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| Cedar Circle Farm Field and Paddock |
What Say You: Cedar Circle Farm
SUSAN CLOKE
Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror
“Organic,
biodynamic and integrated pest management systems are working all around the
world and are the hope not only for food sustainability but for the control of
global climate change. Even normally conservative World Bank scientists
maintain that 51% of greenhouse gasses come from agriculture. This has to
change, and local, organic and sustainable agriculture are the answer.” Will
Allen.
Allen is an
acclaimed leader in the organic food movement, a public policy advisor, an
educator, part of the California Certified Organic Farmers Organization from
his days in California, and the author of “The War on Bugs” making a compelling
a argument against the use of chemical pesticides.
Most of all he is
a farmer and he and Kate Duesterberg are the co-managers of the 52 acre Cedar
Circle Farm in Thetford Vermont.
They met, when Duesterberg worked at the Center for Sustainable
Agriculture in Burlington Vermont and Allen was heading the Sustainable Cotton
Project. When they decided to marry
they looked for a farm where they could put their beliefs into action and found
a beautiful, riverfront farm that already had barns, a farmhouse, greenhouses
and a farmstand.
The non-profit
Azadoutioun Foundation of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Duesterberg and Allen’s
recommendation, bought the farm. The
Foundation retains ownership with Duesterberg and Allen as farm managers. The previous owners, the Stones, had
sold the development rights to the Vermont Land Trust, so Cedar Circle land, is
protected, in perpetuity, as farmland.
The farm grows blueberries,
strawberries, raspberries, melons, flowers, corn, all the brassicas (broccoli
and more), beets, onions garlic, leeks, carrots, potatoes, winter squashes,
pumpkins and herbs such as basil, parley, and dill.
Produce is sold
at their farmstand and at local farmers markets. They participate in CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)
where people buy shares ahead of the growing season and so pre-pay for a share
of the coming season’s fruits and veggies, which helps the farmers pay for seed
and provides produce at lower prices to members.
Cat Buxton, the Education Programs Coordinator
for the farm, and I sat early one morning in the farm café, drinking their
delicious coffee. Actually, I was
drinking the delicious coffee, Buxton declined, having just finished her usual
morning drink, a smoothie she shared in the kitchen. (The smoothie recipe varies with supply and with
the seasons. That day it was 1 avocado, 2 bananas, 1 pear, 1 peach, 1 cucumber,
1 head. lettuce, ½ bunch kale, ¼ bunch parley, 1 lemon (all but the rind), water
to thin to a drinkable consistency.)
We talked about a recent thunder and lightning storm and Buxton,
describing the safety procedures on the farm said, “at the first sound of
thunder all field crew know to come in.
Even if that means that sometimes you’ve got to leave what you’re doing
and get yourself to a safe house.”
40 of Cedar Circle’s 50 plus acres are cultivated. Farm buildings, internal roads and
trees and a 50’ buffer zone, one of the requirements of an organic farm, occupy
the other 10 acres. On the Connecticut
River edge there is a wildlife corridor of oaks and maples and native flora to
create habitat and prevent erosion. Buxton told me that “Deer, fox,
groundhogs, raccoons, skunk and bears all use the corridor.”
3 draft horses live, and are used
for work, on the farm. Buxton
said, “as part of our ecological mission we are working toward “horse drawn agriculture in order to reduce petroleum use. Currently, in addition to using the horses we use 9
tractors as well.”
Buxton works on all the community outreach programs. “We have lots of families that come here to spend the
afternoon, strolling, picking berries (on the traditional Vermont honor
system). We have lots of events,
Dinner in the Field happens once or twice a year; we have a harvest festival, a
strawberry festival and a pumpkin festival. We’ve had over 1000 people come to the festivals. The festivals feature music, education
tables, horse drawn wagon rides and, of course, food and produce. There is no entry free for those who
come by foot or by bike. There is a $5 parking fee if people come in their
cars. We are also part of the Tour
de Taste, a recreational bicycle event with stops for good food at farms along
the way.
“We offer gardening and cooking classes, the fees
depend on the length of the classes.
We hold free community garden clinics in Thetford and White River and we
sponsor the school garden at Thetford Elementary where we teach a ‘food loop’
from seed starting through planting, garden care, and harvesting. Then the produce the kids have grown
goes into the cafeteria and they love eating the food they’ve grown
themselves. Garden waste goes into
compost and the compost is used for the next season’s garden, hence a ‘food
loop.’ Crispy kale is now a
favorite at the school cafeteria!”
In talking about the future, Buxton said, “Our
mission is large. We want to stay on the same track but we don’t want to get
too big because that wouldn’t be sustainable.”
Alison Baker
and Justin Barrett were the chefs
of the Dinner in the Field al fresco banquet at Cedar Circle Farms. Baker is the KitchenManager at the farm and Barrett is the founder of Piecemeal, a local
enterprise in community driven food. Barrett trained in architecture before
focusing his talents on sustainable food, working in Portland, Oregon and in Manhattan
before coming to Vermont.
Long, trestle
tables were placed end to end on a grassy lawn with rows of crops abutting one
edge and a horse paddock at the far end.
Draft horses, used for pulling plows on the farm, were munching away on
the grass in their paddock.
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| Dinner in the Field Menu Boards |
A festive mood, created by the gorgeous day, the
glamorous farm where all was perfection. (May I use the word glamorous when
talking about a farm? It’s not the
usual adjective for a farm but it fits this farm). The air was soft, the breeze gentle, the blue sky painted
with the pinks and yellows of the coming sunset and the soft whites of
occasional clouds.
The dinner, delicious and local and communal represented
the antithesis of most of the food grown in the United States. Will Allen describes that food, “So much of what we eat is at its core fossil
fueled. Let's begin with fertilizer. Fossil fuels power the nitrogen
manufacturing plants. U.S. farmers use more than 24 billion pounds of nitrogen
fertilizer every year. To manufacture that nitrogen more than 660 billion
pounds of nitrous oxide are released. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more
destructive as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Two-thirds of our drinking water is
contaminated with nitrogen fertilizer runoff. More than 400 oceanic dead zones
are caused by nitrogen fertilizer runoff. Growing the crops in the U.S., which
are mostly for animals, requires enormous amounts of fossil fuel for tractors,
swathers, combines, and dryers. After the crops for feed or human food are
harvested they are shipped 1500 to 3000 miles, using more fossil fuel. Shipping
and storage require cooling and freezing, and more fossil fuel. Clearly, this is not endlessly sustainable.
“We have organic, biodynamic and integrated pest management systems that
are working all around the world and are the hope not only for food
sustainability but for the control of global climate change. Even normally
conservative World Bank scientists maintain that 51% of greenhouse gasses come
from agriculture. This has to change, and local, organic and sustainable
agriculture are the answer.”
So the challenge is before us and the danger is clear. Food that is grown with petrochemicals
is harmful to our health and the health of our soil and water. That is the message. Now it is up to us to do our part. We are the consumers, if we let the
places where we buy food and go out for food know we want sustainably grown
food, food grown without petrochemicals, they will respond and we will be able
to complete the farm to table cycle for healthy food.
Let us support our local farmers, going to farmers markets for our
produce, buying locally, supporting restaurants and markets that carry local, sustainable
and organic foods.
Alison Baker, as she and Justin Barrett were
being applauded at the end of this summer’s Dinner in the Field, said, “There is no end to the
deliciousness possible with local food, sustainably grown.”
What Say You?
