The Town That Food Saved

I recently read a great book called The Town That Food Saved about a once-struggling Vermont community that found vitality in local food.  Thanks to my friend Annie at the Vermont Food Venture Center, I also had the opportunity to take a personal tour of the town that food saved and to meet a few of its key players.  The author of the book, Ben Hewitt, is a journalist and farmer who resides in Cabot, VT.  The story centers around Hardwick, VT and its surrounding communities.  It begins by giving the history of the area beginning with its booming era during the late 1800s through the 1920s in the height of the granite era.  During that span, nearly 300 granite companies operated in the Hardwick area and by 1918, the worlds largest granite operation called the Hardwick area home.  Soon, however, the granite bubble burst and the demise of the granite industry dealt a tremendous blow to the Hardwick region.  As stoneworkers fled town, they left behind acres and acres of affordable farmland, which lured scores of French Canadian dairy farmers to the area.  This is when Hardwick's agricultural era began. 

Eventually, the dairy farms of Hardwick suffered the same fate of other dairy farms throughout the state as milk prices stagnated, feed prices rose, and the second generations of the original French Canadian farmers sought careers that didn’t involve soil and toil.  The back-to-the-land movement of the 60’s and 70’s brought more farming families to the Hardwick area and they continued to survive through the next 3 decades, but the town wasn’t exactly flourishing.  The median income of the town ran 25 % below the state average and its unemployment rate was 40% higher.  The area was not immune to the pitfalls of our over-centralized, over-mechanized industrial food system.  But over the last few years, despite a crippling economic crisis plaguing our country, something wonderful began to happen in and around Hardwick, VT.  A healthy, de-centralized food system began to take shape. 

The colorful key players in this agrepreneurial movement are as follows:  Tom Stearns of High Mowing Seed Company; Tom Gilbert of the Highfields Center for Composting; Andrew Meyer of the Center for an Agricultural Economy; and Pete Johnson of Pete’s Greens.  Hewitt dubs this quartet the Mouth, the Mind, the Manager, and the Model Farmer, respectively.  The Vermont Food Venture Center, Vermont Soy, Jasper Hill Farm and Cheese Cellars, Claire’s Restaurant, True Yogurt, Applecheek Farm, the Buffalo Mountain Food Co-op, and at least a dozen other local food businesses all play very vital roles, as well.  The Vermont Food Venture Center was still in its infancy when this book was published, but thanks to a tour of the facility with my friend, Annie, I see what an impact they are now making in the area.  They serve as a small business incubator for individuals who have a great product, but lack the industrial kitchen space, equipment, and storage space to produce their product.  The VFVC serves as a place for them to produce, package, and store their product and many small VT food businesses have found their start thanks to this facility.  Additionally, the VFVC receives and minimally processes local fruits and vegetables to be distributed to local schools, hospitals, and grocery stores.   Many schools and hospitals wish to participate in farm-to-school programs, but lack the time and resources needed to receive, wash, peel, cut, and freeze fresh, local fruits and vegetables themselves.  The VFVC bridges this gap and solves that problem.  

The VFVC is just one of more than a dozen business contributing to the thriving local food scene in the Hardwick area.  Hewitt describes how each of these businesses and individuals have come to play a role in creating what is now known as the most fertile region for artisanal food production in North America.  This boom has brought jobs and young people back to the area and Hardwick’s main street is once again a thriving scene vaguely reminiscent of the booming granite era.  Locals have begun to experience first-hand the ancillary benefits of a thriving local food system:  local economic stability, social and political engagement among community members, and the preservation of a working landscape.  This has garnered attention from The New York Times, Gourmet Magazine, and similar media outlets all over the world.  Everyone wanted to come see what a decentralized food system should look like and to meet the people at the heart of this movement. 

Most in the area were thrilled with the changes and even with the attention is was drawing to the area, but many of the region’s long-established farmers were less than enthusiastic about being painted as a group of individuals who were in need of saving in the first place.  Some also worried about how quickly it was all happening and wondered if perhaps the brakes should be applied to consider whether it would unfold in a truly thoughtful way that would result in a reproducible model for others to apply in their own regions.  Hewitt concluded that the answer to that question would only come in time.  He outlined what he felt were emerging as the cornerstones to a healthy, decentralized food system.  First, it must offer economic viability to small-scale food producers.  Next, it must be based on sunshine: the sun grows the grass, the animal grazes and digests the grass, the animal eliminates waste, and the waste goes on to the field to nourish the plants.  The third concept is that it must feed the locals.  And, finally, it must be cyclical: seeds are sown, grown into fruits and vegetables, the scraps are turned to compost, the compost is returned to the land to nourish the crops.

Hardwick and the surrounding area are excelling with three of the four cornerstones.  The remaining challenge still seems to be the most obvious one- the fact that it must feed the locals.  The conundrum stems from the fact that, in order to compete in a market with big agribusiness, a small-scale producer must create a value-added product.  The challenge with a value-added product is that it is often more expensive.  Many of the residents of the Hardwick area cannot find it within their modest food budget to purchase a five-dollar loaf of bread or eighteen-dollar per-pound cheese and I can certainly relate.  This represents an ongoing challenge, which Hewitt says will be still need some work.  Many believe that as the cost of fertilizer and petroleum continue to rise, the price of “cheap” foods must also rise.  Since local foods are less reliant on these, a time will come when local will cost less.   The rise in energy and fertilizer costs has already led to double and triple-digit food inflation just since 2008.  Hewitt urges that we must also consider that in 1930, the average American family spent 24.2% of their annual income on food compared to only 9.8% in 2007.  We are now spending considerably less on our food, but failing to consider the hidden costs to our health and our environment. 

In short, The Town That Food Saved was an educational, thoughtful, and in-depth look at what local foods and a decentralized food system can bring to a community.  This new model is not without its challenges and pitfalls, but compared to our current model of agri-business, one might find the challenges of this new system to be minor in scale.  Many argue that this shift is necessary.  After reading about and visiting Hardwick, I am convinced that food really can save a community and can even do so during the worst economic times.  I don't live in the Hardwick region, but I am proud to live in a community and in a state that has such a strong, vibrant food system.   I am thankful to be able to witness first-hand what a thriving local food system looks like and how well it can work.  Above all, after reading this book, I am feeling optimistic about the future of food.