Transforming community through food
Toolbox
By CAROLYN BAKER Correspondent - Published: March 9, 2008
A personal interview with Greg Cox of Boardman Hill Farms in West Rutland
By Carolyn Baker
Correspondent
After many months of trying to connect with Greg Cox, owner of Boardman Hill Farms and president of the Rutland Area Farm and Food Link, I was finally able to sit down with him on an icy winter day. We discussed how he and a small group of citizens are remaking their community through their locally owned and operated food co-op, featuring locally grown produce, and a year-round farmer's market.
"When I grew up on Long Island," Cox explained, "it was principally an agricultural community - great soil, minerals off the ocean, lots of fresh water, perfect temperature, lots of rain. There were year-round truck farms, and I grew up in the midst of this agricultural environment, and I watched the transition from all of that to suburban sprawl."
Now, according to Cox, "Agriculture for the most part in America has become all about producing commodities and less about producing local food."
I spoke with Cox about the success of relocalization efforts in Rutland, specifically around agriculture and food, and asked him to give me a history of the journey that the community has taken in the past two years. (Relocalization means building societies based on the local production of food, energy and goods, and the local development of currency, governance and culture.)
According to Cox, it all started in the office of the Rutland Regional Planning Commission with intern India Burnett Farmer and planner Tara Kelly. In their work at the commission, they had noticed that every town in Vermont was paying lip service to agriculture but rarely had an action plan. In regional surveys taken over the years regarding the benefits of living in Vermont, citizens report overwhelmingly that they love living in an agricultural community. Farmer and Kelly became committed to making agriculture in Rutland County not only vibrant, but a mainstay of the local economy. Recognizing Cox's longstanding reputation as an organic farmer in their area, Farmer and Kelly contacted Cox and began strategizing with him.
One model for their venture was Burlington-based Intervale Center, which manages 354 acres of farmland, nursery, compost production, trails, and wildlife corridors in support of financially viable and environmentally sustainable agriculture.
Farmer and Kelly's goal was to support the growth of a thriving agricultural system that would connect farms, local communities and consumers in Rutland County. Key components of this system would be consumer education and a viable community of farms capable of attracting young folks with new ideas from all over the nation and the world. RAFFL, they realized, could offer tremendous benefits, both in terms of educating consumers and providing a market for local foods. The beauty of this strategy, of course, is that the money remains in Rutland County, as does the food.
Soon after RAFFL had been established, its members realized that in the event of economic or energy disruption, Rutland County would be incredibly vulnerable and have nothing to feed itself with.
I asked Cox about his perception of food security and related issues.
CB: So what's your sense of what's happening with food security in the United States and locally?
GC: It takes more calories and energy to transport organic carrots from California than you get from eating them, and that's a system that runs on a deficit. And when you consider what may be in them and on them, it's even worse. When you consider the transport of food from other places, it makes no sense. For example, Vermont is a dairy state, but we don't consume much of our own dairy products, which is ludicrous.
CB: Many indicators point to a global recession and possible worldwide food shortages. We now have food banks telling us not to look to them for emergency food supply because they are having difficulties obtaining food. So it's extremely important that communities have plenty of local food in order to feed themselves.
GC: Yes, we've been conditioned to believe that we can eat bananas in January, but there's a cost, a huge cost, that is never part of the story. It's absolutely not sustainable. We need to go back to communities with agriculture as the base to produce most of what we eat. And it's not necessary to import food from afar because you can extend the window of the growing season to virtually 12 months a year.
CB: OK, so tell me more about this because at the winter farmers market you have many beautiful fruits and vegetables for sale. It takes a lot of energy to grow fruits and vegetables in the winter. How does one do this with the least amount of energy?
GC: Well, in Vermont you can't grow food from Nov. 21 to Jan. 21. The days are just too short and cold, but if you can get the crop to 70 percent maturity by that time, for example, with a crop like lettuce or spinach, you can do a field tunnel and cover the crop with plastic. Inside that field tunnel are row covers made of spun polypropylene which look like cotton. You double-cover the plants, which gives 12 degrees of frost protection. At a given time you go out and pull back the cover and cut your lettuce, then cover up the remaining plants.
So the key to producing winter greens without using a huge amount of energy is growing the crop in other seasons to 70 percent to 75 percent of maturity, and then cutting it when you need it. You can harvest many things year-round.
