It was a wonderful adventure but it sure was great to come home at the end.

Here in Vermont we worry about the loss of youth, the decimation of downtowns, the aging population, and the hollowing out of our rural communities. As the second most rural state in the nation (next to Wyoming), Vermont is more subject than most to the trends and challenges facing rural America as a whole. But while indices of aging demographics, for example, put us at the extreme end of the continuum of states, the rural areas of many other states are in much worse shape, including western states where much of the population has concentrated in urban areas.

I rode through beautiful open lands into small communities with substantial and historic downtowns where there was absolutely no one on the street. Where cold and empty glass storefronts have replaced local commerce. Where a family of five manages a farm of 5,000 acres of beets and beans. Where hired folk come from Fargo or Minot to plant, fertilize, harvest. The farm jobs are in trucking, and few need to live in the local farm community. Without innovative economic alternatives, towns sink—many of them have just one or two anchor businesses holding on, usually including a café (thankfully!) whose regular customer base is a small group of senior citizens, retired or nearly retired farmers, and an occasional trucker.

The endless waves of grain are striking and defy the folks who anticipate the imminent demise of large scale agriculture. One hundred and fifty acres of cabbage, cherries, even asparagus, are beautiful and efficient. A planting of thousands of acres of wheat is a profound sight and under existing policies and conditions remains profitable and so ubiquitous.

But modern agriculture in the West and Midwest increasingly leaves no one in the fields and no one in the small towns. Many of us worry about the “no child left in the woods” syndrome where children no longer play freely in the great outdoors. In some states, while hunting and fishing may be strong, you never seen people running or on bikes, and rarely see children outside or families walking on rural roads. Meanwhile the obesity epidemic is easy to observe. In some places it feels like there is a cultural break from participation in nature.

Coming into Vermont there is a stark, amazing and exhilarating difference. Off the ferry from Crown Point you start to see bicyclists, lots of them. You see a scale of rural farms, forests and villages that balance each other in a way that has been lost elsewhere. The West has admirable “working landscapes,” but they are often disconnected from community life and downtown vitality.

What we have here in Vermont is something of fundamental value: something essential to our character, our brand, our sense of place, our still-authentic and autochthonous communities. Autochthonous, one of my favorite words of all time, means springing from the soil, rooted in place.

Our communities and our connection to the land—for the view, for the economy, and for the quality of life—are indispensible to us and are what make Vermont so special.

Vermont farm and forest enterprises economically perpetuate the working landscape and serve as foundations for the expansion of foods and wood products for both local use and value-added export in the regional and global economy. But dairy agriculture and the forest products economy are both in jeopardy; the Council on the Future of Vermont’s analysis of historical trend lines published last year points toward the potential loss of Vermont’s working landscape within a generation.

We can’t coast on our history. I believe that we need to rededicate ourselves to core elements of common vision for the future of Vermont, and invest, even sacrifice, to perpetuate it and strengthen it. We need to raise a flag that signals to a new generation of private sector working landscape entrepreneurs that Vermont is again the “beckoning country”—open for business—especially for innovative farm, forest, and value-added enterprises. In rural America, there is no room for complacency today—and Vermont never wants to be either “anywhere USA” or nowhere USA. We’ll need to work together to keep Vermont the place we love to come home to.

This oped is by Paul Costello, the executive Director of the Vermont Council on Rural Development and immediate past president of Partners for Rural America.

Source: vtdigger.org

An articulate legislator with a varied background in business, editing and communications, Rep. Bray is well suited to serve as the state’s unofficial economic development liaison in the important areas of high-tech businesses, green energy and the changing era of agriculture and local food production. As important, his willingness to seek compromise (rather than embrace confrontation) is one reason that seven of his eight bills introduced in the past session earned final passage — an enviable record for the most seasoned of legislators — and is the mark of a leader who places actions for the good of the state over personal ego.

Read Full Article: addisonindependent.com

By John Flowers

NEW HAVEN — State Rep. Christopher Bray, D-New Haven, has been traveling around the state as a candidate for lieutenant governor and has seen a lot of things that make him happy — the Green Mountains, productive farms and active schools, to mention a few things.

But there one thing in particular that brings a smile to his face.

“There is nothing that makes me happier than to see someone with a good job,” Bray said in a recent interview with the Addison Independent.

If things fall his way during the upcoming elections, he hopes to keep himself and other Vermonters smiling for the next two years and beyond.

Bray, 54, will face Steve Howard of Rutland City in an Aug. 24 Democratic primary. The winner of that race will go on to face the winner of the GOP primary — either Mark Snelling of Starksboro or Phil Scott of Berlin — in the Nov. 2 general election.

Read Full Article at addisonindependent.com

Phil Hoff Endorses Chris Bray

By DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press Bureau – Published: June 17, 2010

MONTPELIER – When Massachusetts environmental officials released a report last week proclaiming that biomass energy has a larger carbon footprint than burning coal, some proclaimed it as the death of the famed renewable energy source.

Chris Recchia worked on that report, released last Friday by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences. And as the executive director of the Montpelier-based Biomass Energy Resource Center, Recchia said the conclusion was incorrect.

“It’s not a death knell for biomass,” he said this week. “If anything, what this report does is endorse the idea of community-scale biomass projects.”

The Massachusetts report was commissioned by the state’s Department of Energy Resources as part of its Renewable Portfolio Standard program, which offers incentives, including set rates, for the generation of renewable energy.

Massachusetts has invested millions of dollars in assisting with the development of biomass plants – where electricity is generated by burning wood or other biological material – and the report has now made state officials reconsider their support for such projects.

Read Full Article at timesargus.com

There is good news to celebrate–and to encourage all Vermonters to keep their hands on government–from the local school board all the way to the Governor’s office.

VT\’s Citizen Legislature, and Building the New Economy

You already know that you feel good about eating fresh local food. But this movement is about more than feeling good. While these whole foods are good tasting, and healthier for their lack of a vast array of chemical preservatives, colorants, and conditioners, such food is also GOOD BUSINESS.

Read what the mainstream magazine Business Week has to say:
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/dec2009/sb20091217_914398.htm

And of all fifty states, Vermont is best positioned to renew and rebuild its agricultural and food sectors to take advantage of these growing markets, both in Vermont and in the states south of us that have lost so much of their agriculture.