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Vital Communities is a community based nonprofit which “works to engage citizens in community life and to foster the long-term balance of cultural, economic, environmental and social well being in our region”. One of our community projects is in local agriculture. Our purpose with this work is “fostering the relationships that make local agriculture a vibrant part of daily life.”
We explore and strengthen relationships within our local agriculture system—building what we refer to as “Our Local Food Web”. The goal is to find and develop natural alliances between all the participants in the local agriculture system. This approach suits the geography and culture of our region, and been successful so far. This approach will lead in three years to a fully established local food system, or interconnected “web”, that incorporates the needs and resources of farmers, consumers, and other community groups.
Three-year Goal: Expand and fully establish our fledgling self-sustaining and community-driven local food system, or interconnected “web”, that incorporates the needs and resources of farmers, consumers, social service and government agencies, processing and slaughter facilities, institutions such as hospitals, colleges and schools, retailers, wholesalers and restaurants, youth, seniors and the faith and business communities.
Services available to new farmers through Vital Communities are:
- free listing in Local Meat Directory
- free listing in CSA Directory
- invitations to free breakfast workshops (past sessions on: Working with Retailers, Selling to Wholesale Distributors, Working with Food Banks, Selling Meat Direct to Consumers, etc)
- free subscription to Tidbits, our free emailed local ag bulletin for this region: contains workshops listings, public farm events, ag news of interest, classifieds
- free submissions to Tidbits: farm events and news, classifieds
- invitation to market products at our public events (our April 30 th event had 275 attendees, at no fee 35 vendors promoted and sold items there)
- free Vital Communities newsletter and events invitations
- we maintain a database of farmers which we refer to when asked for sources of local ag products; we do these referrals at no cost to farmers
- Using our database of farms we are creating a Guide to Locally Grown in the Upper Valley that will not only list the where to buy locally grown products but how
- we are helping start farmers’ markets in the region, and promote those that exist through our regional Farmers’ Markets Directory
We offer these services to new and experienced farmers alike, within the states of VT & NH, though those that will benefit most are those within the 69-town service area of Vital Communities: along the Upper Connecticut River Valley from Walpole and Westminster on the south to Bath and Ryegate on the north, west through most of Orange and Windsor counties and east to Sullivan county and western Grafton county.
Contact:
Lisa Johnson
Vital Communities
104 Railroad Row
White River Junction, VT 05001
802-291-9100 x103
802-291-9107
fax lisa@vitalcommunities.org
www.vitalcommunities.org
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