REFLECTIONS
Vermont has always had a rich agricultural history with many products produced from the land. We know that the agriculture and food sector is much different today than that of the past and it will continue to be true in the future. Change has been inevitable, with many things impacting this to include transportation, geography, soil types, competition, markets, family values, management skills, public policies, and whether or not farmers can actually make a living from the land.
Early History: The early white settlers were subsistence farmers who came to the area in large numbers after the French and Indian War and the Treaty of Paris. These settlers predominately came from Southern New England and moved into the region now known as Vermont. Their early commercial products were potash (black salts) and Pearlash (purified potash). In 1790 approximately 1,000 tons of this product was made from the ash of hardwood trees that had been cut to clear the land. The product was sold to the United Kingdom and these subsistence farmers received about five dollars per 100 pounds.
Before1820, over 200 distilleries in the state were making corn and rye whiskey and several thousand gallons of apple brandy (the 1852 Temperance Union put an end to this). By 1820, the Champlain Valley was also a major grain producing region until the crops were impacted by disease and competition from other growing areas. In the 1800’s Vermont was also a major hemp and hops growing region.
In the early 1800’s a well-known enterprise took place when William Jarvis, U.S. Counsel General to Portugal, brought several thousand prized merino sheep to the state from Spain. Vermont became known as one of the sheep capitals of the World winning international awards for the best fleece. This existed until the end of tariffs on imported wool in the 1840’s and fierce competition resulting in less expensive wool from other regions. Slowly many Vermont farmers moved from sheep to the commercial production of butter from milk. The State by 1850 became known for its high-quality butter, winning international awards. St Albans became known as the butter capital of the state. By 1900 there were 186 creameries and 66 cheese plants in the state and support industries for these enterprises such as the making of butter molds and churns. The switch from butter to fluid milk first occurred in the late 1890s, when the first milk train left Bellows Falls for Boston as the urban areas reached out for this product. Through the years, there always was a great deal of diversification on the farm with maple production in the Spring, apples in the fall, and other products as well. The growth of apple orchards occurred early in the 1900’s with apples shipped as far away as South America. Farms were relatively self-sufficient in meeting their food needs before they became more specialized as many are today.
Importance of Education: Education was very important to agriculture’s future almost from the beginning. In the 1830’s agricultural societies (created local agricultural fairs) in the state and region were the early nucleus for this needed education. In 1862, U.S. Senator Justin Morrill from Strafford, Vermont conveyed upon President Lincoln to sign the historic Federal Land Grant Act to educate the masses. Until then a college education was only available primarily to the wealthy. Andrew White of Cornell, and later Minister to Germany, called the Federal Land Grant Act the greatest contribution since Hamilton argued for the U.S. Constitution. The University of Vermont became a Land Grant Institution in 1864 (after an earlier attempt to make UVM, Norwich, and Middlebury a joint Land Grant) with the addition of the State Agricultural College. In 1887, a federal law was passed (Hatch Act) that established Experiment Stations in each state in connection with the Colleges. They were to do research and investigation on agriculture and related topics. Following this in the early 1900’s, the Federal Extension Act and Vocational Education laws furthered the educational and research connection to students and farmers as well as their families. This outreach and focus, which continues to this day, was critical in connecting farmers and rural residents and their families with educational and research results. The creation of the State School of Agriculture at Randolph in 1910 only furthered this educational approach. It has been said that “for 70 years after the Land Grant Act, the focus was on research, teaching, farm education, and improvement in the use of agricultural resource.”
Transportation and Communications: Both transportation and communications continue to play an important role in the transformation of agriculture and land resources. In the beginning the state legislature authorized private turnpikes for transportation. Waterways became important when the first United States canal in Bellow Falls was financed in 1792. This canal dealt with traffic on the Connecticut River through an elaborate canal system to Hartford, Ct. From there products were shipped to other parts of world. The Champlain Canal in 1823 connected Lake Champlain to the Erie Canal. This canal is said to have led to the demise of the self-sufficiency of New England Agriculture for it was known even at that time that goods could be grown cheaper in the West and shipped to the East for less than growing them here. When railroads came in soon after this it again changed the whole trade and market environment. Trains opened up new markets and further increased competition with the West as well as other regions of the country. The Interstate Highway System that was built in Vermont between the 1950’s and 1960’s, furthered both market access as well as market competition to farmers. The highway also created a sharp increase in people moving to the State. Until this time the population of the state had been in decline.
Intervention Period by the Federal Government: This intervention period largely came about due to crises. These government interventions included but are not limited to:
-The 1906 Food and Drug Act written as a result of the book the Jungle by Upton Sinclair. In his book Sinclair studied the meat packing industry and the impact it had on immigrants that had settled in Chicago.
