Titled “Leading the Necessary [r]Evolution for Sustainable Food Systems,” the Summit seeks to answer the pivotal question: “How can we create regional food systems that are viable alternatives to the conventional one that exists now?” Among the food experts and leaders at the conference will be Sandor Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation, Gary Paul Nabhan, author of The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods, Tanya Fields, Executive Director of Bronx-based BLK ProjeK, and Karen Washington, a NYC-based community activist and recipient of Ebony magazine's 100 Influential African Americans.

The summit consists of two key events:

The Necessary [r]Evolution for Sustainable Food Systems Conference – On June 27, the public is invited to participate in a conference that highlights innovative ideas and initiatives for transforming the food system. This important event will inspire, focus, and strengthen individual and collective action for a sustainable food system. Topics covered will include food sovereignty, regional food systems, resilience, health, advocacy and more. To register or learn more, visit the public conference website. This event costs $25 per person and is open to the public; registration is required as this event sells out quickly.

Breakthrough Leaders Certificate Program for Sustainable Food Systems – A three-week long certificate program for emerging food leaders to learn about systemic issues and how to effect change on an individual and organizational level. This program includes online learning between June 10-22 and a week-long residential session on-campus June 23-28. Participants will also engage with a broad base of stakeholders through a public conference on June 27, and meet in a small group for deep dialogue with influential thought leaders on June 28. To apply or learn more, visit the Breakthrough Leaders website.

The summit is part of UVM’s Food Systems Initiative. The stated vision of the Food Systems Initiative is to develop solutions to pressing problems in food systems through world-class research, teaching and outreach. UVM’s approach integrates four central domains: 1) food, culture and health; 2) energy and food; 3) policy, ecology and land use; and 4) regional food chains. These domains reflect current
research and outreach strengths within the University. A recent survey of UVM research projects identified 149 food-systems-related projects.

The University of Vermont has a history of innovative solutions to building and maintaining sustainable food systems – and is itself situated within a state with a proven model of sustainable food systems. "Vermont and UVM are uniquely positioned to host The Food Systems Summit," said UVM President Tom Sullivan. "Vermont always has been a leader in innovative methods of natural food production and delivery systems, especially in the areas of farms to consumers. At UVM, our world-class academic community is actively engaged in aligning research in the classroom with a new generation of farmers who are rediscovering the benefits of local sustainable farming. As scholars and as practitioners, we know that local means healthy fresh food for all segments of our community."

In addition to the Food Systems Summit, the University of Vermont offers a Farmer Training Program, an entrepreneurial approach to small-scale farming; Sustainable Food Systems and Agriculture courses for undergraduates and graduates; and a Masters of Science degree in Food Systems. Additionally, Summer University offers more than two dozen courses centered on food systems through UVM
Continuing Education.

To register for the University of Vermont Food Systems Summit programs, conference, or general course information, please visit learn.uvm.edu/foodsystems.

Connect with UVM Food Systems on our blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Poppendieck is professor of sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (University of California Press, 2010), in which she outlines the problems and inefficiencies with the National School Lunch Program and proposes universal free school meals regardless of family income level as the solution. Statewide anti-hunger organization Hunger Free Vermont is building a coalition to advocate for just such a model in Vermont. Coalition partners include Vermont’s strong Farm to School Network and School Nutrition Association.

Despite recent progress, 27,000 — or one in five children — in the state lives in a food insecure household. Although schools offer free and reduced price lunches to low-income students, many eligible students do not participate, and participation can be stigmatizing for students who do. Additionally, the administrative costs of operating a three-tiered school meal program are significant.

Poppendieck will outline how providing free meals to all students will help schools, improve student education, behavior and health, and support Vermont’s farm economy at the same time. Hunger Free Vermont Executive Director Marissa Parisi hopes that this collaboration between nonprofits and UVM’s Food Systems and Women’s and Gender Studies Programs will jumpstart the movement to make Vermont the first state in the nation to provide universal school meals. “It’s time to fundamentally transform the school food system, so that we can end childhood hunger, and transform health and learning outcomes for the next generation,” says Parisi. “As is so often the case, I believe Vermont is the state to lead the way.”

Poppendieck is featured in A Place at the Table, a new documentary about hunger in America. Her other books include: Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement (Penguin, 1999) and Breadlines Knee Deep in Wheat: Food Assistance in the Great Depression (Rutgers University Press, 1985). She won the James Beard Foundation's Leadership award in 2011 for her work on poverty, hunger and food assistance.

The event is co-sponsored by UVM Women’s and Gender Studies Program, UVM Food Systems Initiative, UVM Food Systems Master’s Program, Hunger Free Vermont, VT FEED and Shelburne Farms.

The award, named in honor of the late John Finley, a respected agricultural educator and Vermont community member, recognizes an individual who has performed distinguished service to Vermont Agriculture and exhibits the outstanding character and mental vigor exemplified by Finley.

“Bob is man I’m sure my dad would have been proud to have as a colleague and a friend,” said Kate Finley Woodruff, an MPA Adjunct Professor and daughter of John Finley. Both John Finley and Parsons studied at Penn State University, received PhD’s in Agricultural Economics, and had years of dedicated experience to the dairy industry, farm management and profitability.

Parsons’ greatest contributions to the agricultural industry have been made in Vermont. His accomplishments include securing more than $8 million in grants, conducting agricultural research on turning cow manure into electricity, and evaluating Vermont grass-based livestock farm policy.

However, Parsons’ agricultural economics work spans international boundaries, including Albania, Kenya and Zambia, where he worked with farmers on dairy management, increased profitability and financial training.

“I love my work because it ties together so many different aspects of the dairy sector, from technology and business to community planning,” Parsons said. “It keeps what I do very refreshing.”

Parsons currently teaches Agricultural Policy and Ethics in the Community Development and Applied Economics department.

Then Berlin — a professor in UVM’s Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences and director of UVM's Center for Sustainable Agriculture — and Limoges — UVM class of 2012 and now a graduate student in dietetics — move on to collect data about the skim milk. Next up: frozen broccoli.

At the other end of the small store, Bill McMaster, a UVM Extension professor, gathers information about bread. Whole-wheat and white? Lowest prices? Brand? Two or three shoppers move through the aisles with blue hand-baskets, looking quizzically at these researchers with clipboards.

“We’re interested in figuring out how to get more healthy, affordable, and regionally produced foods into markets like this one,” says Berlin.

As a first step, they want to know more about the price and supply of eight foods that are for sale here — a “market basket,” they call it, that includes ground beef (lean or not), broccoli (with or without cheese sauce), and peaches (canned with sugar or not). And they want to talk with local people who come to the store — to learn how they get (or fail to get) food now.

Into the desert

Outside, fine snow sweeps out of the spruce-fir woods and down Cross Street, the wide road through town. It’s cold and quiet; just a few people are out, readjusting snowmobiles on their trailer. It doesn’t look like a desert.

Yet, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Island Pond is a kind of desert. A food desert.

Defining a food desert is an inexact science at best, but the basic point is clear: these are communities with many low-income people — and few or no places to buy affordable, healthy food.

In the Ted’s Market parking lot, Island Pond resident Melanie Yasharian holds a small bag of groceries. “I just came in to pick up a couple of items,” she says — and patiently answers questions being asked by Kristyn Achilich — a graduate student in UVM’s new food systems master’s program — about her food buying habits and challenges.

Done with the survey, Yasharian volunteers to tell me her story: how she works hard to feed her two children, ages 2 and 3, now waiting in the car.

“I feel very lucky, “ she says with a broad smile as the wind whips snow and grit over our heads, “we have a large garden, we do a lot of canning, we started a root cellar this year, we freeze a lot, and we raise all our own meat; we don’t buy any meat at the store. We raise chickens, turkeys, and pigs, and my husband is a hunter and so we have venison,” she says.

But it’s not easy. “I do find it hard in town to get a variety of vegetables or fruits,” she says, and, “it’s extremely expensive to eat healthy and to provide your kids with healthy and with a variety.”

Where to shop?

And many of her neighbors probably have a harder time than she does. According to USDA statistics, all of the people who live in and around Island Pond, 1,260 people, have “low access” to food — meaning that a large grocery store is not within easy driving distance. Melanie Yasharian says she drives to St. Johnsbury, 20 miles away, to do some grocery shopping.

Of these 1,260 people, 241 of them, about 20 percent, are low-income. Many have limited transportation to get to the store, which means if they’re going grocery shopping at all, it’s likely to be at Ted’s Market or the other small food store two blocks down, at the other end of the commercial district. Here, Kingdom Market has a large “Welcome Ice Fishermen” sign inside the front entrance.

Kingdom Market sells many of the same foods and brands as Ted’s. And this is not surprising. Both stores are supplied by the same out-of-Vermont distributor.

Heading the other way on Route 114/105 out of Island Pond, it’s not too many miles to Interstate 91, and, from there, south to Boston and global markets beyond. And that’s the route, except in reverse, that much of the food that fills these stores’ shelves traveled.

