Appendix A: Enabling Legislation
Download Appendix A (PDF 110K)
Governor Peter Shumlin signs Mutual Benefits Corporation legislation (Act 84) into law in 2012. Photo: VSJF
Appendix A provides the enabling legislation that instructed VSJF to create a strategic plan for agricultural economic development by gathering existing data, studies, and analysis about the components of Vermont’s food system.
Over the past 10 years, a growing movement in sustainable agriculture—involving increased local food production and consumption, value-added processing, and diversified farms—has taken off. During the 2009 legislative session, two member-based public policy organizations, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and Rural Vermont, and a number of state legislators (including Representatives Chris Bray, Will Stevens, Carolyn Partridge, Shap Smith, Bill Botzow, Martha Heath and Senators Vince Illuzzi, Sara Kittell, Susan Barlett and Peter Shumlin) crafted and helped win legislative approval for the creation of a Farm to Plate Investment Program (F2P). It was approved by the Senate and House in May 2009 and signed by Governor Douglas, as Sec. 35. 10 V.S.A. chapter 15A § 330. The legislation tasked the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund (VSJF), in consultation with the Vermont Sustainable Agriculture Council (SAC), with crafting a strategic plan based on a broad scope of work.
The primary outcomes of the legislation are to:
1. Increase economic development in Vermont’s food and farm sector.
2. Create jobs in the food and farm economy.
3. Improve access to healthy local foods.
By Dominique Giroux, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, & Markets Prevention versus reaction. For the produce industry, these words have become the backbone of a federal regulation that shifts the focus of our national food safety system from responding to foodborne illness to preventing it. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)…
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Photo: Hunger Free Vermont
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Kelsey and Phelan O'Connor
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Johnson State College Staff at Peaslee’s Potatoes in Guildhall, VT
Photo: NOFA-VT
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Meat processing in Vermont
Photo: Over the Hill Farm
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Photo: Mighty Food Farm
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Photo: NEK Food System Plan
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School Lunch at Edmund's Middle School
Photo: Hunger Free Vermont
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Happy consumer at Nea-Tocht Farm during last year's Breakfast on the Farm
Photo: UVM Extension
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The Vermont Tech greenhouse with nutrient management specialist Sosten Lungu (right)
Photo: Vermont Higher Education Food System Consortium
Written by Vicky Tebbets Students from around the country plunged into a whirlwind tour of Vermont last June with one goal: immersion in Vermont’s food systems. For 21 intensive days they traveled 404 miles, learned from leaders at five colleges, one university, and a law school, and spent 54 afternoon hours…
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