Yankee Directors, Guests and Staff Participate in Northeast Kingdom Farm & Food Tour

Directors, guests and staff of Yankee Farm Credit recently toured an array of farms and food-related organizations in the Notheast Kingdom. As part of an annual tour, Yankee's Derby office organized a day chock full of agriculture and local food-related establishments. Find below a few highlights from the day:

The first stop of the day was to Eureka Satellite, LLC, a project owned and operated by brothers Mateo and Andy Kehler of Jasper Hill Creamery. The project we visited is a hay drying facility and solar array system (still under construction). The Kehlers' main product is artisan cheese, which is their key focus. Mateo explained to the group why they prefer to feed their cattle dry hay versus grass silage and why it makes a difference in their cheese. The hay dryer is quite an innovation and depending upon the moisture content of the hay when it is harvested, takes anywhere between five and 12 hours for drying. It's the first of its kind in the U.S. and was imported from Germany. You can read about the Kehler's installation here.

Mateo Kehler addressing the group.

Yankee director Brad Maxwell checking out the equipment.

Group shot, L-R, Yankee director Rocky Giroux, Mateo Kehler, Derby branch manager Loren Petzoldt, Andy Kehler, Yankee CEO George Putnam. 



Group waiting outside the hay drying facility.
 

The next stop was Pete's Greens, Inc., a four season organic vegetable farm growing a vast array of specialty crops with emphasis on baby greens, heirloom tomatoes and root crops. Starting in 1995, Pete Johnson cleared land owned by his parents and grew mostly greens. He has added crop land since and now operates 375 tillable acres. Pete also has an extensive year-long CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program which includes other products such as cheese, meat, eggs and apples from neighboring farms. Additionally, a wholesale unit and retail operation round out the business.

A cheery mural on one of the main walls in the main building.

The group toured several acres of production and is heading back toward a building currently being installed with solar panels on the roof.

Tim Fishburne from Pete's Greens led the tour through the operation.
 

We stopped for lunch at Sterling College where we learned about Sterling's Sustainable Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems programs. Our hosts were Topher Bordeau, director of Advancement and Alumni Relations, faculty members Charlotte Rosendahl and Allison Van Akkeren, executive chef Simeon Bittman and Katie Lavin from the president's office. We were treated to a delicious meal of food from Sterling's farm and other local farms. Yankee Farm Credit recently partnered with Sterling College for it's Veteran College-to-Farm program. You can read about it here.

A bulletin board announcing the day's lunch at the entrance to dining hall.

We made our way to the Center for an Agricultural Economy's Food Venture Center next and were greeted by Sarah Waring, executive director of the Center, Connor Gorham, facilities manager and professional production assistant and Daniel Keeney, farm and food business advisor. Launched in 2004, CAE's mission is to engage the public to build a regenerative, locally based, healthy food system through collaboration opportunities, food access and hunger relief, educational outreach and providing infrastructure.

The Food Venture Center is a multi-use processing facility. The center is an incubation space for food businesses. Over 60% of the rents paid to the facility comes from farmers. Jasper Hill is a core tenant producing cheese at the facility. The center offers support services to clients as well as recipe development, co-packing services and process development. The Food Venture Center also has food chemists available for users if needed to develop their product. Currently over 30 businesses are using the facilities for production.



Connor Gorham (third from left) and Sarah Waring giving an overview of the Center when we arrive.

Connor using a mural as a prop to explain.

A display of products from some of the Center's clients.

Our last stop of the day was Kingdom Creamery of Vermont, LLC. Located in East Hardwick, Vt., Kingdom Creamery is a family business owned by the Michaud family - Denis and Claire along with sons Jeremy, Travis and Daniel and their families. The creamery produces premium ice cream, soft serve mix, frozen yogurt and yogurt made from milk purchased from the family's dairy farm, Claire-a-Den Farm. Their own maple syrup is also featured in many of their products. Products are marketed under their own and private labels for other companies. Their product can be found in grocery stores and scoop shops all over New England and New York. Quite often they attend local events and festivals where a family member - maybe even a grandchild - will scoop your cone for you.

Leslie Michaud, Jeremy's wife, and Claire Michaud happily scoop ice cream for some anxious onlookers.

A pint ready to be filled in the assembly line.

Jeremy Michaud (right, in royal blue) explaining a process to a few tour goers.