“We have these two independently owned stores in Island Pond that are a component of our research,” Berlin says, noting that the owners of both stores have been willing partners and supporters of the project. These are the only two grocery stores in all of Essex County, the least populous county in New England, deep in the heart of Vermont’s famed Northeast Kingdom.

Food security

Unlike a spate of recent efforts to simply improve what is available at stores — so-called “healthy retailer” projects — Berlin’s research is far broader and more complex.

Island Pond is one of nine sites, three rural and six urban, throughout the Northeast that are being studied under the leadership of Stephan Goetz, a professor at Penn State. Drawing experts from the USDA and several universities, including UVM’s Linda Berlin and her students, the team’s goal is to enhance what they call “food security” in “underserved” places — often poor, urban neighborhoods — in a new way.

The researchers want to link what have often been seen as separate problems. On the one hand, 12 percent of the population in the Northeast, more than seven million people, are food insecure, according to the USDA. This means they face a challenge getting healthy, affordable food — and all the health problems, like obesity, hunger, and diabetes that are associated with this challenge.

On the other hand, regional farmers are struggling to stay in business, the land base for agriculture in the Northeast continues to decline, and a large percentage of fruits and vegetables eaten here — that can be grown in the Delaware-to-Maine corridor — are transported from farms in the Midwest, California, Mexico, and other parts of the world, using large amounts of fuel.

The researchers want to show that both problems can — and maybe need to be — addressed together. They’re exploring the entire supply chain, from farmer to distributor to retailer to consumer. The plan: build a powerful model of how the whole system works. The hope: enhance the supply and availability of foods grown in the Northeast region.

“Why are there not more regionally produced foods in these stores?” Berlin wonders. “We’re looking for the pressure points,” she says.

“We’re taking a systems approach,” she says. “If your supplier is in Boston, let’s go to the supplier and find out how they decide what to carry.”

“We can tighten the scale of the food system,” says Achilich, to help both low-income consumers on one end and farmers on the other. In an era of climate change and water shortages, the research team is testing the idea that regionally produced food — in place of globally produced foods — can alleviate environmental problems while improving food access and affordability for struggling communities.

This is the end of the second year of a five-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture — and a key first step of building an insightful model of the food system, Berlin says, is listening carefully to the people who are buying the food.

Near the shopping carts at Kingdom Market, Kristyn Achilich is collecting more information with help from life-long Island Pond resident Bill Hawkins. He’s been working with the UVM team, reaching out to his friends and neighbors as they come in and out of the store, explaining the research project. They’ve been listening carefully to Sherman Allen, who came in “to get a few incidentals,” he tells me. He drove to the store from the settlement of West Charleston, eleven miles away.

“Here are some of our trees,” she says with a hint of a smile.

It’s conventional plastic tubing used in the maple syrup business. Each stretch is connected to a black spout sticking out of the side of a tree. Then the chest-high tubes run gently downhill, pulling sap, under vacuum pressure, to collecting tanks. Everything here looks like a modern maple sugarbush.

'Except the trees. They’re not maples. They’re birches. “It’s odd, isn’t it?” she says.

Up a long dirt driveway, off Route 7, in Leicester, Kevin New and his cousin have converted an old goat barn into a sugarhouse. “As you can see, we don’t win awards for the looks of our shack,” he says, laughing, “but we have won awards for our maple syrup.” A sweet steam rises off the evaporator pan and he runs a skimmer through boiling sap. Along one wall he’s tacked a pair of blue ribbons from the Addison County Fair. Against the back window, stand two neat rows of mason jars filled with rich reddish syrup.

Except the syrup isn’t maple syrup. It’s birch syrup.

These may be the only two places in Vermont where birch trees are tapped.

“I heard though Facebook that there is a guy up in Franklin County who was going to try it,” New says, looking out the window, “but as far I know I’m the first one.”

What’s in Birch?

If Abby van den Berg’s uncanny research project comes back with promising results, she expects to see more Vermont maple sugarmakers adding birch syrup production into their business.

Her two-year project proposal earned an $80,307 grant from the Northeastern States Research Cooperative because of its potential to offer integrated solutions to the social, economic and ecological challenges in the Northern Forest. In April 2012, van den Berg, her colleagues Tim Perkins and Mark Isselhardt and her work-study student Teague Henkle ’14, collected sap and data from 40 birch trees in five research plots. They didn’t actually boil much of the sap into syrup – just enough to make sure it tasted right. What they really want to learn is how much sap — and sugar — birch trees produce. Van den Berg interpreted the spring 2012 data during the rest of the year and will do another round of collection this spring, weather willing.

“We want to see whether there is enough sugar produced by birches here in Vermont, using modern tools and techniques — like vacuum and reverse osmosis — to make a profitable addition to an established maple operation,” she says.

“We don’t know a lot about birch here in the Northeast,” she says, “How long is the season? How much sap do different size trees make? How much sugar will they yield? How many trees and taps would you need to be profitable?”

What’s it Worth?

Kevin New is asking himself the same questions and he’s talked with van den Berg on the phone about what they’re both learning.

Birch sap is more watery than maple sap. Typically, 40 to 60 gallons of maple sap yield one gallon of syrup. For birch sap, it’s well over a hundred gallons to one. “I’m averaging 116 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup,” New says.

This adds a tremendous amount of fuel and time to the syrup-making equation — which is one of the reasons birch syrup is rare. There are four commercial producers in Alaska, a few in British Columbia and other parts of Canada and one established maker in New Hampshire.

But the other side of the scale is this: Alaskan birch syrup is now selling for $78 per quart. One major producer there sells gallons for $328. New is testing his prices at $50 per quart. 

“Is it worth it? Will people buy it?” he says. “That’s what I need to find out.”

He’s given samples to chefs at two restaurants, he’s telling his friends and he’s letting anyone who stops by take a taste for free.

If you take a spoonful of birch syrup expecting some taste cousin to maple syrup, think again.

“I wouldn’t ruin a pancake with it,” New says, with a broad grin as he opens three small jars (from his three boiling runs to date) for sampling.

“When you say syrup, for some reason, people think of maple. It’s not!” New says. “I think it’s fruity, myself. Some people call it tangy. Some call it spicy.”

A taste from the first jar seems overly sharp with a strange after-flavor, but the second is better, delicious: sharp and sweet, with a citrusy edge. The third is the sweetest but not as interesting.

New starts to list recipes he’s heard of for birch syrup:“you’ll find it in sauces and glazes. They use it on salmon, seared scallops, glaze on chickens. You can make a pecan pie out of it,” he says. “I have a friend down the street making birch bars instead of maple bars.”

Crazy weather

Abby van den Berg, a research assistant professor in UVM’s plant biology department, would like to know whether birch products can be produced just as the maple season is wrapping up, adding to producers’ bottom line. Maple sap runs when it’s freezing at night and warmer by day. Birch sap, driven by root pressure rather than stem pressure, only starts to run when it stays above freezing in the spring. For a typical year in Vermont, this means late March into April.

But 2012 was atypical, mid March registered a record-breaking 86 degrees at the Proctor Center followed by weeks of cold and a short sap run. “This year may be a dud, but I don’t expect this project to be a dud,” van den Berg says. “I expect the numbers for this will work out.” Part of the reason for her optimism is that birch syrup production could use a great deal of the equipment already in place in an existing maple operation, “your evaporator, your sap tanks, your pumps,” van den Berg says.

“Birch trees are already present in a lot of sugarbushes,” van den Berg says. Ambitious sugarmakers could follow up their six or eight weeks of maple syrup making with two or three weeks of birch. And that would have ecological benefits too. “If birch become a species of value,” she says, “producers are more likely to want to keep them and thus keep more diversity in our forests.”

Maple syrup production seems as established a part of northern New England as, well, maple syrup on pancakes. But it’s under threat. The cost of owning land is rising, as is fuel, and other production costs. Climate change too poses a threat as the sugaring season gets shorter and the long-term viability of maples comes into question.

“We’ve had calls and interest about birch from producers all over the place,” van den Berg says. “They’re very keen to find things that will extend the season, make a little extra money — and just experiment with something new. That’s the culture of maple producers.”

Like undergraduate Teague Henkle who is helping van den Berg on the experiment. “To be honest, I’m not a big fan of how birch syrup tastes,” he says, “but it’s really interesting to be part of adding a whole new business in Vermont.”

In 2003, when he was in the thick of writing American Farmstead Cheese: The Complete Guide to Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses, he knew he needed a little historical context to help new farmstead cheesemakers understand the big picture. But Kindstedt easily realized that the 9,000-year history of cheese was an important story to connect today’s traditional cheesemakers with their ancient roots. What Paul Kindstedt didn’t realize is that writing that history would change the direction of his research 180 degrees.

Nine years and more than 250 pages later, in 2012, his Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and its Place in Western Civilization was published. This big cheese bible is a textbook, a rich backgrounder for cheese connoisseurs, a handbook for cheesemakers, a lens through which to understand history and "worth your time," high praise from "The Atlantic" magazine.

