This summer Vermont’s colleges and universities are buzzing with inventive and hands-on learning that drives global food system solutions. The seven members of the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium are continuing to expand their presence in the nationwide food systems movement, creating pacesetters to lead the charge in the way the nation sources, grows, processes, purchases, regulates, and contemplates food. Together, Vermont’s food systems educators, students, and entrepreneurs are making Vermont a national epicenter of food systems education.

“The Consortium is tapping Vermont’s agricultural traditions, unrivaled educational opportunities, and cutting-edge food businesses to introduce students to new ways of thinking and earning school credit in agriculture, science, community development, law, and policy,” noted Paul Costello of the Vermont Council on Rural Development, the project facilitator. “Vermont sets the standard for healthy food, innovation, beautiful and productive working lands, and food systems education.” Each school’s recent achievements include the following:

Green Mountain College: Green Mountain College Summer Farm to Table Semester students are earning up to twelve credits learning about building healthy, just, and sustainable food systems, in addition to immersing themselves in a practicum in Sustainable Agriculture on the college’s Cerridwen Farm. Renovations of barn and outbuildings are moving forward reflecting the school’s commitment to contemporary uses for historically-important farm infrastructure, while also enhancing labor efficiency, food safety, and animal husbandry. Meanwhile, 27 new leaders graduated from the nation’s first on-line Masters in Sustainable Food Systems, and Robin Currey, Assistant Professor of Sustainable Food Systems and Director of the Master in Sustainable Food System Program, will be in the Kyrgyz Republic wrapping-up a ten-year longitudinal study about agrobiodiversity conservation in the Kyrgyz Republic while she prepares a study tour to Kyrgyzstan in Summer 2017. (http://www.greenmtn.edu/student-life/farm-food/programs/)

Middlebury College: Known for international education, Middlebury College is headed abroad once again with its FoodWorks leadership program combining academic and experiential learning in food systems. Building upon its proven summer programs in Middlebury, Washington D.C., and Kentucky, the College is going international with new academic-year food systems programming in Italy, Spain and Chile. As part of the new program, students will be exposed to systems thinking, experiential learning, and cohort living, built around academic content and context in an international context. http://www.middlebury.edu/foodworks/foodworks-abroad

New England Culinary Institute: Heading into the height of the Vermont harvest season, warm days draw a clear line to how food is part of our life system, and present an opportunity for a new crop of students to embrace the sustainability of our food system and the importance of a connection to local farmers and food makers of all kinds. Students begin a new term in July, where they will “learn it by living it,” transforming the fresh, raw products grown from the Vermont landscape into products renowned worldwide for quality. (http://www.neci.edu/)

Sterling College: Environmental stewardship is embodied in the $225,000 grant the college recently received from the Endeavor Foundation to develop its Global Field Studies curriculum, which currently consists of seven international two- or four-week intensive cross-cultural field courses. The Global Field immersions are led by Sterling College faculty and explore the complex, ever-changing relationships among people and place. This expansion comes on the heels of the launch of Sterling’s School of the New American Farmstead, through which a variety of workshops, classes, and certifications inspire and equip students with marketable skills, and provide leaders with new perspectives on integrated, community-centered farming and food production. (http://www.sterlingcollege.edu/academics/global-field-studies/)

The University of Vermont (UVM): UVM recently completed a strategic plan that advances the food systems program as a global innovator, grounded in Vermont. Through trans-disciplinary research, intra-university connectivity, collaboration, participation, external partnerships, students and community, UVM is becoming a global leader in food systems education and research. The focus of food systems at UVM in the next five years is to significantly increase the capacity to address the most pressing problems facing the global food system. With new curricula, UVM faculty are framing complex concepts that prepare students for careers in a new era of environmental and policy solutions. (http://www.uvm.edu/foodsystems/documents/FoodSystemsStrategicDirectionsReport.2016.pdf)
Vermont Law School: Vermont Law School’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems is building momentum as the most comprehensive law and policy program in sustainable food and agriculture in the nation by embarking upon a multi-year expansion under a generous grant from the GRACE Community Foundation. The Center trains students to become sustainable food and agriculture advocates and entrepreneurs through its law and policy curriculum, available residentially and online to both masters and law students. This year the Center is expanding its Food and Agriculture Clinic, one of the few in the nation dedicated to sustainable food and agriculture, enabling it to grow its teaching and national and global partnerships to address our most pressing food challenges related to social justice, environmental harm, public health, animal welfare and global food security. Vermont Law School has published a summary of its first three years. (http://www-assets.vermontlaw.edu/Assets/cafs/CAFS_First3Years_rev.pdf)

