A new multimedia exhibit shares the stories and portraits of 13 Upper Valley farmers who are using agricultural methods that mitigate and adapt to climate change and help build a food supply that can withstand the impact of climate disruption.
“Climate Farmer Stories” opens Saturday, April 1, 5-7 pm at BALE Commons in South Royalton, VT and is free and open to the public. Guests will be able to browse portraits – made by esteemed artists from this region – and informational panels on climate-friendly agriculture and use their phones to play audio interviews with the farmers depicted in the portraits. Farmers from some of the 13 farms featured in the exhibit will be there to meet people and answer questions about their farms and methods.
The exhibit will remain on display at BALE Commons through April. Starting in June, it will travel between numerous Upper Valley libraries. The library exhibit schedule will be posted at https://vitalcommunities.org/upcoming-events/ in later spring.
The exhibit celebrates some of the Upper Valley farmers who are integral to their communities, the health of the land, and our future landscape.; it combines portraits made by Vermont and New Hampshire artists with climate and soil health educational content and audio interviews to show how farmers in our community are drawing down carbon, bolstering biodiversity, and resilience to extreme weather, and building our food security in the face of climate change.
The exhibit is one part of Vital Communities’ Climate Farmer Stories project, a three-year effort to increase farmer income while changing the perception about farming and climate change. Funded by the US Department of Agriculture, the project brings together Upper Valley farmers, artists, and nonprofit staff to change the story of farming and climate change, while increasing the marketing skills and resources for participating farmers. The project began work with the first cohort of farmers — who are featured in the new exhibit — in May 2022 and is now starting a second phase with a new cohort of a dozen farmers.
“Addressing climate change through food requires us to get back to the roots of farming,” said Nancy LaRowe, Vital Communities’ Director of Food & Farm and Economy. “Climate farmers can help mitigate climate change by returning to farming practices that strive to support natural systems, as opposed to scaling up with more ‘efficient’ technologies that are denigrating natural ecosystems. This is the hopeful story that needs to be shared as we see and experience the impacts of the climate crisis. People can choose how to spend their food dollars, and buying local food from climate-conscious farmers is an investment in community resilience and climate action.”
Farms Represented in the Exhibit
Cedar Mountain Farm
Cedar Circle Farm and Education Center
Green Mountain Girls Farm
Kiss The Cow Farm
Luna Bleu Farm
Moon and Stars
Open Woods Farm
Root 5 Farm
Silloway Maple
Sunrise Organic Farm
Sweetland Farm
Walpole Valley Farms
Winter Street Farm
Artists Who Made the Portraits
Cecily Anderson
Misoo Bang
Danielle Festa
Joan Hanley
LMNOPI
Janet McKenzie
Katie Runde
Published 3/9/23