From Anonymous to Familiar

"From Anonymous to Familiar: Education and Farms in Vermont

by Lisa Ritter

Copenhagen ➝ Vermont

Danish CSA
photo by Lisa Ritter

A paper bag with mysterious contents proved to be a weekly creative challenge: what is this vegetable, how do we cook it, and – is that a slug in our cauliflower? Despite the language barrier with our Danish farmers, we made the best of our local community supported agriculture (CSA). On Wednesdays we picked up our 100 kroner (about $18) share of produce at 14 Skindergade, a block from our 40 Skindergade apartment. During my semester abroad in Copenhagen in the fall of 2012, my roommates and I used our shared CSA as a Wednesday ritual of cooking up another inventive dinner. It also saved me from embarrassment at the grocery store where I based purchases off my small Danish vocabulary or the food’s general appearance.

Fast forward to summer 2013, Burlington, Vermont. Saturdays ritually began with a trip to the Farmers’ Market, petting every dog in sight and enjoying maple lemonade on the grass of City Hall Park. It seemed like all of Burlington was doing the same, as if the Farmers’ Market served as an unspoken weekly town meet-up. For the next few weeks I was spoiled by my roommate at Saint Michael’s College who brought us flowers from the school’s organic garden where she worked. Some days she harvested vegetables and cooked us dinner with her the food she grew herself. This was the beginning of my food education.

Burlington Farmers' Market
photo by Lisa Ritter

The Big Picture (AKA Why Am I Telling You This?)

Climate change: the ominous reality that hangs over the heads of those who have even a basic understanding of what humans have done to our planet. Peak oil, green energy, rising sea levels, and what about the polar bears?! The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that 40-70% of emissions need to be cut by 2050 – or else (3). Okay, but how do we do that? If you look to Vermont (and to science), you just might find the answer.

Campuses Source Locally

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In Colchester, Vermont, Saint Michael’s College’s dining service provider Sodexo boasts that 39% of the food served is local. The other 61% is assumably mass-produced, contains who knows what, travels miles and miles to campus, and defies regular growing seasons. Agriculture is at fault for 10% of carbon emissions (1) and the industrial food system as a whole counts for 1/3 of the total (2). Food alternatives are available to those residential students with kitchens, Nora Stoelting. Saint Michael’s College partners with the Intervale Food Hub to allow students to join a local CSA. For Stoelting, a senior Environmental Studies student from Brooklyn, NY, the reasons to do so are obvious:

If I were to buy just any tomato off the shelf, there is a high chance that it is soaked in pesticides which harmed the ecosystem it came from and that it arrived here on a gas-guzzling truck. Buying food grown within close proximity to where you are means that there are much fewer miles that the food has to travel to get to you, which means less carbon emissions.

Community supported agriculture is a way to connect directly with your food and the people who grow it. At the beginning of the season you invest a certain fixed price and each week or two you collect your share. The sustainability director at Saint Michael’s College, Heather Ellis-Lynch, explains: “By supporting local farms and farmers, the money we spend locally, stays locally and benefits the community far more than spending our dollars outside one’s community.” By supporting grocery stores, there is a hidden price of external effects, like destruction of land, transportation, chemicals in the food, injustice to the workers who grow and sell the food, and the list goes on.

Industrial to Human-scale

Saint Michael’s College’s green initiatives reflect a larger trend. As a historically farming state, Vermont is a leader of sustainable agriculture in the United States. The Intervale Center, one of many community farms, “work[s] to take action and engage our community in taking action to help improve our community and our environment for future generations,” says Kendall Frost. “At the Intervale Center, we are transforming the food system from one that is degrading, anonymous and industrial, to one that is restorative, familiar and human-scale. We are working to foster a local food economy that is good for people and the planet.”

There is a support system amongst Burlington area colleges, where once one school beings a new sustainability approach, others will likely be soon to follow. In 2008, Saint Michael’s College started their organic garden where summer work study students grow and sell produce at the campus farm stand. In 2011, Champlain College created a community garden where students, faculty, and staff share 27 plots. The college also participates in CSA through the Intervale Food Hub. Its dining hall, similarly catered by Sodexo, sources about 15% of its food locally. “People look to our college campuses as models. Vermont has a really strong showing in the regional and national; people look to us,” says Christina Erickson, Sustainability Director at Champlain.

Knowledge is Power

At both Saint Michael’s College and Champlain College, sustainability efforts reach the classroom. Courses like Food and Politics at Saint Michael’s College discuss food sovereignty, while business students at Champlain College take a corporate social responsibility class. “Any yet, if you asked any of us, there’s so much more we can do,” says Erickson.

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So, what’s next? Erickson continues:

We need people who understand that every action that they do has an impact, whether it’s a positive or negative impact. What we buy, what we don’t buy, what we breathe, what we don’t breathe, any of that, has an impact. Paying attention and actually caring about what you’re doing, and realizing that it makes an impact on the planet and, even more importantly, social justice. It’s impacting the quality of life for people, whether that’s your sister, brother, friend, or a person who lives across the world.

Buy local. Your health, your neighbor, and your planet will thank you.

(1) "Agriculture." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.

(2) Gilbert, Natasha. "One-third of Our Greenhouse Gas Emissions Come from Agriculture." Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
(3) Koch, Wendy. "IPCC Report: Climate Needs Swift Shift to Clean Energy."USA Today. Gannett, 13 Apr. 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.