 

We have a lot of wonderful agriculture and farm and food businesses to be proud of in the Northeast Kingdom. Our group learned a lot and enjoyed the trip.

Managing for Profit Workshop

Gary Matteson presented a "Managing for Profit Workshop" for farmers on February 27, 2013. Gary, pictured above, is VP Young, Beginning, Small Farmer Programs and Outreach for the Farm Credit Council in Washington, DC. He is a New Hampshire native and one-time farmer himself (greenhouse-raised cut flowers). The program was targeted at farmers supplying food hubs.

Gary talked about business planning, risk management, and benchmarking. He introduced tools such as the One-Page Business Plan and the One-Page Financial Plan. These tools and other materials about business planning can be found on the website for the Field Guide to the New American Foodshed.

Also part of the workshop was a presentation by Jeff Farbman of the Wallace Center at Winrock International about food safety regulations and certification. More information can be found on the website for the National Good Food Network.

About 25 people attended, including farmers and people involved in Vermont's Farm Viability programs. The program was hosted by the Intervale Food Hub and held in the Great Room at Main Street Landing in Burlington. The program was funded by USDA's Risk Management Agency and developed by the Farm Credit Council, the Wallace Center at Winrock International, and Morse Marketing Connections, LLC. Three employees from Yankee Farm Credit attended and participated in the discussions: Loan Officer Tom St. Pierre, SVP/Chief Credit Officer John Peters, and President and CEO George Putnam.

NH Small Family Farm Conference

Jean Conklin, Senior Loan Officer in our White River Jct. office, attended and presented at the “The Business of Farming” conference in Concord, NH on January 24th. Also in attendance at the conference was Paul Franklin, YFC director from Plainfield, NH, and his wife, Nancy. The conference was sponsored by UNH CE, USDA RMA, NH DAMF, FSA, NH Farm Bureau, NH Small and Beginner Farmers and NOFA-NH.

About 75 participants heard presentations on:

• Hobby or For Profit Business – Mike Sciabarrasi, UNH CE
• Using Records for Management Decisions – Mary Welles, FCE, Bedford, NH
• What a Lender Looks For – Jean Conklin, YFC, White River Junction, VT
• Who’s an Employee – Christy Asbee & Kenneth Miller, Law for Food, Stowe, VT
• Legal Issues Regarding Employment – Christy Asbee & Kenneth Miller, Law for Food, Stowe, VT
• Insuring Your Farm – Andy Robertson, The Robertson Agency, Northwood, NH
• If and When Should You Form a LLC, Donald Sienkiewicz, Estate Preservation and Planning Law Office, Milford, NH

Mary Welles and Samantha Stoddard represented Farm Credit East. Samantha spoke about the FarmStart program. Jay Phinizy, NH FSA State Executive Director, also spoke and introduced FSA's new Microloan program.

Financing the Working Landscape

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.

Adirondack Coast Wine, Cider & Food Festival

Yankee Farm Credit is proud to be a sponsor of the 2012 Adirondack Coast Wine, Cider and Food Festival (ACWCF) to be held on Saturday, October 6, 2012, from 2pm to 8pm at the Crete Civic Center in Plattsburgh, NY. 

The Adirondack Coast name is part of an effort to brand the region as a four season tourist destination.  The Adirondack Coast website provides information on events, activities, lodging, restaurants and more in the area.  The ACWCF is advertised on this page of their site.

The ACWCF will showcase local food and beverage producers in a farmer's market type atmosphere with the opportunity to sample and buy products made locally.  Attendees will be treated to live local music, a wine tasting demonstration and a home cider making demonstration in addition to the opportunity to interact with our local food producers and try their products.

Don't miss out!  The ACWCF will be held inside the Civic Center if it rains, but if mother nature cooperates, the event will be held outside the building to take advantage of our beautiful fall season.

There is also still time to sign up your business to be a vendor at the ACWCF.  A list of this year's vendors and information on how to sign up your business can be found here. 

See you there!

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.

Thoughts on "Slow"

In the previous two posts I wrote about the Slow Living Summit in Brattleboro last week and why this is important for Yankee Farm Credit to think about.

But what exactly should we think about it? In this post I share some personal thoughts on that question, and I propose a new concept: SLOW Government.

