A robust understanding of agriculture

This week marks Agriculture Literacy Week in Vermont, with events statewide focused on helping people gain "a robust understanding of agriculture in Vermont's schools and communities," organizers say.

Celebrations are taking place in towns as diverse as Monkton, Randolph, Middlesex, Middlebury and Dorset. The kick-off event was scheduled for Saturday: a concert, photo exhibit and farmers market at the Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph featuring bluegrass from Run Boy Run and the photography of Ben DeFlovio.

In Jericho, the only Chittenden County site playing host to events, Gregory Sharrow, co-director of the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury, is scheduled to present "A Sense of Place: Vermont's Farm Legacy" at 7 p.m. Monday.

Agriculture Literacy Week is sponsored by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT).

Sharrow was invited to Jericho by John Connell, the NOFA-VT farm to community mentor for Chittenden County. Connell's position is designed to be a link between schools, communities and local farms. These connections can be as small as having students write letters to local farmers and as large as having them develop their own community gardens.

The goal of the program is to educate students, but it also serves the purpose of ending the isolation many farmers feel from their community. Connell says he enjoys seeing partnerships between the farmers and schoolchildren grow over time.

"It's like planting seeds," he says.

NOFA-VT Education Director Abbie Nelson credits the nine farm to community mentors for coming up with ideas for the weeklong celebration.

Vermont first declared Agriculture Literacy Week three years ago with the cooperation of the then commissioners of agriculture and education. Nelson said the mentors often piggyback on existing events, but other times they initiate new activities for their communities.

Since writing his doctoral dissertation on the culture of farm life in central Vermont, Sharrow has spent hours interviewing farmers across the state. His research goes back to the days when almost everyone who didn't live in the village was involved in farming.

Monday's presentation will consist of a series of audio recordings through which Sharrow hopes to convey what farming used to look like. He says his goal is not to provide a comprehensive view but instead offer a snapshot into the nature of the work that took place.

"It's really quite amazing the way people's lives were interdependent," he says. "A lot of the things we assign a positive value to are remnants of Vermont as an agricultural community that have persisted with the change that has made farms almost a museum piece, whereas at one time everyone used to be a farmer."

Sharrow says hopes listeners will take the lessons of the past and apply them to the state's current condition.

"Where we are now is not an inevitable destination," he says. "We have the power to shape the future. If we look at the arc of this, there's good in it, and there's loss in it. We all want our children and grandchildren to inherit a world that works."

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