24th Annual Vermont Grazing & Livestock Conference

The biggest problems of our time are consequences of measuring and paying farmers for "one thing" and extracting wealth from the land and rural communities. Look around and ask yourself - is this a time for half-measures, new paint on a burning barn, or tepid leadership?

It's time to hire farmer watershed contractors to grow the measured natural capital infrastructure and ecosystem services we all need. Watershed contractors will grow the topsoil, biodiversity and working watersheds necessary to sustain the next thousand years of Vermont history. Understood realistically, this will be the largest energy and infrastructure project in history. To make this happen, we will need to wield and shape existing and developing science, technology, financial instruments and economic models.

One year ago, Vermont farmers and allies offered critical leadership with their proposal to the Vermont legislature of a pilot project:  "Hiring Vermont farmers to produce healthy soil, clean water and a sustainable working landscape." Their courage and planning triggered progress and the skeleton of a new paradigm in Vermont that would been considered impossible just 12 months ago.

Abe will outline tools and strategy available to take watershed contracting movement to the next level, and suggest a timeline to make 2020 the year that Vermont farmers stopped being policy and price-takers and launched ecological economic development on the land that will show the world the meaning of the saying "Vermont is small but mighty." He will ask for your leadership, for your collaboration with other farmers and organizations, and what your next step will be.