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Info from Jill Arace, Valley resident and Executive Director of the Vermont Association of Conservation Districts:
As you’ve probably heard, President Obama has made an emergency declaration for the State of Vermont. This declaration releases federal funding to support emergency management personnel and their activities while we’re still in this emergency phase. At a later date, there will be further declarations that will release additional funds for both emergency assistance and reconstruction. Folks from various agencies are collecting data regarding damages to make requests for additional funds from Washington. Some of these programs will support repairs retroactively.
Here is a reminder that if you intend to make any kind of claim, whether you are a homeowner, farmer, or local government, you should document your losses with date stamped photographs before you clean up. Also document any costs you are incurring.
I’m attaching here information regarding the NRCS Emergency Watershed Protection Program, which was updated yesterday. This program supports homeowners and towns facing immediate threats to life and property with 75% of the costs. NRCS is already working with a number of towns affected by the spring flooding through this program. There are funds remaining from that effort and new funding on the way. If our towns haven’t already contacted them, I suggest you do so asap – especially Moretown – and they will send an engineer down your way to make an assessment. As you can imagine, engineers are going to be at a premium over the next weeks and months.
How can Vermont build strong local and regional food systems, create jobs in the food and farm economy, and improve access to healthy local food? The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund has laid out an impressive road map for the next 10 years of agricultural development with the release of the Farm to Plate (F2P) Strategic Plan in January 2011. Ellen Kahler, Executive Director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, will lead this presentation to discuss the findings of the Initiative’s exhaustive 18-month research project and present their strategies to increase jobs and enterprises in the farm and food sector and ramp up local food production and consumption in Vermont and regions beyond our borders. Current Mad River Valley initiatives will be discussed. Go to the project website (here) to read the report in advance of the meeting. This presentation is cosponsored by the Mad River Valley Localvore Project and the Mad River Valley Planning District.
Fifteen UVM students presented the findings of their semester-long partnership with the Mad River Valley on December 8th at the Big Picture Theater (original post). For the second year in a row, the Mad River Valley has served as the focus of a University of Vermont course within its Community Development & Applied Economics Department. The service learning course, titled Local Community Initiatives, had the students working closely with a handful of the Valley’s community organizations and taking an active role in local projects. The class focused on the different ways that community-members work together to identify challenges, resources and solutions and how they envision their future.
Below are links to the presentations and final products for three projects (a) develop recommendations for interpretive installations along the Mad River Path, (b) provide feedback and recommendations for the mission and organization of Mad Bikes of Waitsfield, and (c) survey food producers and consumers in the Mad River Valley and identify challenges and opportunities for local food efforts. Click on the pictures for the presentations and the links for the reports.
Joshua Schwartz at the Mad River Valley Planning District and class instructor Chip Sawyer are planning a third installment of the course to take place in fall 2011. Solicitation of projects will take place in the spring.
On the evening of December 8 at the Big Picture, Mad River Valley residents are invited to hear about the experiences and recommendations of UVM students, who have been working on local projects.
For the second year in a row, the Mad River Valley has served as the focus of a University of Vermont course within its Community Development & Applied Economics Department. The 15 students in the service learning course, titled “Local Community Initiatives,” have been working closely with a handful of the Valley’s community organizations and taking an active role in local projects. The students are learning about the different ways that community-members work together to identify challenges, resources and solutions and how they envision their future.
At a Sept 15th kick-off meeting at the Knoll Farm, the students met with residents of the Mad River Valley and initiated their projects. The three projects are (a) to develop recommendations for interpretive installations along the Mad River Path, (b) to provide feedback and recommendations for the mission and organization of Mad Bikes of Waitsfield, and (c) to survey food producers and consumers in the Mad River Valley and identify challenges and opportunities for local food efforts.
The students will present the final deliverables and recommendations of their projects at 6:00 PM at the Big Picture Theater on Wednesday, December 8. Each of the student groups will give their presentation and then welcome questions and comments from Mad River Valley community members. Celebration and conversation will follow. All Valley residents are invited.
“It is exciting to witness this truly dynamic collaboration between UVM students and Mad River Valley citizens,” explains Joshua Schwartz, Executive Director of the Mad River Valley Planning District. “We are looking forward to the student presentations on December 8th.
