Poultry at the library makes one hot combo

Author: Emma Moros

On Thursday night, in the typically serene basement of Ilsley Public Library, farmers made livestock deals while children played with puzzles and everyone sipped on hot chocolate made with local farm fresh milk. The uncharacteristic liveliness can be attributed to Rural Vermont's Hot Chocolate Social, a family get-together intended to meld entertainment and earnest discussion to make strides in mediating challenges beleaguering local farmers.

Rural Vermont is a privately funded advocacy group that works with policy makers in the Vermont State House to support the interests of small, rural farmers. Its mission is concentrated primarily in the area of what members call "economic justice."

The group funded twelve Hot Chocolate Socials statewide with the purpose of "offering an opportunity for people to know that they can talk to Rural Vermont and communicate with the Agriculture Committee," said Amy Schollenberger, one of the event's coordinators.

In the absence of the Committee, those who attended the event took advantage of the opportunity to talk to one another. The thick hum of Vermont accents filled the room as farmers discussed the difficulty of slaughtering poultry and selling raw milk.

A former Middlebury student named Alex pointed out the fundamental issue of farming as it relates to Middlebury College. Alex worked in the Organic Garden while attending Middlebury and presently works on a local farm. "Farming is something that most students just don't know about despite the fact that it literally surrounds the College," he said.

Schollenberger delivered a talk which highlighted issues of particular concern to farmers. Currently, Rural Vermont is working on campaigns to promote farm-fresh milk and meat. These campaigns seek to make it easier for farmers to sell their products directly. Farmers can only sell the unpasteurized milk which is preferable for cheese making and tied to the organic foods movement in limited quantities. Consequently, Rural Vermont is in its second year of a five-year campaign to allow farmers to sell, advertise and deliver unlimited quantities of raw milk. However, no progress has been made.

Rural Vermont has, however, achieved success in the area of meat processing. One of the main issues the organization sought to address in the past year was the federal government's proposed initiative to tag every farm animal with an identification chip. According to a pamphlet distributed by Rural Vermont "If this [animal identification] program [were] implemented many small-scale meat, milk, and egg producers [would] simply go out of business rather than deal with overly burdensome regulations." Efforts on the part of the farmers to overturn the identification were successful and the program became voluntary. In addition, the state government did not accept federal funding that would have required them to advertise the voluntary program.

There is still work to be done regarding poultry regulations. Currently, the federal government does not require farmers with fewer than 1,000 poultry to have their poultry slaughtered at a federally approved slaughterhouse. Instead, farmers with fewer than 1,000 poultry can slaughter them on their own and sell them to non-resale outlets such as restaurants. In Vermont, however, the limit is even lower than the federal limit. Rural Vermont has therefore set a goal to raise the state limit to match the federal limit.

The provision to raise the limit is in the Omnibus Agriculture Bill that is currently being debated, but according to Schollenberger, it most likely will not survive the passage of the bill. If it does survive, many farmers will immediately be able to sell more of their poultry, a prospect that excites both consumers and producers.

Despite all of Rural Vermont's successes, one attendee who asked not to be identified noted that the group offered few suggestions for concrete action.

Another attendee who hails from a family of dairy farmers expressed a similar complaint, explaining that the independent nature of farming makes it difficult to organize as a cohesive whole. In his view, the most pressing issue facing farmers with small farms is the fact that they cannot slaughter their relatively sparse selection of animals. Small dairy farmers do not need many bulls, for instance, and paying for them to be slaughtered at an approved slaughterhouse can pose a significant financial burden. In addition, there are not many of these approved slaughterhouses available.

With so many problems facing the farming community, one arrives at the inevitable question: "What can the community do?" The same attendee who posed the question offered a solution. "Colleges like Middlebury and UVM should buy local poultry and meat directly from the farmer," she said. "Regulations allow them to do this and they could make a big dent."