Vermont Technical College: Vermont Tech’s anaerobic digester “Big Bertha” has completed its first year of routine operations converting cast-off waste to electricity, heat, animal bedding, and crop fertilizer. At full power, the digester transforms 16,000 gallons of waste to 8,800 kilowatt hours of electricity daily – equivalent to about 200 gallons of heating oil, or the amount of energy consumed by about 70 houses on a cold day. As part of the digester project, the school has created curricula and an apprenticeship program, led tours, adjusted protocols, developed manuals and management plans, and designed data collection systems and databases. The school has also invested in a dragline as an alternative to traditional manure spreading. In another piece of the school’s expansion, it is completing its first full year operating a recently donated, 350-acre dairy farm located in Norwich, Vermont. (http://digester.vtc.edu/)
The Vermont Higher Education Consortium’s Food and Farm Education website, http://vermontfoodeducation.org, provides details on each school’s related academic programs and the broader Consortium initiative. The Consortium’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/vhefsc, is active with dynamic campus events, institutional achievements, and news from Vermont’s corner of the food systems education world.

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As featured on Vermont Farm to Plate: http://www.vtfarmtoplate.com/announcements/two-weeks-eight-schools-students-invited-to-vermont-to-discover-the-future-of-food#.VwKcTkem2NJ

This summer, students are invited to immerse themselves in food systems programming at eight Vermont higher education colleges and universities with the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour. An initiative of the Vermont Food Systems Higher Education Consortium (VHEFSC), the Summer Study Tour offers a “taste of Vermont” – for the intellect.

From June 16 – 29, students will delve into topics including carbon, sustainability, the ecosystem, farm-to-institution, climate change, conservation, biodiversity, and policy. The Tour winds its way from the classrooms to the field at Green Mountain College, Middlebury College, New England Culinary Institute, SIT Graduate Institute, Sterling College, University of Vermont, Vermont Law School, and Vermont Technical College.

From food justice to safety and labeling, the nation is poised to transform the way in which it sources, grows, processes, purchases, and contemplates food. The Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour is the only program in the country where students take to the road for two weeks, moving through eight schools, earning transferable undergraduate or graduate credit or auditing the class. Vermont schools have graduated one-of-a-kind thinkers, advocates, farmers, retailers, and restaurateurs who are leading the charge in how the nation thinks about food.

“Higher education, entrepreneurial vision, and agricultural heritage define Vermont as a center for food systems innovation,” noted Paul Costello of the Vermont Council on Rural Development and project facilitator. “A creative new generation of networked leaders is emerging through the practical application of a Vermont farm and food education. Vermont schools are offering a unique panoply of experiences and working together to make the state an epicenter of food education for the nation.”

Additionally, Vermont food and farm education strengthens Vermont’s food system, motivates food-based startups, and increases communication among Vermont’s food businesses, all of which connect to Vermont’s dynamic Farm to Plate food system plan.

Summer Study Tour enrollment is underway. For more information about the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour or to enroll, see VermontFoodEducation.org or contact Rachel Arsenault (RArsenault@vtc.vsc.edu, 802.728.1677). The VHEFSC is facilitated by the Vermont Council on Rural Development.

As seen on the Sterling College Blog, “Working Hands, Working Minds”: http://www.sterlingcollege.edu/sterling-offers-food-systems-summer-study-tour-special-restoring-the-ecosystem/

The launch of the fresh Sterling College website reminds us of the school’s place in a global world—a world that is large and looming, joyful and full of potential (particularly as spring arrives!). The new website beckons one to the Northeast Kingdom, to a school that sets the gold standard on a global level for environmental stewardship. Vermont is not only its inspiration. Vermont is its classroom.

Sample some of the best

This ethic is illustrated daily in Sterling’s microcosm of farm, field, forest, and classroom work, and amplified perpetually in the undertakings of its alumni. The Sterling experience is an open one that reaches beyond degree students. From the college’s continuing education courses in the School of the New American Farmstead, to its participation in the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium and its Vermont Food and Farm Education Summer Study Tour, short-term students have the opportunity to “try on” some of the best of Sterling College.

The lens of environmental stewardship

The Summer Study Tour enables student leaders to experience food system classes, practical learning, and field visits with seven Vermont colleges and universities over two weeks this June. Each of these schools offers a view of the food system through a different lens; Sterling’s view is working in harmony with the natural world through sustainable choices that enhance our food system.

To that end, the “special of the day” on the Sterling College portion of the Summer Study Tour contemplates restoring the ecosystem that supports our food system, from underground biology to nutritious food. Time in class, in the field, and spent feeding cows, watering hogs, and gathering eggs will be served up with that Sterling brand of experiential learning that is quietly creating a food system revolution.