“It highlights the unique stories of traditional cheeses and thereby adds to their specialness, which is crucial for cheeses to command high prices in the marketplace,” Kindstedt says. “Several high profile cheesemongers have told me that Cheese and Culture helps them to sell artisan cheeses, and that's good for Vermont artisan cheesemakers.”

Great timing: in December, an interdisciplinary team of scholars published in the prestigious journal, “Nature,” a major discovery dating the earliest definitive evidence of cheesemaking at 5,500 B.C. in what is now Poland. As a result, Kindstedt receives requests from journalists worldwide for his comments and expertise. Kindstedt even became an animated cartoon at the hand of famed Fast Draw “investigative Cartoonist” Mitch Butler for CBS Sunday Morning on January 20.

Kindstedt built that expertise, over 26 years at UVM specializing in the chemistry, biochemistry, structure and function of cheese. Most notably, by figuring out the science behind eradicating naturally occurring calcium crystals that form on cheese, he helped major industrial cheese manufacturers produce smooth, uniform products for mass markets.

But by 2005, with the publication of American Farmstead Cheese and as co-director of UVM's Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese, Kindstedt was at the forefront of a burgeoning movement.  In 2011 he earned a Hatch Research Incentive grant to shift his research goals toward cheesemakers specializing in small-batch, farmstead cheeses, while building on the considerable body of research he had already accomplished.

The ‘Snowflake Bentley of Cheese’

And now, radically, he’s looking at cheese crystals in quite the opposite way.

“My previous work was all about eradicating crystals – the new work is to take that base of knowledge and look at crystals as the signature of traditional cheesemaking practices and their nature,” Kindstedt says. “The hypothesis is that traditional cheeses are much more prone to forming various types crystals because of the way they’re made and aged. ”

“In European cheeses, crystals are seen as a characteristic of proper aging, a cheese without crystals will tell you the cheese wasn’t aged for as long as it should have – it’s too young a cheese for the price,” chimes in Gil Tansman, Kindstedt’s graduate student working alongside him.

That’s what these researchers will need to demonstrate scientifically and then convince artisan cheesemakers and their customers.

And they’ve found the resources for this scientific inquiry in what, at a glance, may seem two unlikely places: UVM’s geology lab and UVM College of Medicine.

It is Tansman, says Kindstedt, who on his own initiative came up with some completely unexpected tools for studying cheese crystals – tools he found in Professor John Hughes’ geology laboratory.

“The tools and techniques John Hughes uses to study moon rocks, are useful to the study of cheese,” says Tansman. The pride of the Hughes lab is an x-ray diffractometer, which irradiates crystals causing beams to diffract in specific ways. By measuring the angles of the beams, a researcher can determine the identity and atomic and molecular structure of a crystal. Combining that information with various forms of microscopy, he can create a picture of the crystal. More on that picture later.

“The amount of probing power Professor Hughes uses hasn’t been used for food science before,” says Tansman. “While he is examining an extremely well crystallized piece from a mountain, we study a less well crystallized organic substrate and a more transient matrix, still we find that there’s an overlap. We may have to try harder, to find the right samples, press them properly and deal with instrumentation, but at the end of the day, the information is there if we use the techniques developed by other disciplines.” Tansman’s x-ray crystallography patterns suggest that each kind of cheese displays unique crystals.

Meanwhile, Kindstedt has asked the staff in UVM Medical College’s Microscopy Imaging Center to train Tansman this semester to use its electron microscopy instruments. ‘Some of the same equipment used to study cancer cells, such as dissecting microscopy platforms, are fantastic for cheese,” says Kindstedt.

Kindstedt is excited to see “food science research drawing bits and pieces from both geology and medicine,” in the same way that his books draw from the fields of archaeology and anthropology to bring new understanding and information to the very core characteristics that define artisan cheese.

What’s more, those cheese crystal images from the geology lab turn out to be, well, art, not unlike the famous snowflake images first photographed by Vermonter Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley in the early 1900s.

"Gil Tansman is the Snowflake Bentley of Cheese," says Kindstedt. "Gil is making it possible to see those crystals at the microscopic level – they’re really a thing of beauty – that’s what Snowflake Bentley was doing. Crystals show off some of the attributes that make these cheeses so desirable – their hand-craftedness – it’s a signature to be celebrated. And if you look at that at the microscopic level we show people that these are works of art.”

Between 2000 and 2010, Vermont’s Latino population grew 24 times faster than its overall population, and the two largest dairy producing counties, Addison and Franklin, tallied 73 and 111 percent increases respectively. That said, the actual numbers are small – an estimated 1,200-1,500 workers in a state of 626,000 people. Still, this represents a significant demographic shift for a state where Spanish is rarely spoken.

“Public concern about how migrant workers were being treated was raised in 2009 when a young Mexican worker was killed in an accident on a Vermont dairy farm. This accident highlighted the lack of objective data about how workers are faring in Vermont,” Dan Baker wrote in the “Journal of Agromedicine” in an article published in July 2012.

“Little is known about who these workers are, how they view dairy farm employment, or how they differ from dairy farm workers who from Vermont and what their health needs are,” says Baker a UVM assistant professor of community development and applied economics. That’s why he, research specialist David Chappelle are among the UVM faculty and staff who are conducting several studies and programs.

RESULTS MAY INFORM POLICY, CHANGE

Baker’s three-year, $60,000, USDA Hatch-funded project, which ended in 2010, tried to understand the broader issues faced by dairy farm labor in Vermont. Through surveys, analysis of secondary data and collaboration with partner organizations, he’s gathered statistics such as those below that build a picture of the state of Vermont’s work force. Most importantly, it includes the perspectives of both farm managers and farm workers and how they affect Vermont’s economy and communities. For example:

• 78 percent, of farmers surveyed believe that there is a shortage of domestic labor.
• Hispanic workers put in more hours than their domestic counterparts, 70 compared to 50 hours a week, and say they want to put in more hours.
• Although few farmers speak Spanish and few workers speak English, farmers report being pleased with their Hispanic workers and 90 percent of workers report they’re satisfied with their jobs and felt they were treated well.
• The main concern farmers expressed about hiring Hispanic workers was potential legal repercussions.
• The greatest challenge most workers report is isolation. And other studies point to workers suffering from a number of work-related injuries and diseases and high levels of depression and anxiety.

“The results of this study will contribute to a more detailed understanding of the situation faced by the state's farming sector and the policy alternatives available to address agricultural labor issues,” says Baker. “It is also of use to other states and regions facing similar changes in their farm labor work force.”

Baker has delivered survey findings at an annual roundtable discussion on the state of Vermont’s agricultural work force, testified before Vermont Senate and House committees, written articles and delivered remarks at conferences and meetings such as the Northeast Organic Farming Winter Conference, Vermont Farm Bureau annual meeting and to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture.

The need for further research and discussion can only continue as does the increase in the Latino population and the need for solutions to make Vermont’s agricultural work force just and sustainable. In 2011, he led a one-year project investigating migrant health issues in Vermont. In 2012, Baker received a two-year, $30,000 USDA Hatch fund grant to study anxiety and depression among migrant farm workers.

Because omega-3 fatty acids and selenium have been recognized as nutrients of high biological value that impart health benefits, they represent promising functional food components enriched in milk and dairy products. Diets rich in these nutrients have been shown to be significant in lowering cholesterol and the risk of heart attacks.

“There is growing interest in the development of functional milk and dairy products to maximize their contribution to health promotion and disease prevention,” says Kraft.

Her two-year project began in October 2011, funded by $150,000 from UVM’s Dairy Center of Excellence. “For the current project, the plants for the oil to feed the cows were grown in Canada,” Kraft explains. “However, I’d like to see the plants grown in Vermont to encourage sustainable agriculture here.”  To incorporate the bonus of locally grown cattle feed part of the project, Kraft will ask grant funders to extend the project an additional year.

She’s supplemented her initial project with a $60,000 three-year Hatch Project ending in 2015 to test her hypothesis on an animal model and additionally “look at the cow level, that is, the objective is to improve the overall health of the cow through feeding omega-3 fatty acids,” she says.

NOT SO SIMPLE, BUT WORTH IT

Why not just add omega-3 fatty acids to milk and yogurt and skip running it through the cow altogether?

“The omega-3 fatty acids could be simply incorporated into the products,” Kraft concedes, “but one of our major goals is also to improve the cow's health, so with one strategy we will accomplish two goals: improving the healthfulness of milk and enhancing the health of the dairy cow.” Then there’s the suspended fat. “If you add fats to dairy products, you will need to emulsify it into the product,” she says. “A 'naturally enriched' product may be more appealing to or accepted by the consumer.”  Last but not least, there are a number of reasons having to do with milk chemistry. “Milk fats' composition is unique, for example, the milk fat globule membrane contains bioactive substances by itself. Milk fat is easy to digest and has a unique and desirable texture and flavor,” Kraft explains. “By simply adding the omega-3 fatty acids and/or removing milk fat, you may alter the typical and desirable flavor and texture of milk and the way it performs in recipes.”

