Voices from the Fall 2019 Advanced Agroecology Class- Second delivery

During my second February, my family moved from Atlanta, Georgia, to Burlington, Vermont. After a harrowing first winter in the Northeast, one of the first things we did, when summer came, was join a Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA) at the Intervale Community Farm (ICF). This membership provided access to a full season of produce and value-added products to be picked up weekly from the Intervale’s lush peri-urban location, nestled between Winooski and Burlington on the banks of the Winooski River. Each week at pick-up, my family would bike, walk, or drive the half-mile commute from our house in the Old North End of Burlington to the vibrant haven of the Intervale. After making our way down a dirt road, dotted with signs stating “Dusty Road!” and “Drive Slow: Farmers Can’t Breathe!” we’d be greeted by the friendly faces of our farmers and the bustling community of ICF. There were tables of beautiful produce, a rainbow of colors. Ripe tomatoes, fresh french bread. There were families of all shapes and sizes. Children were playing on upcycled toys in fields of black-eyed susans and sunflowers. To a freshly transplanted family, this space not only provided locally grown food, just blocks away from our home, but it offered community. Through potlucks, dinners, parties, and play-dates during pick up hours, the Intervale quickly became a sanctuary for my family and me; it was the first seed in developing our new home and our place within this community. 

As a child growing up in a semi-urban town, the Intervale provided a place where I could get my hands dirty, climb trees, see how carrots grew, and watch bees pollinate flowers. Without knowing it, the Intervale taught me the fundamentals of ecology and agriculture; it taught me how the natural world works. The Intervale provided conversations with friends, or fiddle music on a warm summer day. Most of all, it provided the feeling of nourishment through both land and community–something that remains essential in a rapidly industrialized human world. Spaces like this–that remind us how the world works, and that vibrant communities grow from the ground up–are a crucial element of a resilient society as we move into a more climate-intense, anthropocentric future. Throughout the twenty years of my family’s membership at ICF, I have left pick-up each week feeling grounded, hopeful, and united within my community of people and within my sense of place in Burlington.  

As I have grown older, ICF continues to hold great importance in my life, and through my experiences in academia, studying environmental studies and human ecology, I have realized just how special the Intervale is. By taking courses like Advanced Agroecology, I am more able to understand the unique aspects and methods of community building that ICF implements. Within the social dimensions of Agroecology, there are several key principles that I have noticed at ICF: co-creation and sharing of knowledge, diversity, human and social values, culture and food traditions, and resilience. While ICF does promote and utilize agroecology in their farming practices, I have been more aware of and immersed-in the social dimensions of agroecology that are represented on the farm. 

Agroecology is a concept that is rooted in applied local knowledge systems; in this, it depends on horizontal pedagogies of sharing knowledge and skills about communities and agriculture. This implies communication on multiple scales of the food system, mainly between producers and consumers. At ICF, this aspect of Agroecology is one of the first that comes to mind. The farmers at ICF regularly interact with the consumers; it is clear that the community is based on this type of communication and collaboration. Whether that is through farmers checking-in CSA members, restocking vegetables, or answering questions about the best ways to prep that week’s produce, it is clear who the people behind the food are. 

One of the core facets of any resilient system is diversity, which is another value that is apparent at ICF, within both the products and the community. The ICF community is home to many different identities. There are many families like mine, but there are also college students, newly immigrated Americans, older folks, children, and a number of other types of people. This diversity leads to numerous opportunities for co-creation, sharing of knowledge, and other types of communication as well as community building within different social groups in Burlington. The diversity at ICF also addresses issues of access and exclusivity in the local and organic food movement, which tends to only cater to people of higher socio-economic backgrounds. ICF seeks to bring local, organic food to every plate at the table and has community partnerships with gleaning organizations and other food-access groups in order to make this happen, which touches on another core element of agroecology: human and social values. 

Another component of Agroecology that ICF encourages is culture and food traditions. One of the core facets of a culture and community is gathering over food. Not only does ICF provide delicious local foods, a reason for any family to gather over the table, they also host a number of social events throughout the year including pizza parties and end-of-season dinners. One of my favorite traditions that has stemmed from my share at ICF is gathering friends, right around the first week of school, to bike down to the farm, pick up my share, and make a big dinner with our bounty. Local foods are the avenue for increasing community involvement with each other and in the local food system. It also encourages members to cook with seasonally appropriate, locally-oriented products; contributing to a sense of place in the food system. 

Finally, one of the most essential components of Agroecology that I have noticed at ICF is resilience. Resilience is the capacity of a system to bounce back to its original state after experiencing disturbance. In its ecology, ICF is an incredibly adaptable and resilient system, as it lies in the flood plains of the Winooski River and experiences seasonal fluxes of disturbance, meaning farmers have to alter their farming practices in order to accommodate environmental factors. The Intervale property, as a whole, also demonstrates resilience because it has gone from being a natural area, to a public and industrial waste site in the early 20th Century, to then being the largest agricultural area within the Burlington City Limits. The Intervale currently exists in a hybrid state of multiple uses, being a natural area, a public recreation site, and farmland. The ICF community also fosters resilience for its members. I have talked with a number of other CSA members who have all reported that ICF gives them hope for the future; that despite the formidable threats of climate change, political frustrations, or tumultuous home lives, the Intervale provides a space of community as well as a calm breath away from the chaos of life. It’s a simple reminder of the powerful and grounding effects of community, agriculture, and, most notably, cultivating roots in a place. 

Reference

“10 Elements of Agroecology.” 10 Elements | Agroecology Knowledge Hub | Food and Agriculture  Organization of the United Nations. www.fao.org/agroecology/knowledge/10-elements/en/.