-The establishment of the Federal Land Bank in 1916 for long-term loans to farmers. This was enacted after the United States Commission to Europe, Russia and Egypt in 1913 studied agricultural cooperatives and rural credit.
-Laws established the farmer cooperative movement in 1922 with the Capper-Volstead Act; the Soil Adjustment Act of 1936 that created the Soil Conservation Service (now NRCS) as a result of the Dust Bowl; the 1936 Rural Electric and Telephone Act that brought electric energy and communications to rural America including Vermont.
-The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1937 after the Depression that put in place many of the agricultural development, lending, and market order programs that exist today.
-The book Silent Spring written in 1962 by Rachel Carlson led to the banning of DDT.
-EPA was created in 1970 and the Clean Water Act in 1972 after the burning of the Cuyahoga River in 1969.
-The Federal Farm Bills, passed every four years, were first created during the great depression that brought together urban and farm interests.
States have not been immune to crisis over the years either. Some of the activities or policies at the State level in Vermont have included the following:
-Laws passed in the early 1900’s to encourage the development of agriculture cooperatives. They were passed when it was recognized that there was an urgent need for farmers to work together for better pricing.
-Act 250, a major environmental law that resulted from a study under Governor Dean Davis with the Gibb Commission. The commission was established to find ways to address environmental issues with development of and around ski areas in the state.
-The Currant Use Taxation of forest and agricultural land in 1979, created so that land is taxed according to its use and not on developmental values.
-The Purchase of Development Rights with funding from the Land Transfer Tax in the mid 1980’s through the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board; providing specialized lending programs for agriculture through the Vermont Economic Development Authority.
-Support of soil and water conservation.
-The Vermont Farm to Plate initiative and other support around market access and new product development,
-And more recently, funding toward the working landscape and agricultural sustainability.
These are but a few of the state actions that have been taken over the years to support agriculture and the working landscape.
Today: There has been a “Renaissance of the Past” with the locavore movement, farmers markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s), artisan cheeses, hemp production, distilleries, hops, local meats and vegetables, maple expansion, and other products. Often it is new people doing old things with new technologies.
The challenges are many as they have always been. While Vermont is the most dairy dependent state in the United States, we are losing our dairy farms, with 11,000 before WWII, 1100 in 2008, and just over 600 today. The State and its dairy industry are facing some of the same issues today that they faced with the decline of the Merino Sheep industry and with the butter trade as faced in earlier times with pricing, markets, and competition. Also there has also been increased consolidation at all levels in the food and agricultural system over a long period of time and that continues today.
In early 2000 period, National Geographic stated that Vermont was the number one place to visit in the U.S. and the number five place in the World, and it was due to our working landscape and quaint villages, and that Vermont had a plan for the future.
Vermont’s history as well as its culture has been tied to and influenced through the years by its working landscape. As changes continue to take place on the land, its landscape, and activities connected to it will continue to change as well. Many of the old timers who had seen the loss of the merino sheep industry, the demise of the butter trade, made the statement that Vermont’s agricultural future is never competing with the West, but in developing those products that consumers in the growing markets in the Northeast will want (see whatceresmightsay.blogspot.com).
Postscript Since the Rotary Presentation: Covid 19, the virus, has devastated the nation as well as the economy of the states. Tom Brokaw, a well-known retired national reporter, has stated that Covid 19 is the worst crisis since the Civil War. It has been said that “the state of Vermont is at a fork in the road, and that new roads to the future are opening up.” (see August 4, 2020 Vtdigger commentary by Jock Gill.) In 1932, following one of the worst crises in the State’s history, the flood of 1927, a very comprehensive report was issued by the Vermont Commission on Country Life, Chaired by ex-Governor John E. Weeks. This Commission of about three hundred citizens of the state, studied over many months ALL aspects of the state and issued in 1931 the Report Rural Vermont A Program for the Future. In the book, “Dateline Vermont” by Chris Graff, he states that “he believes the recommendations in the report in many ways set the agenda for the following few decades in our state”.
Covid 19 has changed the landscape and has brought to the surface the many issues that confront the state and our local communities to include, health care, education, agriculture, land use, food security, tourism, jobs, business viability, and more. Perhaps it too has awakened in Vermonters a fuller sense of their power and has given them a new impulse that will be felt through the years. In that regard, it is very encouraging to hear of The Vermont Proposition initiative being developed by the Vermont Council on Rural Development. Its stated purpose “is to gather input from thousands of Vermonters to help build a “Vermont Proposition”—a set of ideas to drive common action and advance a successful and resilient future for the state.”
Perhaps in the future, someone will look back at this period and the result of the work in developing the Vermont Proposition, and will say, like Chris Graff did about the 1931 Report, that the Proposition helped to set the agenda for the state.
Note: For more specific details on Vermont’s rich agricultural history, see www.whatceresmightsay.blogspot.com
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