Unfortunately, one can’t just feed cattle, say, fish oil, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, because the oil is toxic to the bacteria in the rumen that digest the feed in the cattle’s stomach, Kraft explains. Also, the rumen bacteria convert unsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids – the opposite of our goal of adding healthful fatty acids to the diets of both cows and humans.

One “work-around” this obstacle is to add encapsulated rumen-protected oil to the feed. But ultimately, Kraft believes she will come up with a novel rumen-protected, feed source that is high in specific omega-3 fatty acids, will be good for cows that eat it and the beneficial acids will be present in their milk. To that end, she analyzes the milk for lipids and fatty acid analysis using gas chromatography to test variables such as what feed offers the highest levels of omega 3’s and what is the lowest dose cattle must receive for the benefits to show.

In related research, Kraft recently submitted a proposal to the New England Dairy Promotion Board/Vermont Dairy Promotion Council to collaborate with UVM College of Medicine to improve understanding of the role of milk fat from whole milk as an integral part of a balanced diet and its efficacy in modulating risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome. This study will be a human intervention trial.

Kraft feels that “milk fat is getting a bad rap. Milk fat contains a unique variety of bioactive fatty acids that may account for beneficial effects of milk fat. Whole-milk dairy products are an important part of a healthful diet. Balance is what is important,” she says.

“Many researchers focus on developing new products for the market, but overlook human nutrition as a component of those products,” says Kraft, who is an assistant professor of animal science. “My work is the interface between animal science and human nutrition.”

“Dr. Kraft’s research is innovative and timely with its focus on making dairy foods even more healthful in a natural way, and it fits with the multi-disciplinary expertise of the department in that it looks to improve both animal and human health,” says André-Denis Wright chair of animal science in UVM’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

This fall, students in a Community Development and Applied Economics research methods class (CDAE 250) surveyed the student body to determine their beverage preferences in an effort to help inform the University’s soon to come water bottle ban, effective January 1, 2013.

CDAE 250, taught by professor David Conner, had students conduct field research, literature reviews, interviews and surveys as part of their work with service-learning partner, UVM’s Office of Sustainability.

This Office was interested in clarifying UVM students’ perspectives on the water bottle ban — specifically defined as the elimination of all “plain, flat, unflavored bottled water” sales on campus. While this was a significant step towards UVM becoming more environmentally responsible, drafting this policy was not an easy process.

In the original policy of the water bottle ban, smartwater was not included because it had minerals removed and then added back in with electrolytes, putting it into a different category from plain water.

Through qualitative and quantitative research done by the CDAE 250 students that gauged over 900 UVM students’ preferences, results showed that UVM students opposed the exclusion of smartwater from the ban.

Gioia Thompson, head of the Office of Sustainability and the students’ main contact, listened to these results and advocated for smartwater to be included in the ban.

“In the drafting of this policy, we had heard a lot of different ideas going around about how to best implement this ban,” said Thompson. “Being able to take part in this service-learning experience, where the students themselves became experts in the field helped to clearly and confidently express through research what needed to be done.”

“Because this was an issue that students had a personal stake in, they were genuinely very interested in the research, which led to students actually owning the project,” Conner explained. “Students saw Gioia’s commitment as our service-learning partner, who came in for several meetings with the class throughout the semester.” 

On November 30, Richard Cate, Vice President for Finance and Administration at UVM, declared that “smartwater is the same as bottled water,” according to an email from the Office of Sustainability.

The intention was always that all unflavored water be taken out of the system, Cate said in an interview. 

"The bottom line is smartwater will not be for sale on campus and for me that was not a difficult decision to make," he said.

“Seeing our results already making a difference by adding smartwater to the ban is very satisfying. Through this relationship we formed with Gioia at the Office of Sustainability, we had a real input into this policy,” Ajla Afizi, CDAE senior, said. “That is what made this service-learning class so mutually beneficial.”

The Office of Sustainability is hosting a water bottle retirement party this Wednesday, December 5th from noon to 2 pm in the Davis Center Atrium. The party will feature speakers, games, taste tests, discounted water bottles and additional information about the ban of bottled water sales on campus.

Additional reporting contributed by Danielle Bilotta. Updated 12/10/12.

As philosophers are wont to do, he made his points Socratically, by asking audience members how they would react to a series of progressively thorny ethical dilemmas.

“There's a girl drowning in a puddle outside the Davis Center,” he began, gazing innocently at the audience. "Should you save her?" Of course, a woman near the front replied. “What if the puddle was very deep?” he added. Still yes. “What if it was burning hot, like lava,” he elaborated impishly. A nodding affirmative. “If it paralyzed you from the waist down?” Yes, again. “Is there any cost you would not pay?” he asked the impressively altruistic audience member with a smile, after pausing for effect.

Doggett's drift, in part, was to unpack an unspoken assumption behind an Economist cover story that had caught his attention titled “Feeding the World.” Unexamined by the magazine, Doggett pointed out, was the question of whether we should feed the world, especially when the many and varied costs of such an endeavor were taken into account.

“Everyone thinks you should save the child if there’s no cost,” he said, returning to his example. “It becomes significantly less plausible if you jack the cost up.”

But his real point was about the need for transdisciplinarity in addressing problems, including those related to the food system.

“Philosophy has nothing to say about what the costs are, but a lot to say about whether or not you should pay them,” he said. “Philosophy is important, but it’s not enough.” For example, an agro-economist, like Doggett’s fellow faculty member Ernesto Mendez, might be a good partner in integrating the “should” and “how” elements of the Economist cover story.

Such transdisciplinary coalitions of the willing –  where to find them, how to build them, how to make them work – were the theme of the day at the symposium, titled “The Cultivation of Collaboration: Increasing Our Impact on the Food System.”

“That’s OK”

Partnerships can evolve almost serendipitously, said John Barlow, assistant professor of animal science, who spoke about a new transdisciplinary project he participates in that addresses artisanal cheesemakers’ ability to minimize food safety risks and understand consumer needs. The project's six-member team includes Catherine Donnelly in nutrition and food science, an expert in foodborne pathogens; Jane Hill in engineering, an environmental engineer who focuses on microbial activity; and David Conner, an agricultural economist in the department of community development and applied economics.

Barlow met Donnelly through normal channels – both are faculty members in animal, nutrition and food sciences graduate program and colleagues in UVM's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. But he met Conner at a new faculty oriention and Hill through the Vermont Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases (COBRE).

“Some of it was dumb luck and random chance,” Barlow said. “That’s OK. Another way to look at that is you’re watching and thinking about what’s going on, and identifying potential opportunities for future use.”

Power of partnering

Another presentation given by Linda Berlin, director of UVM’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture, was all about the power of partnering. Her project addresses how better to serve so called “food deserts” – places where people, often of low-income, have limited access to grocery stores and limited transportation, and so are "food insecure" in a variety of ways. Her research is part of a large USDA grant involving several schools, including UVM. 

The goal of the grant is to improve access to healthy food for underserved populations by better understanding what a regional food system means and how it works. The project encompasses nine communities in the Northeast, including Essex County in Vermont where it focuses on two independent grocery stores.

Ultimate transdisciplinarity

In the last presentation of the day, Amy Trubek, associate professor of nutrition and food sciences, gave an overview on the new food systems masters degree program. It is one of the most transdisciplinary programs on campus. 

Thirty faculty members affiliated with the program are doing many kinds of food systems research, she said, from the work Jane Kolidinsky, chair of community development and applied economics, is doing on obesity; to work by Chris Koliba, director of the master's in public administration program, on food systems policy. Students can work with any faculty member in the program, which is both an opportunity and, given their large number, a challenge. Discussions are under way, she said, to improve ways for faculty and graduate students to find one another.

The symposium also included a panel of representatives from Green Mountain College, Vermont Technical College and Vermont Law School on opportunities for cross-institutional collaboration. The symposium's keynote speaker, Wouter Van Hoven, who was to speak about African food security, was stranded in Boston by Hurricane Sandy. Diane Imrie, director of food services at Fletcher Allen Health Care, took his place. 

Douglas Lantagne, dean of UVM Extension and interim director of the Food Systems Spire, said he was very happy with the symposium, which was attended by about 100 people, but he is eager to do more. “When you get people together to network, great things come out of it,” he said. “I have to figure out how to do that more frequently, not just at the Food Summit and the Food Symposium. That’s what I’m going to be working on – more frequency and less logistical planning.”

But wait a minute. Words can't begin to describe the way photographs do how students, faculty and staff welcomed visitors and how much fun families and alumni had, so let's cut right to the SLIDE SHOW of cute animals and children and folks you know. Then read on, if you will.

On Friday in classes as complex as Laura Almstead's Survey of Biochemistry and Jenny Wilkinson's Horse Health and Disease, parents were spotted in the back rows. One anonymous couple who had majored in chemistry and biology respectively admitted they wanted to see if they could actually understand what their daughter was learning. An animated Almstead walked up and down the aisles waving her arms, challenging students to commit to answers with their iClickers, then shook her head, urging them to talk it over, do better. She could instantly see their choices on computer screen.

