Farmers and Townies Talk: Local Food Hub

Dave reporting:

​As we approach the 2024 Town Meeting Day, the Jericho Food Hub Task Force (JFHTF) wrapped
up its first year by bringing together towns folks and Jericho/Underhill farmers to gather
and share information. In cooperation with the Underhill Local Agriculture and Local
Foods Initiative, JFHTF invited local farmers to attend the January 20 meeting to discuss
local food issues and how best to cooperate and build our local food hub.

Representatives from The Farm Upstream, Chamberlin's Farm, Settlement Farm, Jericho
Settlers Farm, Keszey Farm, Ash Grove Farm, and Birchhill Sugar Works attended the
meeting as well as residents from both towns.

The conversation largely focused on how to make local foods more available. Areas of
discussion included: how to encourage people to purchase local foods, how to educate
people on the benefits of preparing and eating local foods, and how to assist in the
affordability of local foods while supporting farmers in making a viable living.

From the conversation these thoughts and future objectives were shared:
• A farm to school program was discussed and the need for a coordinator to make it
work.
• Creating a food home delivery program, and/or incorporating local foods in existing
food delivery systems.
• Connecting with UVM’s Extension Service food and nutrition program
• Working with and strengthening supports farmers already have.
• Listing local farms and resources online to help consumers make connections.
• Taking advantage of the Farm to Plate on-line map of farms.
• Helping farms with grant writing to better utilize funding resources.
• Better marketing of existing farm stands.
• Hosting a summer food celebration (at farmer's market) to highlight local farms.
• Sponsoring social events to bring farmers and town residents together for community
building.
• Supporting Chamberlain's Farm’s effort to create a farm store. (Other farmers
mentioned developing on-farm stores and thought that a food hub would help them as
well)

Next Steps:
There was consensus around the importance of community building, celebrating local
food and food education, ie, the importance of access to fresh local food and food
preparation. In addition to ongoing education and promotion of our local farms, these are
all things that could be objectives of the Underhill and Jericho committees in 2024.
Specific projects could include supporting Chamberlin’s farm store and other local farm
stores, organizing a community dinner and promoting a community supported planting
project.

Want to get involved?
If you would like to get involved with the Jericho/Underhill Food Hub project,
please contact us by emailing: [email protected].
Our next committee meeting will be February 28th at 7pm on a zoom call.
The next farmer’s meeting will be in April, at a date and time to be determined