Mari: Let's jump right in.
I figure conversations are like veggies,
if there's grit, they're real.
That realness builds connection,
which humans universally seek.
Is farming in Vermont sustainable?
Short answer equals no.
This does not mean we should not try to make it so.
My most pressing concerns about precarity
for Vermont farms and farmers
is that we work too far past tired,
and hold on our shoulders a heavy yoke
of financial struggle.
Climate chaos, modern eating habits,
and this era of short staffing
make preexisting precarity more extreme.
For our 17 year history,
we've managed our farm within a complex bottom line.
However, holding our ecological
and social standards have made profitability distant.
We are a failed business.
However, we're not a failed farm.
This is a vocation, a climate strike,
more of a spiritual pursuit.
Laura and I simply believe our species
can eat more responsibly,
and we're willing to donate our time
and resources to this pursuit.
Before I go any further,
I should say I'm sorry not to be with you in person.
Sister Sun is waning,
and we are hamster-wheeling our way
through late stages of growing season.
And today we're hosting a bus tour,
hyper-local regenivore lunch and a farm tour.
Safe to say the sustainability paradox preoccupies us.
It is terrific to be in dialogue with you, albeit virtual.
We grow food in ways that make our farm
better able to grow food in the future.
Regeneration.
This hope-filled concept is a renewable resource.
These use, along with pigs and poultry,
drive the land recovery process.
We can grow spectacular diversity
and significant volumes of food on forgotten old hill farms.
On our farm's 10th anniversary,
a chef friend helped us prepare a meal for guests
that served 86 different things
we had grown on these undulating 20 acres.
From here to Ghana,
Ghana to Guam,
Guam to Guyana,
small farms like ours feed people,
more so than big ag.
Initially we said we wanted
to practice sustainable agriculture.
When we started, this spot had moss and lichen.
No one had actively farmed here in more than six decades.
Substantial restorative investments are required
prior to sustainability.
Our wintered bedded pack system and garden waste
enable us to make significant volumes of compost.
But our efforts also require
purchase compost and other organic amendments,
significant equipment, infrastructure development,
analysis and effort.
We may not be profitable,
but we are creating wealth,
creating a functional farm ecosystem
by breathing life back into this land.
Cover crops are, of course part of the equation.
Biopriming, diverse seed mixes
with a touch of compost and inoculate
helps generate exponential life in our soil.
Nodules confirm nitrogen fixation in this legume.
A process enabling us to grow
some of our own required fertility.
With the right weather on a summer day,
in the morning, we can have a thriving cover crop,
which we mow and solarize under plastic
for four hours to terminate.
Later that same day, we can plant starts into the duff
to begin growing overnight.
We refuse to grow in plastic culture.
What percentage of contemporary organic produce
is grown under plastic?
We were mentored by farmers
who said they would never grow under plastic,
but the practice is ubiquitous and now they do.
One can't blame them,
even if they could afford the weeding labor,
it's not available.
Why can't modern people simultaneously hold
multiple dimensions in our attention?
Folks are concerned about issues like plastic debris,
but they want cheap carrots.
At our scale, farm-made ramial chip
and other mulches enable us to eschew growing under plastic.
How is it that gigabytes
and quarterbacks are so extremely valued,
whereas nourishing clean food isn't?
Though it's more time consuming,
we switched to leaving roots in the ground,
cutting weeds and leaving crop residues.
We like what we see.
Good crumb structure,
plants showing modest resistance to pests and disease.
A deepening A horizon is evident.
We have so much to learn.
And it isn't all progress.
2020 began the era of pivots for all of us,
pandemic, then this era of short staffing.
Now the age of jumping worms.
Invasive plant species also challenge us at the core.
Gregariously photosynthesizing plants feed the soil
by limiting soil disturbance,
fungal connectivity and microbial communities thrive,
cycling carbon and nutrients quickly and effectively.
When we increase depth and diversity in our soils,
we set in mo motion virtuous
and regenerative feedback loops.
New tools and techniques like the rip sower
are helping us overcome a ubiquitous problem
of soil compaction.
All of humanity is eating from the top six inches of earth.
But perhaps soon we could be measuring our soil life
in feet, not inches,
and accessing deep mineral reserves
to grow more nourishing food
while being both more drought tolerant
and better able to infiltrate
and utilize large rain events,
all the while providing for pollinators.
Regenerative and sustainable farming systems
look and smell different.
Food grown in this way
tastes great and nourishes well.
Our costs, financial, social, and ecological
are held here at the farm rather than outsourced.
We need to have better conversations
about the dignity of work.
And if food simply held decent value,
sustainable and regenerative farms could be viable.
But as things stand, if I didn't have my fancy degrees
and hadn't left Vermont to work globally for two decades,
what would my self-esteem look like?
As I would farm very long hours
with little income to show for it.
Small diversified ecological farms like ours
have struggled with viability for decades.
We've grown the farm's gross annual income
to a hundred thousand dollars
and are pleased with our progress,
restoring long-neglected agricultural land balance,
weaving our local offerings
into the lives of neighbors, mentoring staff,
and inspiring thousands of visitors.
Yet we have invested long arduous days
and our substantial mid-career resources.
Our all-in approach has resulted in burnout.
If we are the only farm struggling with profitability,
we'd return to desk jobs in the nonprofit sector
where both Laura and I found productivity,
joy, and fulfillment.
Writing about this issue has prompted intimate conversations
and profitability issues appear to be the norm
across different types and sizes of operations.
Recently I began asking if farm viability
is in fact a mirage?
Sadly, no one has argued that it isn't.
I don't wanna toss gut punches about at conferences
and take the wind out of our sails.
I understand the power of appreciative inquiry.
But if we premise shift,
what paradigms might also change?