Saturday's rain made the indoor chat with Dean Tom Vogelmann all the more popular as dozens stopped by to hear about the College's continued rapid growth to 1,245 undergraduate and 146 graduate students this year, $3.1 million in research grants brought to the College by its scientists and some of the state-of-the art facilities where even undergrads can conduct research with their mentors in addition to classroom learning. But talk was informal. Families from Washington, Oregon, California flew to Vermont to see how their first-year students were doing. The answer was: doing very well. Alumni like John Vanderpol of Hudson, Massachusetts and Steve Hancock from Dartmouth, Massachusetts came back to campus to see old friends, former professors and how the place has changed. The both graduated in Plant and Soil Science in 1987. 

But a hub of activity was the UVM Farms where cattle and horses were on display and equestrian demonstrations were a hit even with folks not familiar with agriculture.

Thousands of visitors converged on campus for Reunion and Homecoming. Many came to see the ceremonial installation of Thomas Sullivan as the University of Vermont's 26th president on Friday, Oct. 5.

But in 2003, when he was in the thick of writing American Farmstead Cheese: The Complete Guide to Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses, he knew he need a little historical context to help new farmstead cheesemakers today understand the big picture. But Kindsted easily realized that the 9,000-year history of cheese was, well, it's another story. He knew there was an important story to tell, one that would connect today’s traditional cheesemakers with their ancient roots, but it would require much deeper research.

Nine years and more than 250 pages later he tells that story in the recently published, Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and its Place in Western Civilization. This big cheese bible is not only a textbook, but a rich backgrounder for cheese aficionados, handbook for cheesemakers, lens through which to understand history and "worth your time," according to critics such as "The Atlantic" magazine.

Kindstedt's expertise is, according to his curriculum vitae, in the technology of cheesemaking physicochemical and biochemical processes that influence the functional characteristics of mozzarella. He built his career helping large industrial cheese producers perfect their products for a mass market.

But Kindstedt began to change course in 2005 with the publication of American Farmstead Cheese and his role as co-director of UVM's Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese.

Helping small producers flourish became the rationale for following a trail of sometimes obscure references to cheese in art, religion, literature, classics, archeochemistry, archeoclimatology and more.… areas both foreign and thrilling to Kindstedt. Wherever a specialist in one of these areas made a passing reference to cheese, the scientist, looking through “a different set of eyes,” found a piece of his complex puzzle (“Whoa, that’s global climate change shifting the whole direction of cheesemaking in Europe!” he said, as an example). Eventually, painstakingly he built, for instance, the first comprehensive narrative of when, how and why hard sheep pecorino cheese was developed in one region and soft-ripened cow’s milk cheeses in another.

Kindstedt tells the reader how the landscape, the climate, the economy, the politics shaped the cheese and, equally so, how cheese came to shape the cultural identity of the people and the place where it’s made. It’s not an understatement, Kindstedt says: “Cheese helped shaped everything in terms of who we are.”

Like Salt: A World History, Spice: The History of a Temptation, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World,  and several other comprehensive nonfiction history books on the likes of sugar, chocolate and even the banana, published since the new milennium, Cheese and Culture postulates that this food changed the course of history.

Molding tradition

Kindstedt's tale of cheesemaking began around 7000 B.C. as devastating overuse of land in the once Fertile Crescent of western Asia began to be used for grazing ruminant animals instead of growing crops. The advent of pottery allowed for collecting milk combined with the realization that adults (then universally lactose intolerant) could consume dairy foods if coagulated and the whey was drawn off —  cheese became a food staple.

Jumping forward several millennia, Kindstedt argues that the Roman Empire lasted 500 years, at least in part, because Romans were accomplished cheesemakers. “The reason why they were able to hold these vast areas,” he says, “is because when they set up a fort or new province they immediately established an agricultural installation. They took the technology of sheep milk cheesemaking — and wool production for blankets and clothing — and made that the basis of a military provisioning network that enabled them to permanently station a half million troops on a 10,000-mile border.”

A favorite example of Kindstedt’s that gets to the synergy between the place and the cheese is the rugged alpine cheeses of central Europe. That story begins around the start of the fourth millennium B.C. when there was a dramatic global climate shift that led to long, severe winters and warmer wetter summers in this part of Europe, wreaking havoc on the Neolithic peoples huddled in the river valleys along the Danube and the Rhine, most of the land being too heavily forested to cultivate crops or graze animals. But over the long term, the extreme cold caused forestlands to thin, enabling people to move to higher ground, clear and cultivate fields. It also caused tree lines to recede down alpine slopes as much as a thousand vertical feet. By 2500 B.C. there’s evidence of people moving animals up the mountaintops to graze in the summer, turning their milk into hard cheese to stockpile for the winter while cultivating crops below.

What began, then, as a survival strategy became an embedded part of the culture in many parts of Austria and Switzerland. “It persists to this day,” says Kindstedt, “because it’s part of local life, part of local identity. The movement of the animals up in the spring becomes this enormous cultural celebration  — when they come back down there’s another celebration. It’s part of the identity of the people themselves.”

Kindstedt believes that Americans have historically missed out on this deep connection between place and food that is demonstrated throughout the pages of his book, Cheese and Culture. “Those traditional technologies that did arrive (in America) from Europe were changed as the cheese industry changed,” he says. Americans’ lack of a shared identity around food, Kindstedt believes, is due to its relentlessly mobile society in contrast to Europe, where people have commonly lived and died in the same place where their great grandparents did. “We’re always moving,” he says. “Culture is shared collective experience over time."

The immense popularity and award-winning international respect of small-batch farmstead cheeses, especially from Vermont; the success of the nation's only center for teaching and research on farmstead cheeses — UVM's Vermont Institute of Artisan Cheese; and the prestigious acclaim of Paul Kindstedt's Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and its Place in Western Civilization, a story told with the precision of a scientist and the devotion of a cheese connoisseur; are all signs that the tide of American food culture may be turning. And not a moment too soon.

~LeeAnn Cox and Cheryl Dorschner contributed to this article.

Refereeing this fierce debate with solid scientific data are University of Vermont research scientists at the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese (VIAC) – experts in cheese safety and food borne pathogens.

“I’m interested in making sure that we can forward traditional cheesemaking practices and ingredients in this era of food safety challenges,” co-director of VIAC, Catherine Donnelly said in a widely acclaimed video produced last year by the American Society for Microbiology.

 “We found the absence of large-cheese-associated outbreaks to be remarkable, because compared with other commodities that's not the norm.” she says. “But in studies looking at instances where cheeses made from pasteurized milk were involved in outbreaks, we realize that the most significant threat to cheese safety isn’t the use of raw milk – isn’t the cheese itself – it's actually post-process recontamination either from the aging environment or introduction by humans of pathogens on their hands after the cheese is made. It's really recontamination that poses a threat. It’s irrelevant whether cheese is made with raw or pasteurized milk.” Donnelly is one of the nation’s foremost experts on microorganisms affecting food safety, especially Listeria.

She concludes that Staphylococcus aureus carried on human hands or cows’ udders causes the most problem in cheeses. Staph aureus allowed to grow to high population levels produces toxins that people sick. Listeria and Salmonella are sometimes also problematic as well as, though very rarely, E. coli.

Another problem that cheesemakers encounter are viruses that live in the cheesemaking environment, called bacteriophage that attack bacterial starter cultures and cause the batch to fail. Cheesemakers guard against bacteriophage by keeping the cheesemaking facility sanitary.

Donnelly’s $45,000, three-year Hatch grant was renewed and her USDA APHIS grants have totaled more than $600,000 over several years. These continue to pinpoint both the vulnerabilities in the large-commodity food system that contribute to the spread of pathogens while simultaneously demonstrating that centuries-old techniques used in artisan cheeses rely on the culture of beneficial microorganisms.

Donnelly believes that while regulation is one way to control food borne pathogens, education is another. VIAC teaches food-safety practices and past grants enabled her staff to do on-site risk-reduction programs for cheesemakers.

Donnelly and Dennis “DJ” D’Amico, a senior research scientist and lab manager for VIAC, are poised to use their scientific findings to continue to inform the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada as they evaluate the food safety of soft-ripened, raw-milk cheeses.

Donnelly and D’Amico predict that the debate among the interests of small and large-scale cheesemakers and the FDA will intensify in the coming year over a circa 1940s federal rule that requires cheese to be aged for 60 days before it is deemed safe to eat. The law was aimed at hard cheeses such as Cheddar that become inhospitable to pathogens as they dry out during aging. When raw-milk cheeses age, the chemicals, acids and salt in the cheese also destroy harmful bacteria, and since types of cheese differ greatly, scientists such as D’Amico and Donnelly conclude that the 60-day rule is simplistic at best.

“The 60-day rule wasn’t based on real science,” D’Amico told “The New York Times” last spring. “The pathogens have changed and the cheeses have certainly changed. But the rule has not.” D’Amico’s research was the subject of much media attention, also including the “Atlantic,” ABC and Fox News.

The FDA is reassessing the rule as it applies to soft cheeses, so the regulations are likely to change.

Expect the debate to heat up – but not the raw milk used in cheesemaking.