A mighty question

Where does my food come from, and what will I choose to express my values? Many have never considered this question. Seeding this powerful inquiry is one of Sterling’s biggest contributions to education, our environment, and our own personal journeys. What is my place in the food chain, the food web, food justice, and consumption? Through field visits to Laggis Farm and Sweet Rowen Farm, Jasper Hill’s cheese caves, and the Eureka Hay Dryer, last year’s Summer Study Tour students discovered a culture of strategic relationships that punctuated their learning experience.

Join the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour!

The Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour is June 16 – 29. This two-week immersion in the best of Vermont food systems education is one way to take a dip into Vermont’s one-of-a-kind opportunities in collaborative learning for undergrad or graduate credit. For more information, please see www.vermontfoodeducation.org. Enrollment is open – register now to sample food systems education at Sterling College as well as six other schools, and learn from a diverse group of real people leading the way for real food, and real change.

Vicky Tebbetts manages the marketing for the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium, which is comprised of Sterling College, Green Mountain College, Middlebury College, New England Culinary Institute, the University of Vermont, Vermont Law School, and Vermont Tech.

–Vicky Tebbetts

As featured on the University of Vermont Food Feed blog: http://learn.uvm.edu/foodsystemsblog/2016/03/24/where-to-learn-about-food-systems/

By Vicky Parra Tebbetts

Under mostly stormy skies last June, a cohort of a dozen students threaded their way through Vermont, traveling 404 miles to learn from leaders at five colleges, one university, and a law school, and mulling through 54 afternoon hours at 21 of Vermont’s most commendable food systems field destinations. Scattered across the country, these students came to take part in the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour, an experiential learning immersion hosted by the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium. Food and farm education is the focus of this group of seven learning institutions, of which UVM is a part.

Amid this tempest of learning and lore, the students settled themselves for two days in Burlington for the UVM Food Systems Summit. There they joined the group to engage with speakers of international significance on the right to food. They wrote, connected, and posed provocative questions. Fast forward to June 2016.

What Makes Food Good?

This year, the UVM Food Systems Summit is scheduled for June 14 and 15, and a fresh crop of Food Systems Summer Study Tour students will join the Summit just prior to the Tour’s kickoff on June 16. The Summit’s theme, “What Makes Food Good,” examines the social, environmental, and political values that greatly influence individuals’ and communities’ sense of the “good.” For example, in the context of food systems, we may favor certain agricultural production practices, culinary traditions, or labor policies.

ClaireKremen

Claire Kremen at the 2015 UVM Food Systems Summit.

As we find the good in our food over those two days in June, we’ll reveal the good in our education. Real people will re-create systems to support real food for real change. They will plant ideas and harvest inspiration. In support of our common goal, Vermont food and farm education is a keystone in making our state the epicenter of the food-systems movement. Growing from the UVM Food Systems Summit, vision will frame the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour as it unfolds through the end of June. What makes the Vermont food education experience so good – in fact – quite delicious?

The Best Traditions

The tastiest cheese. The headiest beer. The sweetest maple syrup. The most innovative communities. Vermont is consistently recognized for leading the country, and even the world, in local food, sustainable agriculture, and food-systems rankings. Our agricultural economy is founded on ecological stewardship and community development. Our history and culture inform our values and are at the core of Vermont’s brand of food and farming education.

Forever Fields of Expertise

Collaborators from around the state are working together as an innovative network that cuts across traditional boundaries, generating new initiatives and gathering quantitative and qualitative data. Efforts such as Vermont Farm to Plate suggest that Vermont’s status as the national leader in direct farm-to-consumer sales and food-systems reform is no accident; rather, these successes are the result of strategic and collaborative statewide efforts, bringing together the confluence of community-based initiatives and organizations.

The Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium is one collaboration that underpins Vermont’s renowned food system through the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour and other initiatives. In addition to The University of Vermont, the Consortium is comprised of Green Mountain College, Middlebury College, New England Culinary Institute, Sterling College, Vermont Law School, and Vermont Tech.

It’s a Matter of Taste

Vermont’s food and farming educational institutions have long provided two critical assets for Vermont’s food system reputation and successes: the expertise of faculty and the cultivation of young entrepreneurs and leaders. It’s not simply the value of an education in food and agriculture in Vermont that matters; it’s also the values upon which our innovative curricula are based. It’s a matter of taste, and through our collaboration, Vermont’s institutions of higher education have an unrivaled menu in food-system education possibilities.

Innovate + Educate = Vermontivate

Vermont food and farm education is ultimately empowering a new generation of leaders to be catalysts of change at local, state, national, and international levels. Through programming like the Summit and the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour, we are connecting learners with leaders to inspire a new global community of leaders to change the way we think about, cultivate, and leverage food systems.

