A Welcome Letter from Tom Stearns, President of The Center for an Agricultural Economy

Getting to a 21st Century Healthy and Secure Food System for the Greater Hardwick Region

Dear Friends,
The world is full of great challenges and it can be hard to know how to even begin trying to affect them, let alone solve them. But I would suggest that the way to solve them is rather simple. Worldwide, agriculture is one of the largest users of energy, water and land and is the biggest polluter and contributor to our health, or lack of health, depending on what we each eat. Issues relating to resource scarcity are also behind much of the security concerns and violence that we see.

So, I would propose that we need to address our food system, as we look for solutions to these issues. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if we don’t address the food system, we won’t achieve success in our efforts anywhere else. Fixing our broken food systems is the key to solving the challenges that we face globally as well as locally. Issues that seem separate from agriculture on first glance, are in fact quite closely connected. It can be the theme by which we approach the challenge of learning how to be better stewards of our home in all ways.

The problem is that we don’t have very many good models to get inspired by. We are surrounded by broken food systems where food that was trucked 3,000 miles is cheaper than food grown locally; where almost nobody ever knows what is in season where they live; where the best farmland gets built on; where farms need to be so big to survive economically; and where we are simultaneously overweight and malnourished. As more of us are seeing all of this, we want to do something, but what? We need models of healthy food systems and we need them bad!

Our little community in and around Hardwick, Vermont, has always been recognized as being ahead of the curve on these issues. Increasingly, it is clear that we can play an important, even critical role, in the rebuilding of food systems. We can achieve things here that are much harder in a place filled with either mega-farms or mega-cities. And the barriers to success are disappearing as more and more of us are building our farms and gardens and starting food and agriculture-based businesses. We, in fact, are 30 years ahead of most other places in the U.S., and because of this, we have a great opportunity. We will not likely create a model that can be spread cookie-cutter-style to other regions, but we can inspire others with what we are doing. It is already happening and we are just beginning.

It is the goal of The Center for an Agricultural Economy to build upon our regions’ history and traditions and lead the way in creating a food system that creates healthy people as it creates healthy soil; that creates healthy jobs as it creates healthy communities; that creates a healthy economy and ultimately, creates a comprehensive, healthy food system that inspires others in their communities to do the same.

You are invited and needed in this task, and it may just be the most exciting thing you’ve ever done.

Sincerely,
Tom Stearns,
President
Center for an Agricultural Economy