Brian Stowe is the smooth operator of both sugaring and sugaring science at UVM. He makes sure that every single thing is ready ahead of time for that day the sap starts running at the Proctor Maple Research Center. He keeps everything working during the demanding but short sugaring season and he anticipates the future.

Stowe is charged with managing the 215-acre property, its more than 2,800 tapped maple trees and a state-of-the-art sugaring operation at three sites. Proctor produces up to 1,200 gallons of syrup annually, in fact, over the past seven years, Proctor’s maple production has been three times Vermont’s per-tap average. And don’t forget, little Vermont is the number one maple producer in the nation – 1.14 million gallons of syrup in 2011, with an annual economic impact over $220 million.

Mark Isselhardt made an important point about how maple research differs from most scientific experimentation at UVM. (Isselhardt is a Proctor maple research technician who began as a work-study student in the 1990s). He said, “the window of time available for experiments is small and unpredictable.” That’s why Stowe’s careful attention to issues large and small and keen ability to anticipate problems and address them ahead of time is indispensible. 

Stowe earned his bachelor of science degree in forestry from the UVM in 1985. He was hired in 1990 as a UVM research technician by the Vermont maple industry legend Sumner Williams himself. Stowe passed an advanced logger training and chainsaw safety course – key to safety at Proctor Center and any other sugarbush he visits. He was promoted four times to his current position.

Over the years, he has contributed to scientific, trade and UVM Extension publications and made presentations across the country. He often provides Extension the technical information, background and expertise it needs to carry out its maple educational programs. And he welcomes visitors to the Center – he’s as fluent at speaking to scientists and sugarmakers as to school children.

Recently he helped negotiate UVM’s acquisition of 30 acres of research land adjacent to the Proctor Maple Research Center.

But not many people realize that Brian Stowe is a lead mechanic on fighter jets for the Vermont National Guard, where he has served for 17 years. So it's no surprise that he can work with complex modern reverse osmosis machines, evaporators and tubing layouts and innovate at every opportunity. He helps colleagues design experiments that both increase scientific knowledge and serve the maple industry.

Speaking of the maple industry, Stowe is a member/leader of seven state sugarmakers organizations and maintains regular contact with maple industry leaders nationwide. He is often a spokesperson to the news media, which contact the research center like clockwork each spring and fall – including that memorable year when National Public Radio aired a spoof on April Fool’s day on how maple trees explode when not tapped. The phone calls to the Proctor Maple Center picked up markedly that year.

It seems like Brian Stowe is everywhere.

Dave Barrington, chair of plant biology, the department in which the Proctor Maple Research Center resides, told this story that says it all:

Brian Stowe is at every College event. He is at the alumni dinner, advisory council lunches, meals that celebrate prominent faculty and staff and graduation socials. He appears at University events too – often ones where the president is most eager to impress parties with the prowess of UVM’s place in the Vermont landscape.

However, you’ll never actually see Brian Stowe at these events.

What you see is his maple syrup.

Brian is maple syrup. 

"If Brian Stowe is maple syrup, then he is surely Grade A. He is most assuredly top of the line, and an outstanding staff member of UVM’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences," said Tom Vogelmann, the College's dean, on April 20 as he presented Stowe with the College's 2012 Outstanding Staff Award.

Stowe was among several award recipients on Honors Day in Benedict Auditorium on campus. Pat Erickson received the College's Joseph E. Carrigan Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. More than 85 students received some 40 academic and research achievement awards.

By JAN ELLEN SPIEGEL

Published: April 13, 2012

"Schools also are tailoring programs to their geographic areas and demographics. The University of Vermont, given its land-grant status, takes an agricultural angle. It established a minor in 2007 and will begin a master’s program in the fall, spurred by the observation that issues around food had become too complex to view through a single academic lens."

Read more here 

By signing the commitment, UVM pledges to serve 20 percent “real food” at all its campus food outlets by 2020. Real food is defined as that which is locally grown, fair trade, of low environmental impact and/or humanely produced. 

Currently 12 percent of UVM’s menu falls within those categories. UVM is confident it will exceed the 20 percent threshold before 2020.

Other schools signing the commitment include the University of California at Santa Cruz, St. Mary’s College in Indiana, Western State College of Colorado and Drew University in New Jersey. 

“The current global food system has produced cheap food but is not sustainable,” said John Bramley, UVM interim president. “It relies heavily on petroleum and large energy inputs and has contributed to societal health challenges such as diabetes and obesity. We need to develop regionally based systems that protect our soils and water, are more energy efficient and contribute positively to public health.

“UVM can play an important role not just in educating students or researching the issues but by actually seeking to be part of the solution, in the way we choose to feed the 15,000 members of our community,” he continued. “I am proud of the part UVM and its food providers are playing and of the leadership role our students have taken in this important initiative and global challenge."

“We are very pleased to see UVM sign on to the Real Food Campus Commitment," said Chuck Ross, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets. "Vermont is at the helm of the agricultural renaissance thanks to the devoted efforts of our local farmers, producers, and conscientious community members, many of whom got their start in UVM’s classrooms, or with help from the UVM Extension. UVM is at the forefront of educating the public about the importance of local foods to our communities, economy and environment. I want to thank President Bramley for his leadership and the UVM community for taking on this challenge. This kind of leadership not only helps UVM be a leading institution but helps to support Vermonters, our economy and our communities.”

Targeting higher ed

The Real Food Campus Commitment was developed by Real Food Challenge, a national, student-driven campaign to create a more just and sustainable food system.

According to David Schwarz, campaign director, the higher education sector is a powerful lever for change for two reasons.  

“Higher education spends $5 billion a year on food,” he said.  “If we achieve our goal of 20 percent ‘real food’ by 2020, we will be putting $1 billion a year toward supporting a sustainable food system. That could well be a tipping point for larger systemic change.”    

The group is also targeting colleges and universities because of the impact the program can have on students’ lifelong attitudes and buying habits, Schwartz said.

 UVM: “Huge motivator” for other schools

Schwartz says UVM’s decision to participate is significant because of the impact it will have on other large schools. Unlike smaller schools, who typically do their own purchasing, UVM subcontracts its dining program to a large food service provider, Sodexo.

“It’s a huge motivator for other big schools,” said Schwartz.  “When they look at UVM, they’re not just seeing a peer institution; they’re seeing one that works with a large food service company as they do. If UVM and Sodexo can do it, they can, too.” 

For Sodexo, which works with more than 850 colleges and universities across the country, UVM has served as a test-bed for offering more locally and sustainably produced food to schools throughout its system.  

“It’s something we embrace as a company,” said Melissa Zelazny, director of UVM’s University Dining Services, which is operated by Sodexo. “UVM is the place where Sodexo has always piloted industry-leading best practices for sustainability, like the internship program and the Keep Local Farms initiative. It’s a great opportunity to showcase the great programs that we work on at UVM and to replicate them more broadly on a national level.”

To implement the program and track its progress, UVM has formed a “Real Food Working Group,” whose members include UVM students, faculty, and staff and staff from University Dining Services. The group will develop a comprehensive, multi-year plan for how the university will hit its ambitious new targets and report regularly to the president. The group will also work closely with faculty connected with UVM’s Food Systems Spire of Excellence.

The 97,000 square-foot, $56 million building – home to the departments of plant biology and plant and soil science, both in UVM's  College of Agriculture and Life Sciences – is the sixth on campus to achieve LEED Gold status. Other projects that have earned Gold include 438 College Street, University Heights Residential Complex, Dudley H. Davis Student Center, Bertha M. Terrill Building and the Given Courtyard. The renovation and addition to the George D. Aiken Center is on track to receive the highest level of certification, LEED Platinum.   

The aspiration to achieve LEED Gold status for Jeffords Hall was in keeping with the “Environmental Design in New and Renovated Buildings” policy originally approved in 2005 by the University of Vermont Board of Trustees, and upgraded in 2007 to set a goal of achieving at least LEED Silver status for new buildings and major renovation projects when possible.  

“We set Silver certification as the minimum standard, but we’ll always try to push as far as we can beyond that without creating additional expense,” says Robert Vaughan, director of capital planning and management. “Wherever it’s appropriate to meet criteria to take the project to a higher level we will. Silver is the minimum, but gold is the goal. That’s our mantra.”

Jeffords houses seven cutting-edge teaching labs and three general purpose classrooms on the first floor for undergraduate and graduate students in the life sciences programs. The upper two floors contain research laboratories and offices. Its modern laboratory facilities provide high-quality experiential learning opportunities in molecular, ecological and environmental research that touch on a wide range of disciplines.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, scientists and technicians from the State Department of Environmental Conservation (18 from the Environmental Biology Lab and six from the Environmental Chemistry Lab) were moved to two large labs in Jeffords where they have continued to monitor the state’s air, water and soil quality.

More than $5 million of the project budget went toward the expansion of the underground central steam and chilled water system, completing a loop around Jeffords Hall and connecting into the mechanical room of the Health Science Research Facility. The building is projected to use 35.7 percent less energy (measured in MBtu) than conventionally designed laboratory buildings (29.4 percent less energy measured by cost) and 49.4 percent less water.

