This commentary is by Grace Oedel, executive director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont.
Relentless pandemic instability, coupled with the reality of climate change experienced firsthand (underscored by the recent IPCC report), converge here in Vermont around food and farming.
Just as Vermonters are experiencing rampant food insecurity, farmers face an intensification of climate challenges — drought and flood in one season, for example. As Vermonters wake up to our need for a more reliable and ecological food supply, the pandemic real estate boom becomes yet another variable contributing to the rising cost of land and loss of Vermont’s agricultural acreage.
In a state that claims a working landscape as foundational to our identity and critical for our future, the health and growth of organic agriculture — which can heal many of the impacts of ecological decline and climate change while also keeping Vermonters fed — should be seen as a keystone species, an indicator of Vermont’s overall vitality.
Unfortunately, recent news of Horizon Organic abandoning smaller scale Vermont dairies shows that, without intentionality, it will only get harder to be an organic farmer keeping Vermonters fed and Vermont’s land healthy.
Horizon’s move toward sourcing milk from mega-farms in the West and Midwest threatens both Vermont farmers and the resiliency of Vermont’s food system. The vast majority of food we eat in Vermont is imported from out of state. Continued consolidation and reliance on farms in the West — which are facing intensifying water shortages, aquifer depletion, and raging wildfires — highlight the need to shift away from the sole metric of a “lowest price possible” and a national corporate food system that externalizes all the costs it can. Preparing for the impacts of climate change here at home requires investing in a stronger local and organic Vermont food system now.
We can take this moment to address both Vermont’s food insecurity and long-term farm viability. By investing in programs that support both eaters and farmers through equitable food access, farm viability, and support farmers in making sound ecological choices, we can ensure a future in which our communities are fed and our land is nourished.
The pandemic has exacerbated income inequality and resulted in a shocking one in three Vermonters facing food insecurity. However, it’s been deeply heartening to experience the community’s response stepping up to this enormous challenge quickly, with dexterity and collaboration.
The Vermont Foodbank, Hunger Free Vermont, Shift Meals teams, school nutrition teams, farmers, food hubs, food pantries, and many, many more organizations, neighborhoods and individuals all rose to the enormous challenge of keeping our communities fed in a time of great need.
One of the things that has been most inspiring about the food access community’s response is precisely its look to solutions that work both short- and long-term. Programs like the Foodbank’s “Vermonters Feeding Vermonters” or NOFA-VT’s “Farm Share” (full disclosure: I work for NOFA-VT), which both promote food access while supporting local farmers directly, are innovative and critical for a thriving future for Vermont’s people and land. These are seedlings we should cultivate for our shared future.
We have the opportunity to shore up our food system to improve resiliency in the future, but we must act now. As we look to the long term, the current food system instability we are experiencing appears to reveal just the tip of the iceberg.
Short-term, national food prices will rise, increasing food access inequality. Long-term, continuing to support harmful methods of food production (designed to maximize profit margins for a few corporations) — such as consolidation, extractive, fossil-fuel intensive production, monoculture, toxic chemical overuse, and exploitive labor practices — will only exacerbate climate chaos and economic injustice.
The good news: We already have many of the strategies that provide answers for these issues simultaneously. Vermont can invest in win-win food access programs that support local and organic farmers while providing Vermonters with nourishing local food for years to come, guaranteeing our food security in a continually turbulent environment and economy.
This investment looks like increasing incentives for public institutions such as schools and state-funded agencies to buy local and organic foods. It looks like better compensating farmers for ecosystem services they provide. It looks like reducing land cost for aspiring farmers — additionally important for historically marginalized groups.
These are not pie-in-the-sky ideas, but viable efforts already under way in our state. However, they need public understanding and loud support to succeed.
By choosing another way of producing our food and feeding our people, we will set an example for the rest of our nation. Ultimately, all health and all justice is interdependent. The health of the land cannot be separated from the health of its people, and the strength of its economy cannot be separated from the quality of its culture.
Vermont can center organic farming and food equity as a core metric of health, and help to build a more resilient future for the people and the land of Vermont.
