VTrendlines: Farm-to-plate inspires state
Rachel Carter of Plainfield is communications director at the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, the nonprofit organization that coordinates Vermont's Farm to Plate Initiative. She answered questions from the Burlington Free Press via email about the local food system. Here is an edited version of her interview:
Burlington Free Press: Can you briefly describe the intent of the Vermont Legislature when it devised the Farm to Plate Strategic Plan?
Rachel Carter: During the 2009 legislative session, two member-based public policy organizations, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and Rural Vermont, and a number of state legislators crafted and helped win legislative approval for the creation of the Farm to Plate Investment Program. It was approved by the Senate and House in May 2009 and signed into law by then Governor Douglas. The legislation tasked the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund (VSJF), with creating the State of Vermont's food system plan to achieve these outcomes:
•Increase economic development in Vermont's farm and food sector.
•Create jobs in the farm and food economy.
•Improve access to healthy local food for all Vermonters.
VSJF worked with over 1,200 Vermonters to create the Farm to Plate Strategic Plan – Vermont's ten year plan to strengthen the food system by addressing the three key criteria of the legislation. These three outcomes are addressed in the 25 goals of the plan.
BFP: Your 2014 annual report describes economic and agricultural growth in Vermont's local food system. Can you highlight some of these?
RC:Vermont's farm and food economy is growing.
• From 2007 to 2012 food system economic output expanded 24 percent, from $6.9 billion to $8.6 billion.
Food manufacturing is growing at a faster rate than overall manufacturing in Vermont as well as food manufacturing in the other New England states.
•There are 748 food manufacturing firms in the state, a 37 percent increase over 2009 (539 firms).
•The number of food manufacturing jobs increased by 1,596 between 2009-2013. Vermont's 34.5 percent increase grew at a faster rate than other New England states.
Crop and livestock sales are on the rise.
•The value of agricultural sales increased to $776 million in 2012, up from $746 million in 2007, a 4 percent increase. The number of farms with $10,000 or more in sales in 2012 was 3,018, a 5 percent increase from 2007 (2,883).
Job creation is strong.
•4,189 new jobs (7.2 percent increase) were created in the food system from 2009 to 2013.
•For every one food system job created, there are 1.28 additional jobs created in Vermont.
Vermont entrepreneurs are creating new businesses and thus, employment.
•665 new farms and food businesses (5.9 percent increase) were launched in the food system from 2009 to 2013.
•Over 60,000 Vermonters are employed as farmers, waiters, cheese makers, brewers, bakers, butchers, grocery stockers, restaurateurs, manufacturers, marketers, distributors and many other food-related jobs. About 12,000 businesses are part of Vermont's food system.
More businesses are sourcing local food.
•Sodexo spent $3.2 million on local food in 2014 served to Vermont college and university students at 16 campuses as well as at four addition locations.
•University of Vermont Medical Center purchased $1.6 million in local food in 2014, including $343,000 directly from farmers (a 35-percent increase from 2013). They also purchased $260,000 worth of food from regional food purveyors (an 18-percent increase from 2013).
•City Market/Onion River, one of Vermont's 17 food cooperatives, reported $11 million in locally sourced food sales, or 31 percent of their gross sales in 2014.
•The Vermont Food Venture Center in Hardwick processed 40,000 pounds of locally grown produce for schools, colleges and hospitals in Vermont.
BFP: How does Vermont's local food system stack up relative to other New England states? What are some of the common goals and strategies in the region?
RC: By many accounts, Vermont has developed the most comprehensive food systems plan in the country and the first of its kind in New England. Representatives from the six New England states recognize that collective, long term food security is only possible through the expansion of the regional food system. Vermont works closely with each of the New England states as a part of the Food Solutions New England network, which is promoting a regional vision aimed at producing 50 percent of the food consumed in New England by 2060. Vermont actively assists the other five states as they work to develop and complete their own food system planning work and build statewide networks for plan implementation.
Farmers and food businesses operate at different scales and sell products to all types of markets. With more than 33 million potential customers in New England and New York, regional markets are increasingly important for Vermont's producers and processors. Broadening access to regional grocery stores, restaurants and institutions is often necessary to expand markets for locally grown products and increase farm profitability here in Vermont — both are goals in Vermont's Farm to Plate Strategic Plan, as well as being a goal in other New England states developing their own food system plans.
BFP: Can you describe some of the efforts that concern making local foods more accessible to low-income Vermonters?
RC: Vermont's food access community is innovating and collaborating to help feed insecure Vermonters:
•The Vermont Foodbank, state agencies and many community food-security organizations are bringing fresh local food to food-insecure Vermonters and providing job training to underemployed and unemployed people.
•In 2014, the Vermont Foodbank distributed nearly 9 million pounds of food — over 1.3 million of those pounds were produce. This is the first time the Foodbank has distributed more than 1 million pounds of produce and is a 45 percent increase over the previous year. Of that, nearly 320,000 pounds were donated or gleaned from Vermont farms (a nine-percent increase from the previous year).