Additionally, more than 90 percent of construction and demolition waste was diverted from the landfill, and a cutting-edge occupancy system for lighting and ventilation was installed. The use of local and regional products was a priority in the construction of Jeffords with more than 40 percent of the total cost of materials coming from Vermont, and approximately 72 percent of the construction value performed by Vermont sub-contractors.

Supporting the new building were $10 million in state funds, $3 million in federal funds secured by Senator Patrick J. Leahy after Senator Jeffords’ retirement from the U.S. Senate, and private donations that included $1 million from Vermont's Lintilhac Foundation.

The effort, begun in 2009 when UVM received a USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant for the creation of the program, gained steam in 2010 when Food Systems was chosen as one of UVM’s Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives (TRI). Along with complex systems and neuroscience, behavior and health, food systems has been identified as a key area of research investment across the disciplines.

“I am heartened by the success and send kudos to those who developed it and stuck with it,” Naomi Fukagawa, co-chair of the Food Systems Steering Committee, said. “And I praise the trustees and administration for understanding the importance of this to UVM, its land grant status, and the TRI process.”

“This is a vehicle in which numerous partners … can really engage, and put UVM and the state of Vermont in the forefront of how we actually create a change in the local and regional food system,” John Bramley, interim president, said at the board meeting.

The program has already begun the work of connecting with partners external to the university. Community Development and Applied Economics professor Jane Kolodinsky and Nutrition and Food Sciences professor Amy Trubek, co-authors of the program’s proposal, consulted with more than 400 organizations outside of UVM during the writing process.

Rachel Johnson, professor of nutrition and food sciences and a member of the program’s steering committee, believes that its approval will help UVM gain ground in the academic food systems community. “The approval of this masters program is very exciting and puts UVM at the leading edge of the emerging field of food systems,” she said.

Now that the program has been approved, next steps include accepting students’ applications for the fall 2012 semester and furthering the research. “Now, the real work begins,” Kolodinsky said.

This article may also be found on UVM Today. Edited by Amanda Waite and Jeff Wakefield.

The announcement comes five months prior to the end of a ten-year contract with Coca-Cola of Northern New England that allowed the company to provide 100 percent of beverages in vending machines and 80 percent of bottled beverages served in retail, residential dining, and catering, totaling more than 1.1 million bottles per year.

As of July 1, the university will no longer have a beverage contract with corporate sponsorship and exclusive "pouring rights." Sodexo, operator of University Dining Services, the UVM Bookstore and the CAT Pause store will choose a mix of beverages through their own national contracts and local connections, allowing for greater flexibility in addressing environmental and social values in relation to the beverages supplied on campus.

“This change has been student-driven,” says Gioia Thompson, director of the Office of Sustainability. “Students advocating for an end to sales of bottled water have dedicated many hours over the past four years encouraging fellow students to change their habits and persuading administrators to foster a more sustainable beverage system for the community."

The sale of bottled water (flat, unflavored water) in UVM’s 57 vending machines and in retail outlets will end in January of 2013, allowing time for the university to retrofit drinking fountains across campus, and for Dining Services and the stores to make adjustments.  Drinking fountains will be converted to bottle filling stations like those in the Davis Center with a goal of 75 stations spread across campus by the end of the year. The objective is for students to fill their own re-usable bottles with water rather than buying the water and then disposing of the plastic bottles.

The campus-wide effort was spearheaded by the Vermont Student Environmental Program (VSTEP), a student run, non-profit organization created in 1988 to expand UVM’s recycling program and address environmental issues on Vermont campuses. Mikayla McDonald ’10 and Marlee Baron ’11, both former VSTEP presidents and senators on the Student Government Association, were among the initial group of students to address the bottled water issue and started planning Bring Your Own Bottle (BYOB) days and informational tabling events. Baron, who wrote her senior thesis on “Creating a Sustainable Beverage System at UVM,” and McDonald crafted bottled water resolutions that were passed by the SGA.

“Marlee was the one who really brought the issue to the forefront,” says McDonald. “It’s really an awareness issue, so our focus was educational outreach. Our efforts also coincided with our activities on SGA, so we had decent access to student government and other student groups. Some of the Eco-Reps (undergraduate leaders who foster environmental responsibility on campus by educating their hall mates about sustainability issues) had been working on bottled water issues for years, and we sort of picked up the cause. We wanted people to be aware of the privatization by companies of public water resources.”   

Current VSTEP president Greg Francese continued the effort by helping collect more than 1,200 signatures from students in support of a resolution calling for a sustainable beverage system, surpassing the 10 percent requirement for an SGA resolution. Student efforts to reduce the usage of bottled water were already paying off as sales of flat, unflavored water dropped from 362,000 bottles in 2007 to 235,000 in 2010.

The commitment to including healthy beverage options comes in response to interest by members of the Food Systems Spire in healthier beverages, with particular emphasis on the health risks associated with sugar-sweetened beverages. Healthy drinks may include flavored water without added sugar; reduced calorie carbonated beverages; flavored teas, fruit drinks and sports drinks with reduced calories; flavored beverages containing water, carbohydrates, and electrolytes; juices with 50 percent or more real fruit juice; and low-fat dairy beverages.

According to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, UVM is one of the only public institutions in the U.S. and among just 15 in North America to have eliminated bottled water sales from campus. Niles Barnes, project coordinator with AASHE who also provides support to the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, says changing vendor language to ensure healthy vending choices is an issue that is even less prevalent.

Richard Cate, vice president for finance and administration, says the funds from the Coca-Cola contract can be replaced on some level by newer contracts with national and local vendors who will diversify the beverages offered on campus. Funds generated from new contracts will support student financial aid. Revenue from the existing contract has been used for student financial aid, student programming, athletics and operations. The Athletics Department will issue a separate request for proposals for beverages for athletics events, thereby creating a source of revenue for athletics to replace the existing one.

The university will release a request for proposals in February for the vending contract, which has comprised less than 20 percent of bottled beverages sold as part of the 10-year contract. The new vending services contract will end in 2015, coinciding with the end of the existing university dining contract.

On the one hand, it was what you’d expect, given the event: about 20 round tables stationed in front of a stage with a podium. 

But behind them and in a neighboring room was something different: three rectangular sets of adjoined tables with chairs facing in, each sprouting a large white sign with an imposing title: Human Health and Well Being, Environmental Impacts, and Food Production and Distribution. 

The mixed décor was no accident.

For the first hour, the 70 participants – about two-thirds UVM faculty and graduate students from 14 disciplines and the remainder off-campus members of the broader food systems community – heard from a panel of state government leaders on the food systems-related research needs of the agencies they oversee. Interim president John Bramely also delivered a brief address on the critical role Vermont and UVM can play in finding sustainable alternatives to the current food system.

Afterwards, they headed for one of the themed tables, rolled up their sleeves, and spent the bulk of the four-hour event responding -- or preparing to respond -- to a request-for-proposal that caught their interest, selected from a slew of RFP’s from the EPA, USDA, and NIH the event’s organizers had identified, grouped by general topic area, and sent to participants in advance.   

“We want this to be a working session,” said School of Business Administration faculty member Rocki-Lee Dewitt, one of the event’s organizers, in remarks setting up the day. “We thought the best way to do that would be to get ideas from the state and combine those with your expertise and our identification of research opportunities” via the RFPs.

State of the state

Research ideas from the state they heard aplenty – delivered by Chuck Ross, secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets; Harry Chen, commissioner of the Department of Health; Patricia Moulton Powden, deputy secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development; and Chris Recchia, deputy secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources.

They ranged from a point made by Ross, the first speaker, that UVM research needs to help the state above all maintain its working landscape, while addressing other vital issues like health and environment, to one made by Recchia, who spoke last, that research was needed to develop sound policy protecting farms from extreme weather events like Tropical Storm Irene, which climate change will make more common.

Traction gained

That idea gained traction at the Food Production and Distribution table, when the brainstorming part of the day began, via an RFP the group decided to tackle titled “Sustainable food systems to improve food security,” a five-year, $5 million grant from USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research (AFRI) division.  

After hearing the diverse backgrounds of those seated around the table, facilitator Linda Berlin, director of UVM’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture, seemed energized. 

“It’s exciting to hear all these possibilities,” she said. “There’s definitely a wide array, but I see a picture emerging from all the things you laid out.” 

Tropical Storm Irene was much on everyone’s mind and brought focus to the discussion.

“Here are the kinds of questions we could ask,” Berlin said. “What are the storage opportunities that could help insulate us to climate change? What’s the food access in those situations? Where are we producing food? Where are the vulnerable spots? How do we get food to people who suddenly don’t have access?"

What made sense to the group was to use Irene as a model for how Vermont, and other regions, could develop resilient food systems that would protect against increasingly common disruptive events like Irene.

The group committed to sending a letter of intent to AFRI within two weeks and producing the full blown proposal by next summer.

Palpable progress

Not every group got as far, but the concreteness of the exercise – and opportunity it provided for an array of researchers, normally siloed in their disciplines, to exchange ideas – created excitement and determination in the room that was palpable.

