Could Vermont Feed Itself?

Maul Man says: Kudos to the Burlington Free Press for running this important story on page 1 today. "Vermont Commons" has been exploring the answers to this question for more than two years - search under "food," "farming" and other related topics in our archives. And great to see our friend and neighbor Robin McDermott, spiritual godmother of the Mad River Valley Localvore effort, quoted in this article.

Click here to read Tim Johnson's article.

Rob's Note: Thanks to Peter and Helen for providing this remarkable vision for what Mad River Valley might become, moving forward, if we choose this path, and to Robin McDermott and the MRV Localvores for passing it on.

Welcoming Remarks: Imagine if.....

by Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow
Center for Whole Communities; Fayston

May 12, 2007
"Imagining Our Commons Future" Conference
Big Picture Theater; Mad River Valley

Imagine if...

Every piece of open land as you drove through the valley was being tended for growing food, flowers or medicine, or green space or playgrounds.

EDITORIAL: The “Reclaiming Our Commons” Issue
By Rob Williams

In his new book Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming Our Commons, author and entrepreneur Peter Barnes defines the “Commons” as any society's “set of assets that have two characteristics: they're all gifts, and they're all shared.”

As with any other society, Barnes suggests, our 21st century “commons” here in Vermont consists of three main forks: our natural world (our air and our water, our fields and our forests); our communal resources (our streets, town greens and libraries, to name but three); and our collective culture (Joseph Bentley's science, John Dewey's philosophy, Robert Frost's poetry, and Grace Potter's music all come to mind).

The Great Hydropower Heist: How Corporations Colonized Our Watershed Commons

The Historical Context for Understanding Vermont's Electric Power Industry

Part One of a Two-Part Story
By Dr. Richard Foley
with assistance from Hervey Scudder, President of NorthEast Center for Social Issues Studies

The Price of Energy Dependence

From its founding as a Republic in 1771 until the early 1900s, Vermonters were far more energy independent than we find ourselves now. The old-timers traveled and transported goods with an efficient blend of the original horse power and coal-fired steam trains. They heated largely with wood and built hundreds of small hydropower facilities – initially, mechanized mills that utilized raw waterwheel power and were later retrofitted with electric generators and complementary coal-fired steam-powered systems. Hence, the claim: “Hydro – the power that built Vermont.”

Beyond the Bottom Line:
Vermont Businesses Set the Pace for Social Responsibility

By Don Mayer

Dual, triple or multiple bottom lines, Vermont entrepreneurs have long been in the forefront of changing the way businesses measure their success. More than 16 years ago, a small group of these entrepreneurs formed Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. VBSR is now the largest SR business group in the United States (not per capita, but with the most member businesses of any state). VBSR now has more than 670 member businesses that employ about 35,000 Vermonters and account for over $4.5 billion in annual revenue in the state.

A Call for Slow Schools: Rethinking Education in the Green Mountains
By Susan Ohanian

“Education in Vermont, if it is to move forward, must have a goal toward which to move, a basic philosophy which combines the best which is known about learning, children, development, and human relations with the unique and general needs and desires of Vermont communities.”
- Vermont State Department of Education, 1968 -

Reading, Writing and Federalizing “Science”

When federal functionaries sermonize on the “science” of a matter, whether it's stem cell research, global warming, or how to teach reading, we know we're in trouble. Although the phrase "scientifically based research" appeared more than 100 times in the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) enacted in 2001 and now up for reauthorization, recent revelations from the U. S. Education Department's own Inspector General confirm what plenty of educators have known all along: Federal reading policy has more to do with friends in high places (corporate textbook and standard test publishers) than with actual science (the century-long legacy of a teaching/learning research).

The New England Secession Tradition
(Part One of a Three-Part Series)

By Donald W. Livingston

The Vermont independence effort is guided by a peaceful group of thoughtful citizens who believe that Vermont would be better off as a small independent country like Iceland, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Luxembourg, or Switzerland than to remain under the domination of an overly centralized and increasingly out-of-control central federal government. To some, the idea of an independent Vermont is preposterous but harmless, more theater than serious policy. To others it smacks of treason. Did not the Civil War settle forever the question of whether a state within the United States can secede?

Educational Agriculture
By Eliot Coleman

“Soil is the tablecloth under the banquet of civilization.” - Steven Stoll

Someday in the future, when advances in understanding have made small-scale agriculture truly financially viable, I want to recreate that famous scene in The Graduate. I want to walk up to some well-educated young person and tell them I have only one word to say – farming. But I am afraid that the ability to make a good living from farming will not be a sufficient inducement. There is another barrier. Today it is considered somehow unworthy of educated people to involve themselves in food production – to work with their hands in the soil like lesser mortals.

Vermont Vox Populi
A Conversation With Farmer Abe Collins

John Ford and Jim Hogue interviewed Abe Collins on Jim's radio program on WGDR radio in Plainfield.

CAT: Tell us about your farm operation in St. Albans.

I farm with my family here in St. Albans. We share-milk on Teddy Yandow's farm. We are an all-grass, organic dairy – one of a growing handful of dairies in the United States doing no-grain dairying. We have created a new company, Carbon Farmers of America, to advance the idea that soil building can reverse climate change, and that the planned grazing of livestock on perennial grasslands is the single most-effective way to rapidly create new topsoil. On our dairy farm, we are using a number of methods in addition to planned grazing that allow us to build topsoil even faster by pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and putting it back into the soil as various forms of organic matter.