Press Release
For Immediate Release
December 6, 2016
For more information, contact:
Michael Colby, Regeneration Vermont
(802) 595-0060/mcolbyvt@gmail.com
Diverse Groups Call for a Bold, New Vermont Agriculture. Issue Open Letter To Governor-Elect Scott.
Montpelier, VT – Today a group of more than a dozen Vermont farm, environmental and business leaders issued an open letter to Governor-Elect Phil Scott calling attention to the serious issues facing the state’s conventional dairy industry and proposing a solution to begin a necessary statewide transition toward regenerative and organic dairy production.
“We are deeply concerned about the dire economic conditions that continue to face Vermont’s conventional dairy producers and their families and the impact this is having on the economy, the working landscape, farmers and farm workers, the environment, and our rural communities,” the letter begins. “These are hardworking families and your leadership is needed to address what we believe requires a bold, new economic model that will result in a viable dairy sector in Vermont that lives up to our ideals and solves many of our farm-related issues.”
The letter was co-authored by former Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Roger Allbee and the team from Regeneration Vermont, a new nonprofit organized to promote agricultural solutions to the state’s environmental, climate and economic problems. The list of co-signers includes the Conservation Law Foundation, Lake Champlain International, Vermonters for a Clean Environment, VPIRG, NOFA-VT, Sierra Club (VT Chapter) and business leaders like The Alchemist Brewery, Butterworks Farm, and Chelsea Green Publishing.
The letter points out that, currently and for the foreseeable future, “Vermont’s conventional, non-organic dairy producers are getting paid less than it costs them to produce their milk — an economic travesty that is not only forcing farms out of business but is also giving rise to a host of ecological, worker justice, and animal welfare issues.”
The impacts from relying on this economically crippling, commodity-based model go far beyond just bankrupting farmers, but also include causing nearly half of Vermont’s water quality woes, promoting the use of GMO-derived feed, toxic pesticides and climate-threatening nitrogen-base fertilizers, giving rise to social and worker justice issues relating to farm and farm workers, and causing cow burnout and ill health from the dramatic push for more and more production of cheap milk.
“But it doesn’t have to be this way,” concludes the letter. “We, the undersigned Vermonters, are calling on you, our newly elected governor, to work with us, with dairy industry leaders, and others to support and facilitate the necessary statewide transition to regenerative and organic dairy production.”
The letter continues: “And the first step must be to convince the large dairy buyers like Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot Creamery that have built their brand upon the backs of the conventional dairy farmers to step up to the plate and stop participating in a model that pays their farmers less than it costs to produce the milk in their highly-profitable products. We have to change the economic formula. It’s time for Vermont’s farmers to reap the benefits of farm products that are tied to what consumers are seeking today.”
The eclectic group of signers has called for a meeting with Governor-Elect Scott’s leadership team to discuss their plan to improve Vermont’s agricultural economy. “Vermont agriculture can and should be seen as a solution to – not a cause of – our economic and environmental problems.”
