Jill Marshall of Elba, NY visited the Newport office the week of December 10-14 as part of the Farm Credit Fellows program. Jill is currently a senior at Cornell University in the Agricultural Science department. She grew up on her family’s wholesale vegetable and dairy farm. They milk 1,400 cows and have a couple thousand acres of vegetables. Their three biggest crops are onions, cabbage and cucumbers. After graduation Jill is hoping to pursue an opportunity bridging the gap between produce farmers and retailers. Her long range goal is to return to the family farm.
Ken Button (senior vice president in our Middlebury office) attended the second annual “Financing the Working Landscape” conference held at the American Legion in Middlebury on 11/29/2012. The conference was organized by Growing Community Together in Addison County (ACORN), Addison County Economic Development Corporation, and Addison County Regional Planning Commission.
Ken represented Yankee Farm Credit on a “Capital Continuum Panel”. Other organizations represented included People’s United Bank, Vermont Agricultural Credit Corporation, Farm Service Agency, Fresh Tracks Capital, and the Small Business Administration. The keynote speaker was Paul Costello, executive director of the Vermont Council on Rural Development.
A major announcement was made at this conference: the rollout of the “Vermont Working Lands Enterprise Initiative”. The Working Lands Enterprise Board (WLEB) is solicting applications for nearly $1 million in grants appropriated by the legislature to support Vermont's rural economy.
Click here for more details of this conference.
