Sustainable Food and Farming in the Connecticut River Valley: A
Vision
V . ACTION PLANNING
"Many wonderful ideas have been generated here - ideas turned to action could have real impact."
The next task was to agree on the components of a common vision for
the future. The whole group gathered around the notice board to help
put the agreed themes into clusters. Any that led to disagreements
were set aside. Looking at the themes, we put together items that
were related to each other. These became the issues around which
Action Planning groups were formed. The primary issues under which
themes were clustered are:
- Community and regional planning
- Financial support for farmers
- Improve dialogue around labor resources/issues
- Local self-reliance
- Agriculture education
Individuals were asked to form groups around each of these cluster
themes; each was envisioned as a "stake in the ground." Eight action
planning groups were created. Their task was to translate the common
futures into concrete actions and to make commitments for action,
both as stakeholders and as decision makers. Each group addressed two
considerations: short-term initial steps and long-term implementation.
As they worked on the task, participants were asked to consider
three options after leaving the conference: 1) implementing their
plans individually, confident that they were contributing to a larger
vision; 2) implementing their action plans by independent planning
groups; or 3) to implement their plans as part of a process that
would be coordinated by CISA.
The name of each Action Planning group, the participants in them,
and their short- and long-term action plans are given below:
SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES AND TECHNOLOGIES
(Anna Garbiel, Brian Schultz, Teresa Jones, John Majercak, David
Helm, Sonia Schloemann)
Consensus Issues
- Finding and utilizing alternative energy sources
- Composting
- Recycle/reuse waste management
- Technology
- Improved farming practices
- Resource development
Short-Term Action Steps
- Expand mini-grants (CISA) for farmers to encourage more
sustainable practices
- Find financial and resource support
- Start a local directory of farming knowledge (farming and
infrastructure), using an intern
- Computerize the farm; provide computer training and support
Long-Term Steps
- Get directory on-line and also text (local farming expertise --
practices and production)
- Composting
- Initiate energy audit
REGIONAL COMMUNITY PLANNING
(Land-use planning -- Clifford Hatch, Becky Loveland, Beth Girsham,
Judy Eiseman, Tom Guerino)
Consensus Issues
- Building regional entity
- Reversing land-use trends
- Planning initiatives
- Community planning
- Regional restructuring
Short-Term Action Steps
- Connect with and learn more about Rural Development Council
- Explore options (information technology) to connect Pioneer
Valley agricultural interests (Pioneer Valley network)
- CISA involvement with Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Plan
for Progress committee (Help needed: Judy Gillan, John Gerber, Tom
Guerino -- RDC, CISA, farmers)
Long-Term Steps
- Define our vision of future planning process (on-going)
- Work to form a regional structure that can make decisions over
land-use policy that transcends town borders (DRIs), that, at
minimum, have advisory power and promote ecosystem health.
LABOR ISSUES
(Francesca Rheannon, Jody Spitz, Nathan Nourse, Rocky Lively)
Consensus Issues
- Promote healthy living by farmers and farm workers
- Improve dialogue around labor resources/issues
Short-Term Action Steps
- Create start-up package for new farm employers (regulations
requirements, tips on starting a business, rights and
responsibilities)(need help from DET, CISA, experienced small and
large farmers)
- Get information out to older farmers on preventing accidents,
ESL issues, etc., through newsletters
- Set up training for new farm laborers (ready-towork skills,
work-hardening, skills-based programs [mentoring], heath and safety,
literacy, ESL)
- Increase connections between farmers and workers, farmers and
contract laborers, farmers and farmers, and farmers and health-care
advocacy organizations
- Establish laborer co-ops - self-brokering to share costs (need
help from G. Richards, S. Mao)
Long-Term Steps
- Get lobbying and legislative action to get tax subsidies
- Examine H2A program (off-shore labor)
- Occupational health tracking
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION GROUP
(Alex MacPhail, David Sharken, John Riley, Sokhen Mao, Frederick
Clark, Tom Weskiewicz)
Consensus Issues
- Youth involvement
- Farmer/people partnerships
- Agroecology
- Positive image of farming as a profession
(Wants to collaborate with all the CISA groups!)
