names in the show world. Yankee Farm Credit was a sponsor of the Summit this year and Kelly Richardson from the Newport office attended the event to lend a hand. Isabel Hall of Fairmont Farm in East Montpelier was an eager participant this year. She was kind enough to model her new t-shirt received at registration that shows the sponsors of this years event. Please click here for more information about the event.

Director Election Results

The last of four annual meetings was held last night in St. Albans, VT. Members completed voting for directors, ballots were counted, and the results were announced before the meeting was adjourned. Elected to three year terms on the board of directors were:

Region 1 – Celeste Kane-Stebbins
Region 2 – Walter Gladstone
Region 3 – Paul Franklin

Congratulations to Celeste, Walt and Paul. And thanks to CJ Manchester and Paul Harlow for participating in the elections as candidates. There were 159 ballots cast this year, which was 14% of eligible voters.

Thank you to everyone for participating, and a special thanks to employees for organizing and running successful meetings.

For comparison, voter participation in recent years was:

2010 - 164 ballots (15%)
2009 - 180 ballots (17%)
2008 - 151 ballots (15%)