Agriculture has long been at the heart of Vermont’s identity. The logging, potash, and charcoal industries went to work on Vermont’s forests soon after statehood, and by 1890 80 percent of Vermont’s landscape was cleared.

We grazed sheep on the open pastures and sold the wool to larger markets to the south. After a huge exodus of farmers to the Midwest in the 1850s, Vermont’s agriculture slowly rebuilt itself with a booming dairy industry. But with milk prices recently falling as low as $10 per hundredweight, it is looking like Vermont maybe heading for another agricultural transformation.    

Montpelier seems to have set its sights on specialty products as the future of Vermont’s rural economy. It has set strict guidelines for the use of ‘Vermont’ on any label and has shown it is willing to go to court over it after its recent battle with Boves of Vermont, whose pasta sauce is apparently made in New York. As much as I love Vermont’s artisan cheeses, meats, and maple syrup when I can afford them, that’s a risky basket to place all of our eggs in.   

First, as we saw recently, our world economic system is on a very shaky foundation. This is probably not a surprise to people who have been reading this publication over the years, but even the most stubbornly consumerist society in the world (that would be ours, by the way) is starting to cut back. When we finally start living within our ecological constraints, are people really going to be purchasing $8 blocks of cheese?   

I’m not trying to downplay the important role these value-added products have in Vermont’s current and future economy, but there is another aspect of Vermont’s emerging agriculture movement: our diversified, small scale organic farms. Many would put these in the same category, but these farmers are focusing less on finding high-end markets in Boston and more on feeding their neighbors. As Vermont continues to make its move toward sustainability and independence we need to support and encourage these farmers, because before we know it we are going to rely on them.    

Interestingly, as the number of young Vermonters leaving the farm to pursue careers out of state was becoming a crisis, the organic farming craze has now begun bringing educated youth back into the state and providing them jobs. This movement is not limited to Vermont, and even the New York Times picked up on it in a May 23, 2009, article, saying, “The interest in summer farm work among college students has never been as high.”   

Although the movement may be nationwide, it is strongest here in Vermont. So how did this Back to the Land Movement Round II begin, and where are these young adults getting their inspiration?    

Some may be looking as far back as Helen and Scott Nearing, whose lifestyle and writings – most notably Living the Good Life (published 1954) – laid the path for the original Back to the Land Movement in the ‘60s.   

Many, however, are looking to more contemporary works. King Corn and Our Daily Bread are just two of the numerous documentaries that have come out recently critiquing the industrial food system. Last summer, Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, was swept up by farmers and non-farmers alike. The book critiques both the industrial corn-based food system and large-scale organic. Pollan also looks at two other options; wildly foraged foods and those grown and pastured locally. Pollan’s work can be partially credited with bringing food-system issues into the main stream.   

So what are young farmers reading this summer, in the wake of the Pollan frenzy?

Local author and Vermont agriculture expert Ron Krupp published his latest book earlier this year, Lifting the Yoke: Local Solutions to America’s Farm and Food Crisis. Krupp has an impressive agricultural resume as an organic/biodynamic farmer for 10 years; he once published the monthly newspaper The Green Mountain Farmer, and he has worked with several local farming projects like the Tommy Thompson Community Garden at the Intervale in Burlington and Heartbeet farm in Hardwick.    

Ron Krupp's new book.

The book is broken into three sections. Part I: “The Globalization of Food and Farming,” describes the perilous situation of our current food system and its domestic and international implications. It covers everything from the debate over ethanol to the impacts of our national policies on developing nations like Haiti and the Philippines. Krupp then summarizes the complex 2008 Farm Bill, its problems and some of its improvements over previous farm bills. In “A Short History of How Agriculture Lost its Soul” Krupp explains how we went from having an agriculture system composed of family farms in tight-knit rural communities to one that is controlled by the corporate agriculture-industrial machine.    

The second part explores the link between obesity, poor nutrition, hunger, and food insecurity in children and adults. Krupp also looks into different Farm to School programs, including Vermont’s Food Education Every Day program (FEED). Prior to the program’s founding only 10 percent of food served in our schools was “fresh or lightly processed” and only 5 percent came from local farms. The program helps connects local farms, food service workers, teachers and other community partners to ensure that our kids are being well fed and well educated when it comes to food.    

The last – my favorite part of the book – is titled “Sustainable Markets and Regional Solutions.” It sets a goal for Vermont to increase the amount of food purchased locally form 5 percent to 30 percent by 2015. In order to accomplish this 25-percent increase, Krupp cites the important work being done by several local organizations like Rural Vermont, the Center for Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Vermont, and NOFA-VT, to name a few. He also looks at the Intervale in Burlington as an important training ground for new farmers and a model to be replicated in other parts of the state.      

Krupp does a considerable amount of research to identify the main road blocks to his 25-percent-by-2015 challenge. He looks past the typical complaints of limited crop diversity and long Vermont winters as barriers, and considers specific crops and how they compare to national prices. He identifies potential opportunities in the Vermont market and areas we need to expand if we want to be self sustainable.   

One of these areas is wheat. Vermont is full of artisan bakeries and pizza shops, but we produce very little wheat ourselves. This is because few organic varieties have been developed for the Northeast. However, Quebec has a booming wheat industry, so it can be done, and the organic wheat industry is growing 20 percent a year. Finally, Krupp highlights some examples of the best farmers’ markets, farms, restaurants, co-ops, and specialty-product producers in the state.    

The book would be an ideal textbook for an introductory course in the failure of our national food system, and how Vermont is a leading the way to a new alternative. Trying to cover all of the problems and implications of this corporate food system is an almost impossible task. Because of its scope, Krupp only has time to touch briefly on problems that other authors have devoted books to. Fortunately, he cites other sources along the way and has put together a website where he goes into more detail. The last part of the book doesn’t put forth many new ideas; rather it is an ode to the many people and projects that are working to improve Vermont’s food system. After finishing the book I was left with an even greater appreciation for the work being done in Vermont, and the knowledge that we are at least heading in the right direction.

Revisiting Berry

For those of you who are already educated localvores and are looking to dig a little deeper this summer, try picking up Wendell Berry’s, The Unsettling of America. Berry grew up in a small agrarian community in Kentucky and saw first-hand the disastrous effects of corporate agriculture. He watched as farms were forced to “get big or get out.” He writes about the unsettling of these small communities, loss of crop diversity, loss of topsoil, and he does so in an engaging and poetic style. The intriguing part of this book is the urgency with which he writes. Frighteningly, he wrote about these emergencies in the heart of the United States more than 30 years ago, and the situation is even more dire today. Michael Pollen and other food experts have been heavily influenced by Berry. If you have not already been convinced that farming is the noblest of occupations, you will be by the end of the book.    

If Vermont is to secede it is going to need a functioning food system, and this is not something we want to leave up to chance. Fortunately, for those of us who like to eat on a regular basis (and I think I’m in the majority on this one), the hard part has already been done; the groundwork has been laid, the movement is quickly picking up momentum, and the nation is already starting to turn to Vermont for an alternative model.

But let’s not get too high on our horse, Vermont. We are still far from having a sustainable food system. To keep this energy moving we need to stop buying imported produce and start buying from our local farmers market. Say goodbye to the produce section of your grocery store for good. Then, get a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share from a nearby farm next summer, and next time you’re at a restaurant ask if the ingredients were sourced locally.

We need to show to the next generation of farmers that there is a market for their food and that they can make a decent living doing it. Trust me; they deserve every penny of it.

Tyler Wilkinson-Ray is a native of Richmond, Vermont. He is a farmer and an undergraduate at the University of Vermont.