Future of Food Forum

Washington Post Live hosted a Future of Food Forum in Burlington on July 27th, one of a series:

June 14 - Washington, DC
June 28 - Colorado
July 16 - Arizona
July 27 - Vermont

A forum is planned for Chicago on October 3rd.

The overall theme of these forums is: How do we feed the world's growing population? Washington Post Live came to Vermont because of all the interesting things going on in Vermont agriculture. They wanted to know what the rest of the country could learn from Vermont.

Pulitzer Prize winning editor Mary Jordan moderated two panel discussions at the Burlington Sheraton:

Panel I: Building a Resilient and Secure Food System
Chuck Ross, Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture
Will Raap, Founder and Chairman of Gardener's Supply
Marie Audet, Owner of Blue Spruce Farm

Panel II: Preserving Local Farming and Increasing Sustainability
Rob Michalak, Global Director of Social Mission at Ben and Jerry's
Ellen Kahler, Executive Director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund
Katherine Sims, Founder and Executive Director of Green Mountain Farm to School

There certainly are many exciting things going on in Vermont agriculture. Here are just a few of the things these panelists have been doing:

• Will Raap founded not only Gardener's Supply but also the Intervale Center in Burlington.
• Among other innovations, Blue Spruce Farm generates electricity from methane produced from cow manure. They were the first farm to participate in the Cow Power program developed by Central Vermont Public Service. Earlier this year Blue Spruce Farm was one of three farms in the country honored with the Outstanding Dairy Farm Sustainability Award from the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.
• Ben and Jerry's worked with the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery to develop the Caring Dairy program. Ben and Jerry's took the pilot program developed in Vermont (at the time it was called the Dairy Stewardship Alliance) and rolled it out worldwide as Caring Dairy.
• The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund is the lead organization behind the Farm to Plate program in Vermont.
• Green Mountain Farm to School works with 24 schools in northern Vermont to provide hands-on education about nutrition and agriculture with the goal of helping students acquire the knowledge and skills needed to make healthy food choices.

And there are many other new and interesting things going on in Vermont agriculture that were not represented on the panels, from cheese (cow, goat, sheep) to ice wine and cider to maple syrup to The Town That Food Saved to UVM's Food Systems Spire of Excellence and more. Will Raap had a great line that Vermont is essentially a compost pile of ideas about food systems! (At 25:50 in the main video.)

Washington Post Live hosts forums and conferences around the country on a variety of topics. All events are streamed live and archived online by the Washington Post. The Future of Food Forum in Vermont was sponsored by the New England Dairy and Food Council and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. Yankee Farm Credit Director Bryan Davis and President George Putnam attended this event.

Newsletter - Association Insider

Check out our June issue of the Association Insider newsletter.
 
Topics include:

· Who is Yankee Farm Credit?
· Annual Meeting Results
· Duclos-Thompson Farm: Maintaining Vermont's Sheep Heritage
· There's Still Time to Submit an Application!
· Did You Know Yankee Has a New Certified Appraiser?
· Association Director News
· Financial Status as of 3/31/12
· FarmStart Initiative
· Easy Strawberry Pie Recipe

As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions, please drop us an e-mail or call Ruchel at 800-639-3053.

Join our Team!

We are looking for some folks to join the Yankee family and provide exceptional service to our customers.  Please check out the career opportunities on our website to read more about our open positions.  Currently we are looking for:

• Senior Vice President/Chief Credit Officer - location TBD
• Appraiser Trainee - Chazy, NY or St. Albans, VT
• Credit Analyst - White River Junction
• Financial Service Representative - White River Junction

We offer a full, progressive benefits package.  EO/AA Employer - M/F/D/V

UPDATE 8/04/12: The SVP/CCO position has been filled. Still looking for good people for the other positions!

Where to find local foods

Yankee has a variety of producers in our territory who are involved in direct to consumer retail sales. We thought it would be helpful to compile a list of resources. This list is not exhaustive and we welcome comments with links to other resources! Below are some resources to help you find local foods in Yankee's territory:

Vermont

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture maintains two lists:
Where to buy Vermont farm and food products
Regional directories of local food producers

Those lists are extensive. The only thing I didn't find at those links was a list of Vermont wineries.

UPDATE 8/21/12: DigInVT has an extensive list of agriculture and food experiences in Vermont. DigInVT is a project of the Vermont Agriculture and Culinary Tourism Council (VtACT).

New Hampshire

Click here for a variety of lists published by the NH Department of Agriculture including farm stands, farmers' markets, and much more.

Click here for information about where to eat in New Hampshire including "tasty NH itineraries."

New York

The Farm Fresh Guide is a searchable database maintained by the NY Department of Agriculture.

The 2012-2013 Guide to Local Food is a printer friendly brochure with information about local foods in Clinton, Essex and Franklin Counties, including contact information for farmstands, farmer's markets and restaurants selling local foods.

Please let us know if you find useful links to other resources. We hope you enjoy the wide variety of local foods!