Meet Ivars Balkits, the media fellow of the Vermont Summer Study Tour. An adventurer by nature with a background in agriculture and ecology, Ivars currently hails from the midwest. Discover the Vermont food systems scene through his eyes and come along for the ride.
Sunset of the Tour (June 19, 2015) Celebration! was the theme on the final evening of Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour 2015 as we gathered at the Orchard Cove guesthouse of Shelburne Farms. The previous 20 days had been jam-packed with activities, both intellectual and experiential, and now the group had time to reflect a little beside sparkling Lake Champlain. I sat there reflecting that if our tour had been a movie, this would have been the cast party…
It’s all the Buzz (June 18, 2015) On the final day of the Summer Study Tour, our hive was busy at Middlebury College with a panel discussion on Bees and Climate Change, featuring Bill McKibben, environmentalist and Schumann Distinguished Scholar; Kirk Webster, apiarist and owner of Champlain Valley Bees & Queens; Helen Young, evolutionary field biologist and professor of Biology; and Dara Scott, director of the Native Irish Honey Bee Society. The day’s field visits included stops at Lincoln Peak Vineyard and Woodchuck Cider…
The Right to Food: Research and Activism (June 16-17, 2015) The Right to Food was the theme of the Food Systems Summit on June 16-17 organized by University of Vermont (UVM) in collaboration with Vermont Law School. A subtheme of the two-day event (not spelled out in the schedule but clearly evident throughout) was research and activism…
The Conservation Conversation (June 15, 2015) After an immersion from Philip Ackerman-Leist of Green Mountain College on the history of conservation, the group began to catalog food system terms and concepts encountered over the preceding two weeks. Next, they began to establish links between topic areas to begin to synthesize what a food system really is in its entirety, followed by an expansive discussion of systems thinking, network theory, and complex adaptive systems…
Moveable Feast Takes a Wild Turn (June 13, 2015) Nova and Les of Wild Gourmet Food helped us identify and collect oxeye daisy buds, violet greens, milkweed tips, Virginia waterleaf greens, ramp bulbs, and several mushrooms from the surrounding woods. We gathered them in bunches of 13 (Baker’s Dozen) as they do for the chefs they service in New York City and other large urban centers. Nova taught us also how to pick by hand the tops of stinging nettle, mostly bug-chewed at this stage, without the usual consequence. Les pointed out partridge berry and wintergreen as well, but those had already been wild-crafted by other creatures of the forest…
Green Mountain Food Fight (June 12, 2015) Summer Study Tour students became law scholars briefly this week. Carrie Scrufari, fellow with Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School, led the group in a discussion of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) as they relate to Act 120, Vermont’s new GMO-labeling law, and the Precautionary Principle and Substantial Equivalence schools of thought…
Organic Farming from Cover to Cover (June 11, 2015) The group visited Cedar Circle organic farm which is devoted to farm and food education, met with Grace Gershuny, an educator who had been key in developing certified organic standards at the state and federal level, and talked with co-founder and publisher Margo Baldwin at Chelsea Green, an independent publishing house committed to fostering social change…
It’s a Chore - Or a Whole Bunch of Chores (June 9 - 10, 2015) Chores? Yes, farm chores have been part of the curriculum. At Sterling College, they were required of us; at Vermont Technical College, they were optional. Other lessons of the day at Vermont Tech included: 1) cover cropping with ag training manager Molly Willard 2) a deeper discussion of growing corn with nutrient management specialist Sosten Lungu, in which we learned of the differences between conventional breeding for hybrids and genetic engineering; and 3) an on-the-farm lecture by Chris Dutton, director of the Institute for Applied Agriculture and Food Systems, on budgeting and money from animals…
A Field Day with Big Bertha: Digesting the Information Stream (June 8, 2015) As I’m gazing abstractly at the ceiling, wondering how to start tonight’s post, I study the fluorescent fixture in this dorm room at Vermont Technical College and suddenly think, “That is manure-generated light!” One might say Big Bertha, the Anaerobic Digester that provides much of the energy on the Randolph campus, works like a large cow…
Pastures of Plenty and Barns of Bovines (June 6, 2015) Contrasting and comparing a couple of distinctly dissimilar dairy operations in this part of the Northeast Kingdom: Sweet Rowen Farmstead in West Glover and Laggis Brothers Farm in East Hardwick. Our final stop of the day was at the brand-new Eureka hay drying facility, still under construction, which that very day had test-dried 50 700-lb. round bales of hay…
Neighborliness Grows Economy in Northeast Kingdom (June 5, 2015) Our destination for the morning was Cellars at Jasper Hill… Monger liaison Molly Browne guided us through several vaults of aging clothbound cheddar, blue, Brie, tomme-style, and other hard and soft-ripened cheeses. Most recently from Denver, Molly is part of an ongoing in-migration of young people and families who are revitalizing the economy and enhancing social life in this part of Vermont…
“I’ve Never Seen a Course Like that Before!” (June 4, 2015) Most college students might expect to run into each other once or twice a day in class or on campus. Here we get to be together and form friendships and learn together while spending nearly every waking hour of the 21 days we are on the road. Fortunately, we have found that we are very compatible and enjoy each other’s company and contributions to the discourse about Vermont and its food systems…
What I Learned in Farm to School Today (June 3, 2015) Miss Bonnie, as the children know her, took us on a tour of the twenty or so raised and excavated beds that encircle the playground and extend around the school. As children played soccer and climbed monkey bars, she walked backwards before us and talked about working with staff, parents, grandparents, and neighbors, in several stages over the years, to create a hands-in-the-dirt learning experience for the children…
A Full Day Spent at Universitas Viridis Montis (June 2, 2015) Tuesday, June 2, began early with an inspiring lecture by Fred Magdoff, UVM professor emeritus of soil and plant science and founding regional coordinator of Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)…
Capital Day in the Capital City (June 1, 2015) On the first day of June, the Vermont Food Systems Study Tour participants traveled to Montpelier, the state capital of Vermont. In our rented 15-passenger white van, already nicknamed Moby, we lumbered through a steady and at times driving rain to make our 8:30 a.m. appointment with Paul Costello, executive director of Vermont Council of Rural Development (VCRD)…
Jolly Media Fellow Prepares to Tour Vermont (May 26, 2015) My name is Ivars. That’s me on adventure, self-mockingly mock-heroic, setting out. Though the photo was taken in New Mexico, the questing nature of the image conveys my feelings as I head out on a new adventure: three June weeks documenting the Vermont Food and Farm Study Tour…
