Let’s keep investing in our local food economy.

From growing up on a small 50 cow dairy farm in the hills of Greensboro, I understood the economic challenges of dairy farming at an early age. I often heard my parents, and other farmers, talk about low milk prices and the challenges to make ends meet. I also remember walking the cows up the dirt road to pasture every day, driving tractors a decade before I was legally allowed to drive a car, and caring for our cows. Like all farmers, I have memories of both happy and hard days and like so many other dairy farmers, my family sold our dairy herd. That was 25 years ago. 

The recent news Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) decided to “idle” the St. Albans milk plant echoed the same challenges I heard all those years ago about the dairy industry. The closure of the St. Albans plant will leave workers without jobs and farmers with more uncertainty about what happens next. Despite other recent milk plant closures, we will keep investing in dairy as a state because it continues to be the largest economic driver in our agricultural economy and dairy farms significantly contribute to maintaining our open landscape. While we continue investing in dairy, we must do more to invest in other types of agriculture with the same vigor.

Investing in agriculture and our communities is what we’re doing at the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE). We employ 40 people and in 2025 CAE worked with over 300 farms and food producers across Vermont providing resources, services, and infrastructure. Since the pandemic the cost of building infrastructure and transporting food has increased significantly. This is why CAE committed to the Food Hub, a critical piece of local food system infrastructure, to aggregate, store, and distribute local food. Despite serious risks and challenges the project was completed in 2025. Simultaneously, CAE has increased the capacity of our Farm Connex service and we’re continuing to grow that service. For several of the value-added dairy producers we work with, including Strafford Organic Creamery and Sweet Rowen, CAE’s Farm Connex trucks are the milk trucks that pick up their milk and products at the farm multiple days per week. We do this without stop because the farms depend on our services but also because of the deep relationships we have with those producers.

The work we are doing is maintaining our working landscape, supporting significant economic impact, and supporting hundreds of jobs. CAE’s work keeps decision making about the future we want and the future we know is possible at the local level. That might be the most important outcome of all the work CAE does. It is not surprising that DFA made the decision it did; it was also a decision that was not made by the people and farmers of Vermont. Similar to when Horizon Organic decided to stop accepting milk from Vermont farmers, those corporate decisions were made far from Vermont, with little or no voice from within our rural communities.

When CAE was presented with the opportunity to purchase Farm Connex, it was not a decision we made, it was the 30 farms who were working with Farm Connex at that time telling us it was an essential service and critical to the viability of their operations. That is how decisions should be made about the future of agriculture in Vermont. Now, six years after taking over operations of Farm Connex, CAE is providing logistics, transportation, and storage for nearly 90 farmers and food producers

I believe we have a vibrant agricultural future: one where our communities are more interconnected, the land is tended with care, farms are viable businesses, and agriculture is a significant contributor to our rural economy. I believe this future is possible, but we have to continue to invest in it. 

In solidarity,

Jon Ramsay
Executive Director