Local groups that the students have been working with include Mad Bikes of Waitsfield, the Mad River Valley Localvore Project, the Mad River Path Association, the Mad River Valley Planning District, and the Valley Futures Network.
“We’ve experienced a second great semester of partnership and contact with Mad River Valley groups and residents,” says course lecturer Will “Chip” Sawyer. “This Valley represents a rich ‘laboratory’ for students to learn first-hand what it is like to engage in your community and try to make a difference. That is the primary educational goal of the course.”
In the summers of 2009 and 2010 Sawyer worked closely with Joshua Schwartz of the Mad River Valley Planning District, and other members of the Valley Futures Network, to communicate the course idea to Valley residents and collect ideas for student projects. Sawyer reports that planning will soon be in the works for another round of the course in the fall of 2011.
For the second year in a row the MRV is partnering with UVM in a service learning course in the Community Development Applied Economics Department entitled Local Community Initiatives. The description is as follows:
Students will take an active role in local projects addressing a variety of essential community issues in the Mad River Valley region of Vermont with our course partners, the Mad River Valley Planning District and the Valley Futures Network. Through local project work, case studies, course texts, student research and class discussions, we will learn about the different ways that community members work together to identify challenges, resources and solutions and how they envision their future.
As stated above, the intent of the course in relation to VFN is two-fold, participate in specific projects and analyze VFN as an effective community group. The students will visit the Valley on at least three occasions: once to familiarize themselves with VFN and kick-off group projects (9/15), participation in various specific projects, and a final time to present final projects (12/2 or 12/9).
The students will break into groups to focus on the following three projects throughout the semester:
Mad River Path Interpretive Materials (Autumn Foushee)
Mad Bikes Research (Laura Brines)
MRV Local Food Market Study (Jill Arace).
The kick-off event is scheduled for Wednesday, 9/15, 7- 9:00 PM at Knoll Farm. This is the first opportunity for the students to meet and understand VFN, along with initiating their student projects. All VFN folks, along with those interested in learning more about VFN, are encouraged to attend. This is also a dessert potluck, so please bring your tastiest treats to share with our neighbors and guests.
The success of this project is dependent on VFN member involvement! Let’s make a strong showing for our guests and our future at tomorrow night’s event.
A Valley Futures Network Task Team has been formed to look at the question: would a local entrepreneurial Food and Agriculture Business Initiative work in the Valley and if so what might it look like? The Team is sponsoring some upcoming talks in the next months that bring in people from other towns that are doing similar initiatives.
On February 10th Andrew Meyer from the Center for an Agricultural Community will talk about their initiative in Hardwick.
The event will take place at the Big Picture on 2/10 from 6:30-9pm with coffee/dessert.
Based on the success of this past fall’s MRV focused UVM course, Local Community Initiatives, instructor Chip Sawyer is planning a second round in the fall of 2010. Now is the time to start planning the course, and more importantly, brainstorming potential projects.
The UVM course Local Community Initiatives is a service-learning course that allows undergraduate and graduate students to contribute to community projects in the Mad River Valley. This course will be held in the fall of 2010. The course was very successful and valuable for both students and Mad River Valley residents, alike, in the fall of 2009. The final project reports are available at the Mad River Valley Planning District website at http://www.mrvpd.org/DocumentsLibrary.php.
Please see attached the course description and the list of expectations for students and project partners.
During the first weeks of the course, the students will choose from among 3-5 projects in the Mad River Valley. Now is the time for interested community members to propose projects. The projects will be compiled by the Mad River Valley Planning District and the Valley Futures Network. A steering committee made up the of the course instructor, the Executive Director of the Mad River Valley Planning District, members of the Valley Futures Network, and other Mad River Valley community members will consider the projects submitted and choose a list to be proposed to the students.
Projects will be chosen based on:
the likelihood of a project to be completed by students in the fall and winter of 2010;
the learning potential that a project presents to the students and community partners;
the extent to the which the project will contribute to efforts and partnerships going forward; and
the impact that the project could have upon the Mad River Valley.