Not everyone in agriculture is persuaded by the philosophy of Slow. Vermont agriculture is overwhelmingly dairy, mostly non-organic dairy. More than half of our loan portfolio at Yankee is to non-organic family dairy farmers. Most non-organic farmers are skeptical about placing too much emphasis on the philosophy of Slow. (Full disclosure: I grew up on a non-organic five-generation Vermont family dairy farm.)

Our mission at Farm Credit is to serve all of agriculture. How do we balance these competing views within the agricultural community? Almost by definition, most of agriculture is mainstream agriculture. How do we consider the philosophy of Slow without showing disregard and disrespect for mainstream agriculture?

Yankee Farm Credit is a cooperative and for us discussions about these questions will include the farmers who own Yankee; Yankee's board of directors, management and employees; and constituencies outside Yankee. The discussions that occurred at the Middlebury annual meeting earlier this year were part of these discussions. This blog is part of these discussions.

I offer the following thoughts as a contribution to these discussions. I come to these discussions both in my role as president and CEO of Yankee Farm Credit and in my role on the Vermont Agricultural and Forest Products Development Board, but I am just one of many voices in these discussions.

Like all movements, including the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Slow movement includes some good ideas and some bad ideas. Our job, whatever our role, is to separate the wheat from the chaff, the sense from the nonsense.

My approach to that job is indirect. If we start out directly talking about the sense and the nonsense of Slow, people will stake out positions, attacks will be made, defenses will go up, and little will be accomplished. I prefer to start out by talking about what is missing from Slow.

Slow Living, Slow Food and Slow Money are all part of a larger movement. The Wikipedia entry for Slow Movement lists all of these initiatives and many more. How could anything possibly be missing? And yet something important is missing.

What is missing is what I call SLOW Government.

SLOW Government is the opposite of fast government. Fast government seeks to use the power of government to solve more and more of life's problems, resulting in more laws, more regulations, more government programs, more government bureaucracy. SLOW Government first asks the question: Is this a necessary and proper function of government? In a country founded on the principle of limited government, this is a question that we too often fail to ask.

The inspiration for SLOW Government came from one of the principles of Slow Money: "There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex." (source) I believe that there is such a thing as government that is too fast, too big, and too complex.

A good way to think about SLOW Government is as an acronym, which is why it is capitalized:

S is for sustainable. Primarily I am referring to government finances. Current policies are not sustainable. Cash outflows cannot indefinitely exceed cash inflows. Unfunded promises of future benefits put the sustainability of government itself at risk. Debt cannot increase without limit. We in Farm Credit have some experience in this area. We have experience with borrowers, of course. Not all borrowers succeed; some fail. We also have our own experience. At present the Farm Credit System is highly successful, but the Farm Credit System itself has had several near-death experiences in its long and storied history. We in Farm Credit have some basis for speaking to the issue of what is sustainable and what is not when it comes to finances.

L is for local. Government should be kept as local as possible. We can learn much from Alexis de Tocqueville. This blog has two posts about Alexis de Tocqueville's views on the importance of local government, using New York and China as examples.

O is for organic. In this context I mean something similar to what businesses mean by "organic growth." Organic growth in business is natural, internal growth—as opposed to growth from acquisitions. A corresponding meaning in the context of government is growth that is natural—as opposed to growth from stimulus. In short, organic government is Hayekian, not Keynesian. This blog has two posts about the philosophies of Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes: the rap version and the non-rap version.

W is for wise. Here I am referring to wisdom in the sense of this proverb from Lao Tzu, the founder of Daoism (or Taoism if you prefer): "To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day." (source) Our political leaders are full of knowledge, and they have added so many things to government that it has become unmanageable. No one can understand the Byzantine complexity of the endless laws, regulations, programs, agencies, departments, boards, etc. that constitute our government. We need political leaders who are rich in wisdom, who will subtract things from government until it is once again manageable.

One of the intellectual fathers of the Slow Movement is Henry David Thoreau. His influential 1849 essay "Civil Disobedience" begins with this sentence:

I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.

That summarizes what I mean by SLOW Government.

In 2010 I started talking about SLO Agriculture - for Sustainable, Local, and/or Organic Agriculture. (source) Now we need to start talking about SLOW Government - for Sustainable, Local, Organic, and Wise Government. I am not advocating for NO government. I am advocating for government that is more Sustainable, more Local, more Organic, and Wiser than our current government. SLOW Government would be good for agriculture, good for rural America, and good for the country.