Short-Term Action Steps
- Bring current educators together in a forum to make sure it's
not a piece-meal venture and not seen as a threat
- Review the current school and non-school activities; look at
curriculum
- List all potential collaborators; begin to integrate into the
school system
- Network as a group on a consistent basis (ENET)
Long-Term Steps
- Create collaborative curriculum that includes: health,
nutrition, hunger, environment, economy, risks, benefits, serves
school and non-school organizations, that promotes/preserves farm
lifestyles as defined by the participants
- Access and work closely with the media (community TV, radio
shows, newspapers)
- Create a speakers bureau
- Tie into land trusts
PROMOTING LOCAL FOOD (MARKETING)
(Jim Pitts, Kelly Erwin, Judy Gillan, Charlie Touchette, Tom
Clark, Mike Alterman, Dave Patterson, Dick McIntire, Dan Cooley,
Harvey Phelps, Gordon Williams, Ed McGlew)
Consensus Issues
- Buy local/better relationship with California
- Buy local/local support of farms (Massachusetts-grown or CSAs)
- Local self-reliance
- Local produce/local marketing
- Co-ops (PVGA, Greenfield's market)
- Integrated food and farming practices (growing->processing->marketing)
- Buy local/produce local campaign (value added)
- Consumer awareness --connection with farmers (PSAs, farmers'
markets and Food and Farm Council)
Short-Term Action Steps
- Develop a handbook (or handouts or newspaper column) to tell
how to create a local dinner club (buy local, have fun and cook
healthily at this once-a-month dinner)
- Plan a public service campaign ("In Valley")
- Develop an inventory/directory of organizations that are
already doing fine marketing
- Develop a business plan for the sake of promoting LOCAL
(develop one prong to suggest an InValley promotion (philosophy,
vision, concept), one for local marketing (product sales and targets
Valley residents), and one for outside-marketing (sale of Valley
logo elsewhere)
Long-Term Steps
- Implement the PSA (and campaign) utilized throughout the Valley
- Demand that agricultural and other conferences use locally
produced goods
- Develop a wholesale/retail marketing scheme using I-91 corridor
HEALTHY SUSTAINABLE LIVING
(Leslie Archer, Karen Sutherland, Tom Nielsen, Ted Watt, Rick Smith,
Jane Harris)
Consensus Issues
- Sustainable lifestyle -- changing economic values, composting,
reuse of buildings and land, resource conservation (both water and
energy)
- Quality of food and environment
- Rebuilding of community through economic conversion
- Interdependence of farm/community
- Promote healthy living and a stronger sense of community
(family/neighborhood clusters)
- Witness and access all community members
- What actions can we take that bring people together?
Short-Term Action Steps
Seed actions (connections with organizations that already exist)
- Promote volunteer farm labor/ open-farm days
- Promote links with NRCS (formerly SCS)
- Connect niche farmers with people who need/want them
- Link farmers with social-change organizations (be a liaison)
- Promote communication between farmers and regulators
- Start labeling movement for products: Who produced them? By
what methods? Pesticides? etc.
- Promote use of IPM
(Help needed from CISA, PVASA, NRCS,
farmer/regulator communications, Pure Foods coalition)
COMMON FUTURES
(Warren Facey, Tom Akin, Julia Freedgood, Nan Hunt, Robin Sherman)
Consensus Issues
- Save farmland and working farms (family farm trust)
- Survival of dairy farms
Short-Term Action Steps
- Contact state tax board with key studies
- Speak to dairy farmers about the tax-based benefits of farmland
and how to share this information with their communities
- Work with S.NE pasture-users group on pasture grazing and
alternative (need help from AFT and UMASS extension)
Long-Term Steps
- Encourage estate planning and farm transfers including
conservation option such as (APR)
- Identify attorneys who can help and share information in a
directory (help needed from estate planning experts who can explain
and teach option, funders for a workshop [CISA?], local attorneys
experienced with farm-transfer issues, funders for info
dissemination [CISA])
- Convince state tax board that open land is a benefit and they
need to disseminate this information back to local assessors so 61A
programs are administered fairly and consistently; educate local
assessors (help needed from experts in local tax, assessors, tax
board, farmland trust and legislators)
- Ensure the survival of dairy farming through increased
profitability (help needed from legislators, etc.)
FINANCING
(Annie Cheatham, Daniel Beaudette, Richard Bump, Mary Jane Bacon,
Ken Bergstrom, Stacey Begg, Herb Bernstein, Ed Bourgeois)
Consensus Issues
- Financial support for farmers
- Lower barriers for beginning farmers
- Create revolving loan fund
- Local financing
- Creative financing (Valley dollars)
- Involvement of local banks
Short- and Long-Term Action Steps
- Inventory the existing farm-financing sources
- Find a loan-broker who would create and market a portfolio of
traditional loans from a variety of farmers to banks
- Use procurement and large contracts as backing for loan
guarantees (possibly to work with the "Promote Local Food" group)
- Work on a business-tools/resources inventory
- Community trust (private revolving loan fund: Community Trust
and Cape Cod Resources)
- Deal with the farm capital issue
- Write to the Bar Association to find people to do pro bono work
- Pursue enterprise zone legislation issues
- Educate and collaborate with other action groups