Based on the success of this past fall’s MRV focused UVM course, Local Community Initiatives, instructor Chip Sawyer is planning a second round in the fall of 2010. Now is the time to start planning the course, and more importantly, brainstorming potential projects.
The UVM course Local Community Initiatives is a service-learning course that allows undergraduate and graduate students to contribute to community projects in the Mad River Valley. This course will be held in the fall of 2010. The course was very successful and valuable for both students and Mad River Valley residents, alike, in the fall of 2009. The final project reports are available at the Mad River Valley Planning District website at http://www.mrvpd.org/DocumentsLibrary.php.
Please see attached the course description and the list of expectations for students and project partners.
During the first weeks of the course, the students will choose from among 3-5 projects in the Mad River Valley. Now is the time for interested community members to propose projects. The projects will be compiled by the Mad River Valley Planning District and the Valley Futures Network. A steering committee made up the of the course instructor, the Executive Director of the Mad River Valley Planning District, members of the Valley Futures Network, and other Mad River Valley community members will consider the projects submitted and choose a list to be proposed to the students.
Projects will be chosen based on:
the likelihood of a project to be completed by students in the fall and winter of 2010;
the learning potential that a project presents to the students and community partners;
the extent to the which the project will contribute to efforts and partnerships going forward; and
the impact that the project could have upon the Mad River Valley.
Here’s a good luck at the very first deer to be weighed at the Village Grocery in downtown Waitsfield. A beaut – shot up near the Moretown Common road. Be safe out there, everyone, and happy hunting!
“NUMEN” FILM SCREENING!: Montpelier’s SAVOY at 7:00 on Saturday, October 10 and Sunday, October 11.
I have sat through many “talking head” documentaries in my years as a film reviewer, but never before have I found so much to laugh, cry and think about as when I screened “Numen: The Nature of Plants” for the first time just a few days ago.
Terrence Youk and Ann Armbrecht’s wonderful new 95 minute film explores the world of plants, their healing powers, and their central importance (largely forgotten, in this day and age) in providing us with the very building blocks of human civilization, from sustenance to healing. The word “numen” refers to the animating spirit or power infused in an object, and the film makes an impressive argument for reconsidering just how significant “plant power” is. “Herbalism is our oldest system of healing on the planet,” observes rock-star herbalist Rosemary Gladstar (if you’ve never heard of her, get your head out of the drug store aisle and medicine closet and pay attention). “Most parts of the world where you travel today you’ll still find people practicing some remnant of traditional herbalism.”
And “Numen” seems to have found some of the most eloquent herbalist voices from around the world to speak on behalf of the plants, along with many other plant-loving people. Like any good documentary, “Numen” assembles an impressive cast of thoughtful characters: medical doctors like Larry Dossey (editor of EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing); citizen activists like BIONEERS founder Kenny Ausubel; and even Maine-based herbal practitioners like Deb Soule. Youk and Armbrecht have done their research and their homework, capturing, in tightly-edited and thoughtful fashion, why plants matter so much.
But what really sets “Numen” apart is the balance of playfulness and candor with which the filmmakers approach their subject. “Numen” opens, for example, with a sped-up time-lapse sequence of plant shoots literally exploding from the ground, accompanied by a catchy funk-driven electric guitar. I was caught completely by surprise, and totally hooked. In another sequence, we see a sped-up “shopping cart camera” view of a modern grocery store, with harried consumers completely detached from the sources of their food. Refreshingly, there are some moving scenes, too – one researcher, for example, breaks down on camera as he reflects on the sheer beauty and mystery of the plant world. In another interview, a traditional herbalist from Hawai’i grapples with the “deep history” and cultural connections she shares with the plants. “Numen” is filled with powerful moments like these.
The special effects and animation work in “Numen,” too, is impressive – taking us on both a micro (inside the plants themselves) and macro (consider the planet from space) tour explaining why plants matter.
