Description & Location

Join some of the nation’s leading scholars, farmers, entrepre-neurs, policy makers, artists, and activists at Food, Farms, and Community: Rural America’s Local Food Renaissance from June 16th-18th in the heart of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

Part of Sterling College’s Rural Heritage Institute, Food, Farms, and Community seeks to balance the changing connections between rural communities and their food sources with a long tradition of community-based agriculture. The local food theme will be highlighted by three days of discussions, field trips, and hands-on workshops that connect participants with practitioners at the leading edge of sustainable food systems, organic agriculture, and working communities.

Recently highlighted by the New York Times as a region “connected through food,” the area around Sterling College, Craftsbury, and the Hardwick area, is home to one of the most progressive local food systems in the country. Located at the heart of this region, Food, Farms, and Community capitalizes on the model of community and experiential learning shared by our host venue and the surrounding communities.

Featured Presenters

• Clark Wolf, author of American Cheeses: The Best Regional, Artisan, and Farmhouse Cheeses, Who Makes Them, and Where to Find Them
• Andrew Meyer, owner of Vermont Natural Coatings and Vermont Soy and founder of The Center for an Agricultural Economy
• NOFA-VT (The Vermont Northeast Organic Farmers Association)
• Shelburne Farms
• Vermont Sustainable Exchange
• The Greenhorns
  …and many more

Workshops & Fieldtrips

• Draft Horse Cultivation
• Cooking from Historic Roots
• High Mowing Seeds
• Traditional Skills Workshops: scything, preserving

Partners & Sponsors

• The Center for an Agricultural Economy
• Northwoods Stewardship Center
• Goddard College
• The Monadnock Institute
• The Donchian Foundation
• Cabot Cheese

Who Should Attend?

A broad range of practitioners, scholars, community members, undergraduate/graduate students, and teachers who are passionate about solidifying the connections between community, academic scholarship, and meaningful work in the field. The Institute is appropriate as a professional development opportunity for teachers from across the region. By completing the RHI curriculum, participants will be able to:

Recognize and learn specific examples of the rich diversity of rural heritage in Northern New England.

Build skills necessary to bridge classroom scholarship and field experience, in both their own study and teaching experience.

Understand the interdisciplinary nature of rural heritage and the links that can be forged between cultural history, economy, history, area studies, and ecology, among others.

Develop rural-heritage focused curricula at their home institutions.