The collision of dry conditions, the pandemic and ongoing market swings really hurt some of Vermont’s food producers. Now, they’re advocating for increased support, such as health care and child care.
At a Zoom conversation on Monday called “A Seat at the Table,” a series led by Lt. Gov. Molly Gray that focuses on a variety of statewide issues, leaders from the sustainable agriculture community outlined the ways farmers have been affected by the issues of 2020 and 2021.
“I think there are a lot of different issues that are intersecting — climate, access to land, justice and sustainable food systems, and food security and Vermont — that are all coming to a head in this moment,” Gray said.
As Vermonters were laid off, furloughed or had their hours cut, they had trouble obtaining and paying for food. Meredith Niles, assistant professor in nutrition in the sciences and the food systems program at the University of Vermont, has been documenting the impact of the pandemic on food security in the state. By April 2020, food insecurity had risen by a third, to 33%.
Meanwhile, the pandemic has had an array of effects on farmers, many of whom hope to ease hunger by providing access to local meat and produce, while bypassing supply-chain problems.
The state is also dealing with the fact that white Vermonters own 97.7% of farms in the state. A bill working its way through the Legislature would make it more possible for more people of color to own land.
As community supported agriculture programs and direct sales at farms have become more popular, some farmers have fared well. But a majority of respondents to a UVM survey last August, released in February, said they felt impacts to their businesses.
The report says 58% of respondents, including farms and food businesses, felt a change in the market, the most common being “change in demand, change in market channels or closure of markets.” And 54% experienced financial impacts.
In addition, 21.2% of respondents said they were now financially vulnerable, compared to 4.6% before the pandemic.
“While 96% of respondents agreed it was necessary to change their business as a response to Covid-19, more than 40% of respondents did not see opportunity for changes in the future, were not excited about the changes, and did not believe their business had the appropriate labor, finance or equipment to implement changes,” the survey said.
Personal and mental health impacts on farmers increased in the last year. A majority said they had just enough or not enough money to scrape through at the end of each month. Most also said they were stressed, but didn’t think mental health services would be helpful.
“These results suggest that there are opportunities to provide mental health resources to farm and food business owners and employees, especially in a way that doesn’t require them to ask for help,” the report said.
At Monday’s Zoom conversation, farmers and advocates said aid efforts that help everyone in the state would also help farmers and their customers.
At Footprint Farm in Starksboro, Taylor and Jake Mendell reported a surge of CSA subscriptions as the pandemic began. In six weeks last spring, they matched their gross sales from the entirety of 2019, when they sold to a farmstand.
“We saw a huge increase in the want and need for local food,” Taylor Mendell said. “We felt kind of like superheroes. People were going to the grocery store and there was nothing on the shelves, but we were able to just keep pulling food out of our fields.”
Still, they faced some challenges. They hope to be able to provide benefits and substantial pay that will help their employees form a farming career.
Graham Unangst-Rufenacht, policy director at Rural Vermont, echoed the need for broad supports.
“Some of the greatest stresses that we have seen in our agricultural community have to do with access to health care and child care, and the basic support system that folks really struggle with,” he said.
He said he has a one-year-old and knows that others, too, have been struggling with full-time work, operating a small business, and caring for a child, “let alone coming to the decision of having a child in a culture which really isn’t very supportive of children.”
The speakers said child care and health care will help young farmers with children — and will also help struggling Vermonters who could become customers.
“Any social support program supports farmers,” Mendell said. “To put a broad stroke across it and completely generalize in a way that I shouldn’t, a lot of times, farmers are those low-income people. Any help for health care access, any help for child care, any help for food access — any of those things are also going to help farmers, and it’s also going to help people access our foods.”
Niles, among the speakers on Monday, said a fifth of Vermont farmers experience food insecurity.
“The social safety net that everyone is talking about here is exactly what would both help solve our food and security challenges, and better support farmers across Vermont,” Niles said. “In our survey, 20% of farmers themselves were classified as food-insecure since Covid-19. So these are not separate issues.”