Perhaps the best part of the “Numen” experience, though, is how hopeful, positive, and forward-thinking a film it is. In an era when there is so much to be concerned about – peak oil, climate change, the endless “war on terror,” economic downturns, “too-big-to-fail” banksters, and that constant migraine headache that over-the-counter meds can’t quite chase away, “Numen” reminds us that the answers to many of these problems, magically enough, is growing all around us. It is our job, as 21st century citizens inhabiting a finite planet experiencing “limits to growth,” to reconnect with “plant wisdom.” If “Numen” provides the inspiration for us as audience members to root ourselves once again in the earth and amongst the plants, it will have provided an incredibly valuable service to our struggling 21st century world.
This seems like it ought to be an easy question to answer.
Not so, in this day and age, according to a new documentary film called Food, Inc.
“The way we eat has changed more in the past 50 years than in the last 10,000 years,” explains the film’s introduction, “but the image we see is still the image of agrarian America.”
Beyond the pretty but misleading pictures put forth by the corporate brand managers from Tyson, Smithfield, Cargill, ADM and Perdue– good-looking farmers, happy animals, clean and green landscapes– is a disturbing and largely untold story about the nature of the United States’ 21st century industrial factory food system. Director Robert Kenner has served up one of the most vital and provocative new documentaries of this year. In Food, Inc, he assembles an all-star cast – Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser, Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan (hero to localvores everywhere), and a variety of farm folks who are doing the hard work at ground zero of our modern “farming” system.
Uniformity, conformity, and cheapness are the 3 words that define our early 21st century food system, according to Schlosser.
And wheat, corn, and soybeans, Pollan tells us, are the three commodity crops that drive the 21st century U.S. farming system, producing food that is high in unhealthy fats and high fructose corn syrup, but very cheap at the pump, cash-wise, for the consumer.
But let’s not call it farming, oh no. To call it “farming” is to make a mockery of the term.
It is an industry.
Like any other factory, the goal of our 21st century industrial food system is simple: mass production to maximize profit at the cheapest consumer price per unit as possible, while externalizing all other social values – humane treatment of animals, equity for workers and farmers, and the health of both the land and the human body. “Our food is coming from enormous assembly lines,” Pollan observes, “and both the animals and the workers are being abused.”
Food Inc. is full of fascinating facts – “the modern American supermarket has on average 47,000 products” – as well as Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser’s trademark well-researched wit and wisdom.
Pollan’s assessment of corn as the uber-element of your typical 21st century American’s diet, for example, is as fascinating as it is disturbing. “Cows are not evolutionarily designed to eat corn,” Pollan wryly observes. “The only reason we feed cows corn is because corn is really cheap, and it make cows fat quickly.” Lots of American cows. Millions, in fact. And, oh, by the way – only 13 slaughterhouses, according to Schlosser, process the majority of beef in the United States. Can you say “Let us render Mad Cow”?
And a high corn diet – think “fructose” and then check the ingredients in just about any packaged supermarket item – makes American people fat, too, as well as exposing them to E Coli and other pathogens that lead to national health scares, illness, and death. But the factory system has a “solution” – cleanse processed meat with ammonia to try and kill the E Coli. Um, genius.
And, as Schlosser explains, the USDA and other federal agencies, charged with looking out for Americans’ food safety, have become little more than “captive regulators,” run by individuals from the very industries these agencies are supposed to be watch dogging. “We put our faith in the government to protect us,” observes one tearful mother, who lost a son to a food outbreak and has since become a dedicated citizen activist working to pass Kevin’s Law, calling on the USDA to shut down meat factories who continually produce contaminated meat. “And the very agencies charged with doing so don’t help us.”
There are heroes in this film, too – notably farmer Joel Salatin of Virginia’s Polyface Farms, who runs a grass-fed farm operation that has become quite well-known in agricultural and foodie circles, thanks to Pollan’s writing and Salatin’s own combination of outspokenness and smarts, as a farmer, a businessman, an author and a citizen.
“Our system has been built on faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper, and we have allowed ourselves to become so disconnected and ignorant about something so important as the food we eat,” Salatin says while processing chickens in a tent on his farm. “The FDA tried to shut our open-air operation down because they claimed it was unsanitary. What is that about?”
Point(s) taken.
So what’s a concerned American citizen to do? Grow your own food as you can. Buy local whenever possible. Get to know your food, and the farmer who produced it. Invest your money locally as often as you can. Educate yourself about your food choices. And throw yourself into the fight for a more humane food system.