You've heard of a view tax?
Farms not only perform ecological services,
but also cultural services.
We remind our species that we are a species.
At a wedding years ago, I sat next to a neighbor
who buys her Thanksgiving turkey from our farm.
She described her daily drive-by dose of the farm
and her ritual of slowing down
to see where the sheeps, pigs, and poultry have been moved.
She said, I've gotten to the point,
I think I should pay a toll to pass your place.
I joked, in order for us to survive, it might come to that.
The conversation awkwardly fell off.
Meanwhile, reports indicate Vermont agriculture
will be important for the future.
With some of our counties predicted to be some of the best
for growing food in the nation under a changing climate.
Yet it is obvious
that higher ground will need to be considered.
Our hill farm experiment,
exploring what it takes to grow food responsibly
is not just a passion project,
we believe is a necessity.
But already it is sobering that while we haven't flooded,
recent seasons have been filled with challenges
associated with times of extreme dryness,
heat, and wetness.
Crops are ripening early,
growing conditions are challenging,
infrastructure is tested.
Our farm stand promotes a cognitive dissonance,
as does our social media feed.
Marketing requires that we focus
on the light and the bright,
and we have so much beauty to share.
We don't have enough shoppers.
And significantly, among our most dedicated shoppers,
we see significant clusters of folks
with very young children and people with serious illness.
How farmers farm and eaters eat matters.
We call ourself regenivores
and see so much opportunity for turning things around.
Sheep, once part of Vermont's massive topsoil loss
are keystones in our practices,
which increase the life and depth of our soil.
The farm that was largely overtaken
by young succession forests
with soil pHs ranging from 4.7 to 5.3.
As we began our farm,
you could tell Vermont had lost
something like half its topsoil in the 1800s.
Agritourism is integral to our efforts
to generate both cash, to restore the soils,
and to increase awareness.
Our farm stay guests choose us
because they want their food and tourism choices
to support social and ecological health.
They satiate their senses,
satisfy their quest for connection,
and deepen their appreciation for Vermont.
This family came from London.
The twins said the farm was more fun
than their house in Bali.
And that has two pools.
Do we as humble Vermonters even believe
we could compete with pools in Bali?
What offers might be initiated in our hills
if Vermonters internalized
that our farms are globally significant
niche tourism draw?
Often, guests span multiple generations.
The family on the left was our first four-generation group.
We had a blast exploring edible flowers
with a wedding party on the right.
Our guests witness
or participate in the authentic work of the day.
And after the animal's winter pack comes out,
and the sand floor dries, and we add new chip,
the barn and the farmers clean up well enough
to host our side hustle of fall foliage bus tours and lunch.
People respond remarkably
to the helpful concept of regeneration
and we share openly as we do with all audiences
our financial challenges.
Finances aren't our only challenge.
Our movement needs to mature beyond clicks,
camps, and old paradigms.
One of my heroes is John Kemp, a divergent thinker,
whose gifted us all the Plant Health Pyramid.
Mainstream thinking focuses attention on amending soils
to influence plant growth.
This instead focuses attention on nourishing plants
to feed the soil microbiome
and asserts that healthy plants
can become completely resistant to diseases and insects.
Service providers and venerable institutions seem slow
to the uptake on some of these tender morsels of thought,
which might lead to breakthroughs.
Ultimately, there's so much we agree on.
Farms produce so much more than food.
Abundance abounds within farm ecosystems.
1000 years from now when someone enjoys a chestnut
from a tree we planted,
will they even know of the before times
when humans ate food processed into smithereens
and packaged in plastic?
But let me use this legacy theme to recount a tough moment.
It's the winter of 2023,
and a group of farmers and organizers
circled up for introductions.
A 30-year plus farmer
and leader of Vermont's organic movement beams with pride,
but we realize she can't speak.
She closes her eyes.
You know when trembling lips advance to a contorted face?
We then heard her say, through tears,
that her daughter is farming.
The intensity of her pride, worry, and anguish
convey her understanding of all the beauty of a lifetime
in sustainable farming
and a life leaning in,
going all out towards a mirage.
Later that day as the group brainstormed
what needs to be done,
the same farmer leader said, again through tears,
no more pretty pictures.
So much of what we do
is couched in this pretty picture effect.
Whether we market our produce
in dressed up booths at markets, or on Instagram,
we need to excite and entice.
But how does this not further confuse customers
in the world about our reality?
Jerry Garcia's widow gathered U.S. elders
of the Organic Meat movement 15 or so years ago,
two from each state.
These most successful farmers in our movement
lacked retirement resources
and had concerns for farm succession.
But whether it's polite avoidance of talk of finances,
or denial among the public,
symptoms and signs of this dire situation
exist right beneath our noses.
Peter Welch spoke to an agritourism meeting
in Rutland about 10 years ago.
He said, thank you for what you do, your hard work.
You even take off farm jobs,
driving school buses in all manner of other jobs
to keep the farms going.
That morning, I appreciated his empathetic connection
with the crowd gathered
and I sat baffled, wondering how this is our norm.
What other sector could he say something like that to?
The exceptionality is evident in our law.
Just look at farm labor practices.
This isn't an American problem.
My Norwegian cousin asked my brother,
as Laura and I were starting the farm,
does Mari realize that no one in the family
has made a living from farming for a century?
He and his sister, like so many farm kids around the world,
left home and established careers in more urban areas.
Okay, one more pretty picture.
Michael Poland talks about his daily cup of optimism.
And so much of the solution can be fun and tasty.
We've tried capturing the niche
of lattes on the hoof market,
the experience and product delighted.
Someone in this room knows
the ratio folks spend on beverages to food.
Do we have enough psychologists in our movements?
Why do modern humans spend in that ratio?
May we get better at feeding each other.