Plant and Soil Sciences assistant professor Ernesto Mendez, who facilitated the Environmental Impacts group, saw great benefit in the discussion he led.

"As a Food Systems spire, it is very important to organize events where people can share ideas and get to know each other better," he said. "Using working groups to seek funding is a good way to do this, but in the end the most important contribution is convening people and providing a space for exchange."

The diversity of the gathering was one of its strengths, with transportation engineers, microbiologists, consumer behavior experts, for example, all collaborating on a problem – and getting to know one another’s expertise in the process.

“I don’t know what you know,” Berlin could be overheard telling Julie Smith, a faculty member in UVM Extension who specializes in biosecurity and health management on farms.

“The room was buzzing, conversations were happening, and collaborators were linking up,” said Jane Kolodinsky, co-chair of the steering committee for the Food Systems spire within the Transdisciplinary Research Initiative. “That was the ultimate goal.” 

“It was  fabulous way to do things,” said Ben Amsden of the Center for Rural Partnerships at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, N.H., who participated in the group responding to the AFRI RFP. “This meeting was special. The concreteness of the ideas, the concrete proposal – it was worth the trip.”   

The symposium was conceptualized by the Food Systems Steering Committee, with Kolodinsky, co-chair Naomi Fukagawa, professor of medicine, and Dewitt taking the lead in organizing it. Class of '10 graduate Haylee Johnson, events and coordination assistant for the Food Systems Steering Committee, was also instrumental. 

Organizers will follow with each of the teams to determine what next steps are and to facilitate progress toward the development of grant proposals.

Proponent Loraine Ronchi of the World Bank characterized fair trade as a way to counter the market’s tendency to “mark down” the price of premium coffee, grown largely in Central America, and help farmers acquire the resources needed to make the rest of their non-fair trade supported operation successful. She called the practice a textbook example of sustainable development. 

Opponent Colleen Haight of San Diego State and George Mason universities, disagreed, saying that the practice supported coffee bean crops in marginal areas that would not be profitable without the fair trade subsidy and yielded a bad product, to boot.

She added that the money generated by the fair trade premium was targeting the wrong people. The fair trade collectives and the farmers they represent are land-owing members of the middle class. The migrants who pick the coffee beans, left out of fair trade agreements, would be much more appropriate recipients of the charitable support, she said.

Ronchi didn't buy that, saying farmers with few hectares of land could hardly be characterized as middle class.

The debaters, who disagreed on nearly every point, were neverthelss cordial and respectiful of the other's views, a shocking style of disourse in today's political climate. 

Loraine Ronchi is a senior economist for African Agriculture and Rural Development at the World Bank. Colleen Haight is an assistant professor of economics at San Jose State University and economics program officer at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. 

The debate was moderated by Marselis Parsons, longtime former news director and evening news anchor at WCAX. 

The goal of the Janus Forum debate series, launched in 2008, is to stimulate reasoned discussion on important social and economic issues facing society. The debates stress the contrast and relative effectiveness of solutions that rely on freedom of individual choice as opposed to governmental or regulatory-based approaches to problems.

I don't know about you, but I'm hungry. Hungry for change.

We can't live without food - so we better get started solving our food issue before it eats us alive. At colleges and universities, we are in a unique position: We can plant the seeds for a sustainable economic future by growing food systems as a transdisciplinary academic area. For us, a systems-based approach is new, novel - and necessary.

It's complicated because food is complicated. It touches every aspect of our lives - on an intimate and global level. Our kitchens are where we nurture ourselves and our families. Our global economy is fueled by food, as is our US economy where food represents $1 trillion in annual sales, 13 percent of the gross national product, and 17 percent of our workforce.

But, despite remarkable growth, our relationship with food is suffering. As Wendell Berry said, we've become a nation of industrial eaters. We've divorced ourselves from our food and where it comes from. The results of this shift are profound and epitomized by loss - the loss of local cultures, histories and identities - and present us with some of our most urgent societal issues: climate change, energy, economics, health, and ecology.

Consider that:

- Worldwide agriculture and land-use change are estimated to cause about one-third of global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions;

- The US food system accounts for an estimated 10.5 percent of the nation's energy use and 19 percent of its fossil fuel consumption;

- 67 percent of adults age 20 and above are overweight, 34 percent are obese (CDC 2008). America has a public health crisis related to overweight/obesity and associated chronic diseases - most alarming is the epidemic in children;

- Food-borne illness affects an estimated 76 million people each year (CDC 2005); and

- In 2005, the US Department of Agriculture reported finding detectable pesticide residues in 73 percent of fresh fruit and vegetable samples and 61 percent of processed fruit and vegetable samples.

Though our modern food system provides unparalleled productivity, it is accompanied by diet-related health problems, food-borne disease, hunger and agricultural pollution.

We know the problems. Now, it's time for solutions. To go big, we must think small, yet broad.

Our approach - and UVM's approach - must be to offer a transdisciplinary education that emphasizes regionally-scaled food systems. We already see a lot of activity taking place in pockets nationwide. Here in Vermont, I think of the Vermont Cheese Council, Vermont Fresh Network, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund and the Farm-to-Plate initiative, to name just a few. We must harness the passion and energy around these activities and channel it into a model for the future. Revitalizing agriculture will improve people's diet, protect environmental quality, and create economic opportunity.

At UVM, our focus is on 1) food, culture and health; 2) energy and food; 3) policy, ecology, and land use; and 4) regional food chains.

Within those foci, we've already:

- Launched a Farmer Apprentice Program, an entrepreneurial approach to small-scale farming, that provides new farmers with the academic and practical knowledge necessary to pursue a career in agriculture. We're extremely pleased to work with local Vermont farmers on this program.

- Seeded food systems knowledge in the undergraduate experience, from classroom to dining hall and beyond. Students benefit from courses like Environmental Cooking, VT Rural Food Systems and NYC Urban Food Systems (through a partnership with New York University). We also offer a weeklong summer intensive focused on food systems as well as summer science courses for undergrads.

- Partnered with more than 100 faculty and 400 community partners who are engaging with models and methods that show promise.

This is the start of something very powerful.

At UVM, we're lucky to be in the ideal place for exploration of a healthy regional food system - the state of Vermont. We have a history of challenging "business as usual" assumptions and facing up against a tough environment: varied topography, harsh climate, and limited infrastructure. Our citizens and our visitors value food and farming: We lead the nation in per capita in direct-market sales from farms to consumers. Demand for local, sustainable, and fair trade food production has recently increased. This is seen in the growth of organic food industry at a rate of about 20 percent per year.

We've started the problem-solving by placing our academic knowledge on the table. I welcome other academic institutions to the challenge. We can lead in the study of how humans in their environment obtain nourishment with a holistic approach that considers everything from microbes found in compost facilities to global trade agreements.

Let's get started.

By sponsoring the course, Cabot Creamery Cooperative is providing the opportunity for students in the course to gain hands-on marketing experience in a learning environment. Student groups will be teamed up with local businesses for the length of the semester.  Their task: to write a marketing plan, along with which comes the potential to receive funding for implementation of their plan during the spring 2012 semester. The course was designed after a proposal from Cabot after which, it was shaped to its current form with input from the Business School as well as the CDAE department in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, who offers the course.  

“This course exemplifies both the Land Grant mission and the reciprocity of Service-Learning: students will gain real-world, hands-on experience. Local businesses gain from the expertise of UVM and Cabot to improve their marketing practices and contribute even more to the state's sustainable community economic development. We have a great set of bright, motivated students and a great set of locally-owned, socially responsible firms,” said David Conner, Assistant Professor in the CDAE department and the course’s instructor. “I am very excited for the work we are doing for these students and for Vermont.”

Through this partnership, Cabot aims to enhance UVM’s role in the small business community in Vermont by leveraging its resources and networks with Cabot’s so that they can fundamentally improve businesses in the area.  The idea is for this program to be offered annually, each year expanding its reach to other regions and industry groups in Vermont.  “This is a valuable opportunity for the University and students to partner with us at Cabot and to leverage resources so that students obtain real-world marketing training.  The course should promote connections between students and local businesses, encouraging businesses to hire students after graduation and students to stay and work in Vermont,” reflects Roberta McDonald, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Cabot, who is involved with the course.

The Burlington area businesses selected to work with the Cabot Marketing Challenge class this fall are Sugarsnap, a caterer and bakery in Burlington, Brown Dog Gifts Books and Gifts of Hinesburg, Cynthea's Spa, in Burlington, Swiftwood Press, LLC, which creates financial reports for alternative energy, of Burlington, and Yogarama, a retail yoga store in Burlington.

Students and their community partners will be charged with understanding the current marketing practices of a Vermont business, and with working in teams (and with instructors, teaching assistants, and business people) to create a marketing plan for a the business.  “Service-learning experiences like this provide a great learning laboratory grounded in real-world decision-making for the students, as well as benefits to local business and our local economy,” says Jane Kolodinsky, Chair of the CDAE Department. "We hope that Cabot will continue this growing partnership in the future.”