By Julia Scheier and Sarah McIlvennie, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets
The Agency is excited to pilot a series of in-person and virtual listening sessions across the state over the winter. Our goal is to make the Agency more accessible to our constituents, by creating space for direct engagement with agricultural producers, processors, and distributors across Vermont. We hope to hear about experiences, needs, priorities, and concerns. We will utilize this space to receive feedback and questions from the agricultural community to inform programs and funding opportunities.
This series will be held in multiple locations across the state and will take a variety of forms. For some, we will host or co-host a standalone meeting with a partner in the region. For others, we will collaborate with partners to join established events.
We foresee at least two events in January for Caledonia, Essex, Lamoille and Orleans counties, three events in February for Addison, Bennington and Orange counties, two events in March for Rutland, Franklin and Grand Isle counties, and a final virtual offering in April.
Our partners in this work include (alphabetically):
- Addison County Relocalization Network
- Center for an Agricultural Economy
- Farmers Watershed Alliances – CT River Valley and Franklin & Grand Isle
- Food Connects
- Natural Resource Conservation Districts across the state
- Northshire Grows at Merck Forest and Farmland Center
- Vermont Farmers Food Center
We invite you to join for one or more meetings – please refer to our website as we finalize the schedule. We will be offering light snacks and refreshments. We recognize there are barriers to joining in-person events, but we hope as this program develops in future iterations that we can provide more robust services to better support accessibility to join.
If you are unable to attend for any reason but would like to share your experiences, we welcome you to fill out the form on our website. We welcome feedback on structure and accessibility of this process, so we can adjust logistics for future series.
There is no need to RSVP. For questions or to offer direct input, please contact Sarah McIlvennie at Sarah.McIlvennie@vermont.gov or 802-261-5866.