CB: How did the co-op and the winter farmers market come about? Tell me about the community's future plans for both.
GC: The Saturday winter farmers' market developed from a conversation with people from the Rutland Natural Food Market (the co-op) and Rutland's new Creative Economy movement. In the past there has been a separation in our minds between agriculture and economics, but agriculture is an amazing economic engine. (Somehow it's not considered a "real" business - as if the farmer is an artist or something.) People can understand how a new big box store coming into Rutland would stimulate the economy, but it requires a lot of explanation to help them understand how agriculture can drive the economy.
Farmers' markets bring one thing wherever they go: foot traffic. That's what downtown areas are, and what they need. Cities used to be alive; people lived and worked there. We need to reestablish that. We need to make downtowns vital. Not only do we need new businesses, but we need to have residents in the downtown area.
People understand outsourcing and don't like it, but they don't understand that when they spend dollars outside of their town, they're outsourcing their dollars. Jobs follow the money. Every dollar that stays in the community enriches it. So in the discussion of revitalizing communities, agriculture may be the introductory sentence, but it goes way beyond that.
The winter farmers' market now occurs every Saturday in what used to be an old theater, adjacent to the co-op. In order to enter the market, one must walk through the co-op which generates a creative competition enhancing both businesses.
CB: So how do you explain the explosion of success both the co-op and the farmers' market have had?
GC: A year ago, we didn't know where it was going to happen, but we took the stand that it was going to happen. We sent emails and letters to many people in Rutland County and explained that we were going to have a winter farmers' market. As it got closer, we kept approaching the growers and telling them that we had a location. The Rutland Herald gave us great press, and we started asking for stories specifically on the farmers' market. The co-op had a wonderful mailing list to help us, but so much of the effort was laying the foundation.
"Local" is not a high priority in a lot of places, but it is in Vermont. The people really wanted the farmers' market to happen, and because it was so wanted, it has become a beautiful place. It creates an energy that builds off itself. The market features not only produce but cheeses, meats, breads, chocolate, wine, and other products.
The co-op's growth curve has been unbelievable, and the farmers' market now has almost 50 vendors waiting to participate. Both the co-op and farmers' market have outgrown their spaces, and both want to keep their spaces downtown. Because of the synergy of both entities, it's really important that we make a move together.
We're also currently looking at 130 acres of prime agricultural land on which food could be grown in a manner similar to Intervale. Intervale, by the way, produces 10 percent of Burlington's food.
We'd also like to approach local institutions like high schools and colleges and get them on board by using locally grown food. In addition, RAFFL has been trying to brand locally grown products as coming from "Rutland, the heart of Vermont agriculture." We can create a year-round source of vegetables, and we can create markets for farmers all over the state. Through partnerships with funders, we can acquire the resources to make this project succeed. We dare not miss these opportunities.
CB: One thing I haven't asked you about is the role of youth. On the one hand, you want to incubate farmers, but young people are often completely unconcerned with these kinds of things - often fascinated with technology and without interest in anything remotely resembling farming. In fact, they usually want to leave rural areas and head for the city. How are young people in this area responding to the efforts of your groups to educate the community about local food?
GC: Most young people, even in a rural area like Vermont, have a complete and total disconnect with their food system. Although Vermont is rural, it's really not agricultural - there are very few farms. You know, there's somebody inside of each one of us; some of them are farmers.
The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) has an apprenticeship program where many young people intern on farms, and when a young person is drawn to farming, it's amazing to see them blossom in the process of discovering their love for it. Green Mountain College in nearby Poultney is a gemstone of teaching sustainability and environmental science. They've also just added an organic agricultural department, and the college has a farm nearby. The Putney School is another college focused on sustainability, and the University of Vermont also has a good program.
I generally don't feel optimistic about the world we live in today, but I want my efforts locally to make a difference in my community and hopefully create opportunities for my kids and other young people. When I see what we've accomplished here in Rutland in just the past two years, I feel encouraged and excited.
I came away from my conversation with Greg Cox with two profound realizations: first, the stereotypes of Rutland, Vermont as "backward" and "too conservative" to relocalize its economy through local agriculture are fading into the dustbin of history; and second, any region in America can effect the transformation that the forward-thinking folks in Rutland are making happen with their passion, commitment, and incredibly hard work as they engineer local economic solutions and give new meaning to the word "community."
Carolyn Baker will be relocating to Rutland in the spring of this year (www.carolynbaker.net).