Thirty Vermont public schools began providing universal free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of family income for the current school year. This is the largest number of schools, and the largest number of districts, participating in the Community Eligibility Program (CEP) of any New England state, earning Vermont commendation from USDA. About 7,000 students benefit from this program.
One Farm to Plate Project, the Food Cycle Coalition, brings together solid-waste management and food-system stakeholders to build relationships that will be critical to successfully implement the Universal Recycling Law. This work has led to fostering closer ties with the food access community and all members of the coalition (including the Agency of Natural Resources, which is responsible for implementing the Universal Recycling Law) to agree upon a hierarchy in diverting food and organic materials that would otherwise be wasted and redirect them to support our local food system through food rescue, composting, animal feed utilization and energy production — in that order.
For example, Grow Compost in Moretown is beginning to work with Commodities Natural Market in Stowe as a food-scrap hauler with the food-rescue components being diverted to Community Kitchen Academy at the Vermont Foodbank in Barre and the remaining food not able to be rescued going into Grow Compost's compost operation or animal feed for their farm.
BFP: What role have institutions played in the growth of Vermont's local food system? What institutions in particular have had an impact, and through what initiatives?
RC: Institutions represent a market channel for Vermont producers to sell into and include schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons and state-run cafeterias. Farm to Plate is in the process of collecting data on how much local food was sold through these institutional markets.
More than 350 organizations comprise the Farm to Plate Network, which includes businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, associations and institutions. The network is responsible for implementing the Farm to Plate Strategic Plan via a collective impact approach in which everyone is working together on one common agenda — to strengthen and relocalize Vermont's food system. The goals of the Farm to Plate Strategic Plan are being addressed by both the collective work taking place within the Farm to Plate Network structure and also by individual businesses, organizations, agencies and institutions working towards strengthening Vermont's food system.
Institutions play a vital role both as leaders on projects in the network and in their own work that helps Vermont's reach the Farm to Plate goals.
University of Vermont Extension staff, and other UVM faculty, researchers and personnel, have provided more contributions, participation and leadership than any organization within the Farm to Plate Network. UVM leadership roles include education and workforce development, food access, farmland access and stewardship, energy and production and processing.
UVM research helps drive consumer education/marketing and aggregation/distribution projects, and UVM involvement is critical in specific projects including how to get more local food into independent grocery stores and the development of agricultural career profiles as a resource for Vermont schools.
UVM was also involved in a 2012 project with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets to hold a matchmaking event between Sodexo managers, chefs and buyers and producers, processors and technical support organizations.
Additionally, Vermont's position as the national model for state-level food systems development has helped lay the groundwork for collaboration between Vermont higher education institutions to form the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium. It is comprised of leaders from Green Mountain College, Middlebury College, Sterling College, UVM, Vermont Law School and Vermont Technical College.
BFP: What can people who have no direct involvement in growing or producing foods do to help make a healthy and sustainable food system in Vermont?
RC: Lots!
•People can help raise their and other people's levels of agricultural/food literacy. They can learn more about where their food comes from and how to support the local food economy. Local food as defined by the state of Vermont (and the Farm to Plate Strategic Plan) is food that is produced or processed in Vermont plus 30 miles.
•People can make an effort to buy a little more local food. When consumers start to buy more locally produced food, it sends an important signal to the marketplace. This encourages farmers to grow more and food businesses to produce more. When farms and businesses decide to produce greater amounts, they usually need to hire more workers to keep up with demand. This is how Vermont can relocalize the food system.
•People can also think regionally. If something is not available from Vermont, purchase products from the Northeast before Argentina or Mexico. Adjusting menus for what is seasonally appropriate is also important. Asparagus and tomatoes are for spring and summer, not the dead of winter.
•Inquire about local food where you shop. Store owners are not going to stock more local if there is no consumer demand for it.
•Encourage and support Farm to School programs in your communities. Kids across Vermont from all income levels are learning how to prepare and enjoy seasonal, local food.
•When you go out to eat, look for menu items that indicate which farm or food business the food came from.
•Attend agritourism and on-farm events and experiences in Vermont — learn more at www.diginvt.com.
BFP: The state is now five years into a 10-year initiative. Can you assess the progress and briefly describe the challenges ahead?
RC: While the Farm to Plate Investment Program was signed into legislation in 2009, the Farm to Plate Network did not start to implement the Farm to Plate Strategic Plan until 2011. Technically, the annual gathering in October 2014 marked the beginning of the fourth year of Farm to Plate. The progress is evident in the numbers, the results-based accountability models used to track each of 25 goals, the statewide participation and engagement of Vermont's farm and food community and stakeholders as members of the Farm to Plate Network; and the role Vermont plays as the national model for statewide food-system planning and implementation.
The challenge lies in how local food becomes mainstream. Vermont food should be available and accessible for all Vermonters. Eating local food should be the norm, not a privilege. A huge part of getting this to happen is for local food to be available at both independent and large grocery stores around Vermont. To make that happen, Vermont needs everyone working together.