The Farm Credit System has been around for nearly 100 years. We are a significant part of the history of financing the production end of the food system, and we will be a significant part of the future—for all of agriculture.

Why is "Slow" important for Yankee?

In the previous post I wrote about the Slow Living Summit in Brattleboro last week. What does this have to do with Yankee Farm Credit?

Much of Slow Living is about Slow Food. I have written several posts on this blog about a related concept that I call SLO agriculture - sustainable, local, and/or organic agriculture. Many Yankee members are involved in SLO agriculture.

How many? There is no standard definition for "sustainable" or "local" so it is only possible to discuss these categories qualitatively, not quantitatively. I would guess, however, that nearly 100% of our members consider themselves both sustainable and involved in local food markets. Others may have a different view, but even under the most stringent definitions a significant number of Yankee members are involved in sustainable and/or local agriculture.

There is a standard definition for "organic" - a farm is either certified organic under USDA's National Organic Program or it is not. Nationally 0.7% of farms are organic. (Source: 14,450 organic farms from the 2008 Organic Survey divided by 2.2 million total farms from the 2007 Census of Agriculture.) In Yankee's loan portfolio 6% of customers and 5% of loan volume are certified organic. This is small but growing, and much more significant in Yankee's territory than in many other areas of the country.

Another aspect of Slow Living is Slow Money, which relates to the business of investing and lending money, especially involving food systems. Congress created the Farm Credit System specifically to provide debt capital to the production end of the nation's food systems. The Farm Credit System is nearly 100 years old and is a huge success. In Yankee's territory we provide $400 million of financing to 1,300 customers. Our territory includes all of Vermont and six neighboring counties in New Hampshire and New York. In Vermont alone we provide $250 million of financing to 1,000 customers. We are by far the largest provider of credit to agriculture in our territory. The next two largest providers, and valued partners with Yankee, are the Vermont Agricultural Credit Corporation and USDA's Farm Service Agency. Together they provide about half of the financing that Yankee Farm Credit provides in Vermont.

In addition to all of the above, Vermont seems to be a focal point for much of the activity around the emerging philosophy of Slow. Since 2010 Vermont has been host to two Slow Living Summits and a Slow Money National Gathering. The University of Vermont has adopted food systems as one of its three Spires of Excellence. And there has been a great deal of entrepreneurial activity in Vermont around this movement (example).

Taking all of these things together, I cannot think of many issues that are more directly related to the mission of Yankee Farm Credit.

Where does mainstream agriculture fit into this discussion? After all, mainstream agriculture is our core business. How do we balance mainstream agriculture and SLO agriculture? Some thoughts on that in the next post.

Slow Living Summit

The second annual Slow Living Summit was held May 30-June 1 in Brattleboro, VT. More than 350 people attended. Yankee Farm Credit was a sponsor, and I was a participant. Speakers included Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Summit was organized by Orly Munzing and the Strolling of the Heifers organization. The 11th annual Strolling of the Heifers was held in Brattleboro immediately following the Slow Living Summit. Thousands of people attend the world-famous Strolling of the Heifers each year.

What is Slow Living? The following short explanation is from the program brochure:

We would define "slow living" as the intention to build a more reflective, balanced future respecting each other and our life-sustaining natural environment - seeking common solutions for the common good.

In short, Slow Living is a metaphor for sustainability. Click here for a longer explanation.

In one of the many breakout sessions I participated in a panel discussion led by Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Ross about "collaboration between the public, private and quasi public/private entities around vision, planning, programs and activities to help develop and sustain an agriculturally based local food system." Other participants on the panel included Ela Chapin, director of the Vermont Farm Viability Program at the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board; Paul Costello, executive director of the Vermont Council on Rural Development; and Ryan Torres, philanthropic advisor at the Vermont Community Foundation.

The Slow Living Summit ran for an evening and two full days. I counted five general sessions and more than 50 breakout sessions in the program brochure.

Articles about the Summit from the Brattleboro Reformer 6/02/12:

Slow Living Summit gets off to fast start
Gov. Shumlin praises 'slow living' advocates

Related posts:

Why is "Slow" important for Yankee?
Thoughts on "Slow"

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.

Farm to Plate

Yesterday the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund released the Executive Summary of the Farm to Plate Strategic Plan: a 10-year strategic plan for Vermont's food system.