On June 16, Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour students convene at the UVM Food Systems Summit in Burlington to discover what makes food good, where and how we place our values, and question perspectives on how the food system should work. Through the Summit, UVM opens up the portal for all students to enter the realm of Vermont food-system education and plug directly in to the global renaissance of food systems.

Enrollment is open for the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour. To learn more, visit VermontFoodEducation.org. To register for the UVM Food Systems Summit, click here.

-Vicky Tebbetts lives on a farm in Cabot and manages the marketing for the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium.

As featured in Vermont Farm to Plate: http://www.vtfarmtoplate.com/features/lessons-from-students-making-the-most-of-vermont-s-food-web#.VqpGdFmm1fZ

Students from around the country plunged into a whirlwind tour of Vermont last June with one goal: immersion in Vermont’s food systems. For 21 intensive days they traveled 404 miles, learned from leaders at five colleges, one university, and a law school, and spent 54 afternoon hours at 21 food systems field destinations. “Vermont is this little ivory tower of enlightenment in the Northeastern part of the United States,” they said.

With backpack, laptop, and smartphone in hand, these students were the heart of the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour, a project of the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium (VHEFSC). Comprised of Green Mountain College, Middlebury College, New England Culinary Institute, Sterling College, University of Vermont , Vermont Law School, and Vermont Tech, the VHEFSC advances food and farm education in Vermont.

Ultimately, Vermont food and farm education strengthens Vermont’s food system, motivates food-based startups, and increases communication among Vermont’s food businesses – all goals of Vermont’s Farm to Plate food system plan. By claiming Vermont’s place as the catalyst of the country’s food system renaissance, Vermont higher education is inspiring a new, networked global community of leaders to change the way we think about, cultivate, and influence food systems.

To complement schools’ recruiting efforts, this autumn the VHEFSC launched the “Apply Yourself” campaign with the message that food and farm education in Vermont is hands-on, diverse, important, and even a pivotal part of students’ education. An interactive map chronicles insights about food, farming, and learning in Vermont. Here are some of the Summer Study Tour students’ revelations, through their eyes and in their words.

We Stand United, the Vermont Way. Keys to success include strong support from the state government and elected officials, Vermont values-driven programming, a viable landscape for food production, community participation, and cooperation among various public, private, and non-profit groups.

Real People, Real Food, Real Change. Food insecurity can’t be solved with charity. Through charity we are addressing the symptom and not attacking the problem. Within those organizations charity must be augmented with opportunities for empowerment and they must influence policy makers to address the inequities.

We are Deeply Connected. The connection that Vermont farmers and farm families feel to the earth and the region in general astounds me…they are knowledgeable about the health of the working land and are committed to maintaining it to the best of their ability. What became increasingly clear to me throughout the three weeks was the amount of positive influence and change one person can have within a community.

Hard Work, True Hearts. I felt as if I had truly discovered the essence of a Vermonter right from the start of the day. These people work hard, believe in what they do, support each other, and carry with them a set of morals and high standards which is desperately needed in such a complicated and diverse food system.

Vermont is our Classroom: We spoke about what is happening on the ground beneath our feet and how it effects everything else that is happening around us… I know I must lead a more sustainable lifestyle that is more connected to our land than the one I’ve known all my life.

A Vermont Education is Vital. Before coming to Vermont, I spent much more time thinking and reading about the consumer side of food systems than the producer side, as well as more about fruits and vegetables than about dairy and livestock. I’ve certainly been pulled out of my comfort zone. I’ve always known that a basic understanding of rural, agricultural communities and how food is produced would be vital for a career in food policy.

The Themes of Challenge and Success. Most themes relate to aspects of food systems: defining values, supporting farmers, helping children and adults make behavioral changes regarding food, and the importance of partnerships and collaboration. We have also been hearing food systems challenges repeating themselves: high costs of local food, small and local farms not being able to produce enough to keep up with institutions’ demands, seasonality, lack of infrastructure for distribution and storage, and defining and prioritizing different types of values without being contradictory or imposing on others.

Vermont students discover that when you learn in Vermont, you become part of a larger community of leaders, researchers, and catalysts for the sustainability and integrity of global food systems. For a dozen students last summer, this enlightenment became an honor, a burden, and an epiphany as they examined their own ethics, engaged in critical conversations, and shared their insights on making the most of Vermont’s food web.

Plans are underway for the June 2016 Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour. For undergraduate and graduate credit, students will once again be invited to experience a Tour like never before. Check http://www.vermontfoodeducation.org/ for news and application information.