Shawn Gingue checking on this season s wheat crop at NEK Grains Shawn grew up doing chores on the family farm. He always thought he d be a dairyman like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, whom he called Grandpère. He s lived in Waterford for all of his 40 years except the seven when he and one of his brothers ran their own dairy in Fairfax. In 2014, the brothers returned to the home farm to invest and modernize, Shawn said. But the milk price was just not going to support that. It was a tough decision to sell the herd, but the reprieve from nonstop chores and price pressure gave me space to think, he said.
Overview
This report highlights results from a survey of Vermont farm and food businesses conducted during August and September 2020, with a total of 223 respondents. The survey was distributed via a number of non-profit, business, and state agencies in Vermont. Respondents included farms, food and farm product retail, agritourism operators, on-farm food processors, food and beverage manufacturers, nurseries/greenhouses/garden centers, and food hubs/aggregators.
Key Findings
The majority of respondents experienced a COVID-19 business impact, especially market (58%) and financial impacts (54%).
The most common market impacts included a change in demand, change in market channels or closure of markets, and the majority of all business types and gross sales categories experienced market impacts.
The University of Vermont Extension Northwest Crops and Soils Program and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets hosted the
Third Annual Industrial Hemp Conference (click to view conference brochure), which was held virtually on Friday, February 26, 2021.
The 2021 Industrial Hemp Conference proceedings are now available online. You will find the presentation videos for all the live presentations and the on-demand ones, as well as a PDF of the live presentation powerpoint (if available) and resources that were posted on the virtual conference website. The proceedings are on the eXtension website and are available for a fee of $75.
If you attended the conference on February 26 virtually, you can send me an email request to receive a voucher code to access these proceedings at no additional cost, susan.brouillette@uvm.edu. I can confirm your attendance with our master attendee list.