Editor’s note: This commentary is by James Ehlers, who is the executive director of Lake Champlain International and a candidate for governor, a U.S. Navy veteran, a water quality and public health advocate, and an environmental and veterans affairs adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
[I] read with great interest Kate Bowen’s recent foreboding piece on the future of agriculture in Vermont. We all should not only heed her words but consider how we ourselves can be the change we wish to see.
I’ve also worked the land for a living. For several years, I grew produce for local restaurants, cut timber for landowners and firewood for homeowners, and sugared for the tourists. I got by, financially. That was it. And mostly only because of the generosity of a neighbor who leased me the land for my cold crops and lent me use of his evaporator. Spiritually, I thrived. It was a good life. Then my logging partner nearly lost his life when he slipped and landed on a running saw. It was shortly thereafter that I decided to use the education that I received in exchange from the Navy for my willingness to sacrifice my life, but fortunately did not have to. My partner nearly lost his so that we could pay the bills.
Farming has always been hard. Backbreaking work, the unpredictably of weather, and fluctuating markets are enough. Our politicians have made it harder by passing laws and regulations that favor corporate agriculture, putting Vermont’s heritage at enormous risk. We have to do it the Vermont way: We must reject corporate profiteers as they push for more development, more pesticides and more pollution. Instead, the Vermont way means we must embrace regenerative and organic farming, like Meadowdale Farm, that are sustainable and honorable. That’s why my campaign for governor is the only one rejecting corporate contributions, instead relying on the power of every person.
My view, from hours in the fields, in the woods, in the truck cab, and from the vistas I would never own, leads me to offer this: It’s not too late. We can still be the oasis among states who have embraced the built landscape as the medicine for what ails us. Instead of a bureaucracy that punishes community-minded and self-sufficient family farmers, loggers and hunters, we need to empower them. The state has the power to do that, if only those at the wheel were willing to steer us in the right direction.
While I don’t know the details of why the Bowen family was denied their firewood permit, I do know this: If the state of Vermont changed its own purchasing practices — to first-purchase only local regenerative, organic and other local non-polluting, non-exploitative farm goods and lumber — we could immediately create the market necessary for these sustainable businesses to thrive. Corporate farms need to be taxed and regulated for what they are: industrial factories that pollute our air, water and soil, and exploit animals and human labor, all why profiting from a Vermont brand that they are sullying. At no cost to taxpayers, a phased-in end to the use of industrial poisons like atrazine and glyphosate, would not only offer our community-conscious farmers an immediate advantage, but protect all Vermonters from these toxins in our air, water and food supply.
Vermont has a long history of embracing individual freedom balanced with the need for community unity. If we cherish our fellow Vermonters, our beautiful state and its special places, then we need to join with the likes of family farmers like Kate Bowen, groups like Rural Vermont, 350VT and VNRC, and forward-thinking public servants like Rep. Mike Mrowicki and others. We know that Vermont, the Abenaki place of creation, has always been a special place — an oasis in an ever-changing world. Friends, neighbors and fellow Vermonters: We are the ones we have been waiting for.
We can find a way to preserve our landscape in such a way that feeds both our bellies and our souls if only we act as if our lives depend on it. In many ways, it does.