Ellen Kahler, executive director of the VSJF, made the presentation at a press conference in the statehouse in Montpelier. Also speaking were Governor Peter Shumlin, Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Ross, Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Miller, and numerous members of the legislature. All were enthusiastic about this initiative. House Agriculture Committee Chair Carolyn Partridge said to remember just four words: "Vermont agriculture means business."

Click here for more info
Download the Executive Summary (4 MB PDF file)

Yankee participation in the Farm to Plate initiative over the past 18 months has included:

- VP/Operations John Peters participated in a focus group on 11/18/09
- Records & Tax Specialist Lisa Gravel participated in a working session on 3/03/10
- Vice President Jeff Temple participated in the Statewide Food Summit on 4/10/10

Senior Vice President Ken Button has also participated. In 2009 Kit Perkins visited Ken in his office and spent a couple of hours learning about Farm Credit. Kit is the Farm to Plate project manager at VSJF.

Slow Money National Gathering

The second annual Slow Money National Gathering was held in Vermont on June 9-11, 2010. Most events were held at Shelburne Farms. Over 600 people attended from all over the country, and a few from other countries:

Slow Money is a concept inspired by Slow Food, an international movement started in 1986 in reaction to fast food. Slow Food encourages people to enjoy local and traditional foods, and has much in common with what I call SLO agriculture (sustainable, local or organic agriculture). The purpose of Slow Money is to finance Slow Food.

Woody Tasch launched the idea of Slow Money in 2008 with the publication of his book Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered.

The first annual Slow Money National Gathering was held last year in Santa Fe, NM, near where Woody Tasch lives. The second annual Slow Money National Gathering was held in Vermont in recognition of the significant amount of "SLO agriculture" in Vermont, such as the Hardwick Agricultural Revolution. The entrance to the Coach Barn at Shelburne Farms was flanked by large posters of Jack Lazor of Butterworks Farm in Westfield, VT and Tom Stearns of High Mowing Organic Seeds in Wolcott, VT:

From the web site: "[Slow Money] is a new way of connecting investors to local food systems, catalyzing new forms of social investing and philanthropy for the 21st century." The conference was attended by a "network of investors, donors, entrepreneurs, farmers, and activists who are giving birth to the nurture capital industry." (Nurture capital is intended to be contrasted with venture capital.)

Conference speakers included: Woody Tasch; Bill McKibben of Middlebury College; and Robert Zevin, one of the founders of socially responsible investing.

Can SLO agriculture feed the world?

Farmers feed the world. Can SLO agriculture feed the world? Proponents of SLO agriculture fervently believe the answer is yes. "Fervently" as in not only can SLO agriculture feed the world, but SLO agriculture must feed the world; it's the only way. Others are skeptical.

Dan Barber is a world-famous chef at Blue Hill at Stone Barns north of New York City. Mr. Barber gave an interesting TED talk about SLO agriculture: Dan Barber's foie gras parable. He does not use the terminology "SLO agriculture;" that's my terminology. But that is what the talk is about. Now what can SLO agriculture possibly have in common with foie gras? You'll have to watch the video to find out. In 20 minutes, and especially in the final three minutes, you will gain a better understanding of the philosophy of SLO agriculture.

Among the skeptics I'm pretty sure we would find Dr. Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution. I think it is fair to say that another skeptic is Bill Gates. Last fall Bill Gates gave his first major speech on agriculture—in which he praised the legacy of Dr. Borlaug, who had died the preceding month at the age of 95. Bill Gates used the word "small" 21 times in his speech, and so in that regard he might be consistent with SLO agriculture. But both Bill Gates and Norman Borlaug favor the use of all available technology, including chemicals and genetic modification, and that is anathema to SLO agriculture. Links to earlier posts about these two men: Norman Borlaug, Bill Gates on Agriculture.

Each year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, some of the world's leaders gather to discuss current issues. At the 2010 event six weeks ago there was a panel discussion on Rethinking How to Feed the World. Bill Gates was on the panel. Dan Barber was in the audience. And Felix Salmon blogged about it: World hunger and the locavores.

(Close readers of this blog may recognize Felix Salmon. He wrote "Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street," which I mentioned in this earlier blog post.)

I do not know the answer to the question posed by the title of this post. I doubt anyone does. My purpose in this post is to provide links to interesting discussions about this question, so that you can think about the question yourself.

