The Northeast SARE Summer Meetings and Tour were held on July 26-29, 2016 at the Courtyard Burlington Harbor in downtown Burlington, Vermont. Below, you will find an overview of Vermont and her agriculture, as well as information about the July 26 poster session and the farm tour on July 27.
Dear AC, TC and PDP / State Coordinator collegues,
Thank you very much for participating in this year's Northeast SARE Summer Meeting. I was very honored to help host the meeting and tour! I really enjoyed meeting new members of our group and getting reacquainted with friends and colleagues. For your information, I have provided posters and other documents shared at the poster session and day-long tour, as well as some photos that highlighted the event. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best, Deb Heleba, Vermont State SARE Coordinator
About Vermont and Her AgricultureVermont is one of the six New England states, bordering New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Quebec, Canada. With a population of 626,630, it is the the second least populated state in the U.S. Our largest city is Burlington with a population of about 40,000. Click here for more information about Vermont.
Agriculture contributes about 2% of the state's domestic product. In terms of revenue generated, Vermont's top five agricultural products are dairy products, beef cattle and calves, greenhouse and nursery products, hay, and maple products.
At this year's meeting, we held a poster session called, “A Look at Social Sustainability.” NE-SARE’s competitive grants portfolio extends beyond just innovative production strategies. Therefore, this poster session provided insight into NE-SARE’s investment in the “third leg” of the sustainability stool, social issues. The Vermont SARE professional development project is using the following five themes in its Social Sustainability on the Farm programming:
The poster session featured a sampling of Vermont-led projects, funded by NE-SARE, that have addressed one or more of these themes. An Overview of the Session and Descriptions of the Individual Posters/NE-SARE Projects can be accessed here. Information on the highlighted projects may be found below.
As per tradition, we conducted a farm tour to learn about NE-SARE funded projects as well as agriculture in the state. The tour was held on July 27, 2016; we visited three farms on the tour: Borderview Research Farm, Alburgh; Choiniere Family Farm, Highgate; and River Berry Farm, Fairfax.