I'll close this post with a thought inspired by the NOFA-VT Winter Conference last month. Peter Forbes opened the conference. During his comments he played portions of a TED video by storyteller Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story. Perhaps the question posed by the title of this post is an issue on which we should keep an open mind, and avoid the danger of a single story.

Related posts:
SLO Agriculture
SLO Agriculture and Relationships

SLO Agriculture and Relationships

SLO agriculture has much in common with Yankee Farm Credit's values, especially relationships.

A common theme of Sustainable and Local and Organic is an increasing desire by consumers to be more "connected" to their food—all with a view toward enjoying their food more. Increasing numbers of people want to have a closer relationship with their food, and the people who grow and prepare their food. They want to know what's in their food, where it came from, and who was involved along the way.

This theme is what drives the locavore movement, including farmers markets and community supported agriculture (CSAs). This theme is why chefs are becoming celebrities. The major newspaper in Yankee's territory (The Burlington Free Press) recently created a special Friday section titled Savorvore which is all about helping people enjoy their food more.

The topic of SLO agriculture is not limited to the Savorvore section. Yesterday's Burlington Free Press featured a front page article by Candace Page about CSAs: Farms embrace a new way to sell a season's worth of food. The article closes with this quote by a CSA customer, speaking about a farm two miles from my home: "People today seem to want that direct attachment to a particular farm. They drive by the farm, and their kids all say, 'That's our farm!' You can't buy customer loyalty like that."

If you like to cook and you want a closer relationship with your food, I recommend Dishing Up Vermont, by Tracey Medeiros. Even if you don't like to cook, I recommend this cookbook for the great photos and stories about Vermont farms and restaurants, all related to the Vermont Fresh Network.



Related posts:
SLO Agriculture
Can SLO agriculture feed the world?

UPDATE 3/09/10: Today's Burlington Free Press features another front page article about SLO agriculture (emphasis on the "local" part): Conditions get Vermont's maple syrup producers off to a sweet start by Dan McLean. The farmer featured in the article is my brother, Bill Putnam.

SLO Agriculture

A small but growing sector of agriculture is what I call SLO agriculture: sustainable, local, and/or organic. My choice of acronym is a deliberate reference to slow food and slow money, two related concepts that are typically embraced by this community.

There is no accepted definition of sustainable or local, but thanks to Senator Patrick Leahy there is a useful definition of organic. Agriculture in the U.S. is organic if it complies with the National Organic Program (NOP) administered by the USDA.

Last month the USDA announced the results of its first ever Organic Production Survey (news release, full report). This was done as a followup to the 2007 Census of Agriculture. The U.S. has approximately 900 million acres of agricultural land, of which about 4 million acres are certified as organic. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack mentioned these numbers, and the survey, in his comments at the NOFA-VT Winter Conference last month.

This is small, but not insignificant, and growing. The growth is happening particularly on the coasts. We are seeing this growth in Yankee's territory.

While "sustainable" is not as well defined as "organic," the USDA has long been involved in sustainable agriculture through its support of SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education). With regard to "local," the USDA recently rolled out its Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative.

Not all of the leadership in SLO agriculture is coming from the USDA. Within Yankee's territory, major dairy farmer organizations and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture have recently been promoting local agriculture through the Keep Local Farms initiative. NOFA-VT has long been a leader in organic agriculture. Many farmers in and around Hardwick, VT have been leaders in SLO agriculture, resulting in the Hardwick Agricultural Revolution. Agri-Mark and Cabot have been involved in sustainability issues for some time. Ben & Jerry's, St. Albans Cooperative Creamery, UVM's Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture have created the Dairy Stewardship Alliance. And major buyers of food, such as Walmart, are now asking for food produced by this type of agriculture.

Over 99% of the agricultural land in the U.S. is not organic, as noted above. Not everyone is convinced that SLO agriculture will be significant. Here's an alternative viewpoint: "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" is a joke. If SLO agriculture does become significant, it will likely do so on the coasts before the midwest.

In the Summer 2007 issue of Financial Partner magazine (5MB PDF file), I wrote about historical changes in agriculture in Yankee's territory. See my column on page 2: "Ceres watches over an ever-changing landscape." See also The Forgotten Potash Economy. Will SLO agriculture be a significant part of agriculture in Yankee's territory in the future? Stay tuned.

Related posts:
SLO Agriculture and Relationships
Can SLO agriculture feed the world?