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The Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) received Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) from the Senate Committee on Appropriations LHHS-Innovation and Improvement account in the amount of $100,000. CAE received the award through Senator Peter Welch’s office. “Senator Welch and his staff have always been very supportive of local agriculture and our community; we are very thankful for this support,” said Jon Ramsay, Executive Director of CAE. The award will help fund two of CAE’s programs that work with area schools: Place-Based Education and Just Cut.
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In late October a 400 panel solar installation was completed on the roof of the Food Hub in Hardwick. Part of the Hardwick Yellow Barn and Business Accelerator project, the Food Hub is operated by the Center for Agriculture Economy (CAE) and opened in March of this year when CAE moved its Farm Connex program into the facility.
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Salvation Farms announced today an exciting new chapter: A plan to leverage existing infrastructure to grow its produce processing program. Salvation Farms is shifting their vegetable processing production to the Vermont Food Venture Center (VFVC) in Hardwick.
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"Kayleigh Boyle and Doug Wolcik knew all the reasons not to farm in Vermont: the short growing season, the hilly terrain, the dirt roads that make it hard to get products to market.
Even the size of most farms here is a problem. For decades, farms across the United States have gotten larger as agricultural policies pushed growers to consolidate and scale up their operations. Vermont’s farms, however, have stayed relatively small. According to conventional wisdom, that means unprofitable.
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Join us at the Hardwick Farmers Market at Atkins Field on Granite Street Fridays starting on May 23 from 3 to 6 p.m. for fun, fresh food, and free stuff.
While no one has to buy anything, it’s a great idea to do so because the wares on site are grown and produced by your neighbors and friends. Buying direct allows you to ask the farmer how they grew that gorgeous radish or microgreens, how they made that sparkling red raspberry jam, maple syrup, or incredibly fancy pastry, and what’s the best place to plant the baby tomato plant they started from seeds. You can get dinner at one of the local food trucks or stands and swap stories about your long cold winter with other neighbors and friends of all ages. You can wander around the community orchard at Atkins Field and see which trees are in bloom.
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Twenty local food system organizations will work to expand and enhance the state’s local food distribution system. CAE is proud to be a recipient of the RFSI Equipment-Only grant.
The award CAE received will allow us to buy 4 pieces of needed equipment. These include a new 60 gallon steam kettle and Hobart mixer for the incubator kitchens at the Vermont Food Venture Center. This equipment will allow for more production capacity and needed equipment upgrades for local food businesses producing of the kitchens. The last two pieces of equipment are for the new Food Hub. The first is a pallet reach truck. It allows us to much more efficiently use the 2nd and 3rd level of the pallet racking in the Food Hub. It has the lift and height capacity needed to move full pallets of meat, or ice cream or root crops high up. Lastly, we will be able to purchase a large electric pallet jack with about a 4,500 pound capacity.
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Hardwick, Vermont: April 28, 2025 – Over the past fourteen years, the non-profit loan program the Vermont Farm Fund has made over $4 million dollars in loans to Vermont farmers and food producers to help build the local agricultural economy.
Originally established by Pete’s Greens and the Center for an Agricultural Economy(CAE) in 2011, the Vermont Farm Fund has operated as a program of CAE since its very first loans following Tropical Storm Irene. Today the Fund still provides zero-interest emergency loans to farmers recovering from natural disasters, as well as low-interest loans to help new or established farms grow and expand. The funding for these loans comes from individual donors and family foundations, and each tax-deductible donation supports a revolving cycle in which payments from one generation of borrowers finances the next. As recipients pay back their loans, funds are replenished for the next cycle of borrowers. The result is a growing community of farmers lending money to farmers when it is most needed, in a timely manner, and without a lot of red tape.
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After years of work, the Food Hub, a new facility in Hardwick that will expand markets for local farms and food producers, has opened. The Food Hub is operated by Hardwick-based nonprofit, the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE). Now products from over 100 local farms and food businesses will pass through the Food Hub each week on their way from farms to markets across Vermont and beyond. CAE operates several programs aimed at increasing the accessibility of local food, increasing the viability of local agriculture, and expanding connections between the community and agriculture.
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The impact of federal funding cuts can already be seen across the country, including Vermont, in many different sectors. With the most recent round of cuts, we are beginning to see firsthand the impacts on the agricultural sector. In addition to gutting specific programs, federal cuts also affect Vermont farmers' ability to make water quality investments and create challenges for their markets. Two federal USDA-funded programs that were just terminated directly affect the Center for an Agricultural Economy’s (CAE) work, and we feel it’s our responsibility to help people understand what that means at the local level.
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A multimillion-dollar redevelopment brings a Cabot Creamery outlet to town, plus new space for the Center for an Agricultural Economy and Jasper Hill Farm.
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Just Cut, as simple as it sounds, is a social enterprise that lightly processes local produce and supplies it to institutional kitchens like hospitals, schools, and university cafeterias across Vermont and western New Hampshire. The Just Cut program is managed by the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) and is based in the Vermont Food Venture Center in Hardwick, Vermont.
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HARDWICK, Vermont—(Sept. 23, 2024) When the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) opens the doors on the Food Hub later this year, its capacity to ship, store and process food and agricultural products will greatly expand, boosting the organization’s mission to strengthen Vermont’s food system. As a net-zero, solar-powered facility utilizing cutting-edge refrigeration and heat-capture technology, the Food Hub will also further the non-profit’s commitment to sustainability and demonstrate that agriculture can work in concert with environmental initiatives.
The 12,500-square-foot Food Hub will come online as CAE marks 20 years of working to make the local food system resilient, including, most recently, assisting farms with flood recovery. The Food Hub will increase CAE’s capacity to aggregate and distribute locally produced foods from across the state and transport them to markets within Vermont and beyond.
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Hardwick, Vermont—(August 22, 2024) Devastating flooding here in July here felt eerily like a sequel released just one year after the catastrophic flooding that hammered the region in 2023. Families lost homes. Farmers lost crops. Critical infrastructure washed away—again. And again the Center for an Agricultural Economy, a trusted resource and source of support for the community, scrambled to assist.
“We are deeply connected to the people and farms in our region and already serve as a resource for community support, so pivoting to meeting immediate needs in the wake of disaster was really a natural extension of our mission. What we didn’t envision was reliving the scenario a year later,” said Jon Ramsay, Executive Director of CAE.
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We are thinking of everyone who was impacted by the most recent round of heavy rain and flooding on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our Community Connections team jumped in to make lunch for the front line folks who are on the ground in St. Johnsbury, and beyond. They made wraps with vegetables from home gardens, the Hazen Greenhouse, Just Cut, Pete’s Greens and more. We can’t do it all, but everyone can do a little, and each bit makes a difference.
Here are ways to jump in:
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The NEK-TV show "NEK VT Rocks!" with host Pam Ladds interviewed CAE staff members Allyson Howell and Bethany Dunbar. Watch the segment to hear more about what CAE is up to, and learn what they think about community, organizing, and partnerships.
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We are excited to announce that we have been awarded a Seed Grant from the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships on Agroecology and Just Transitions research in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom (NEK). This grant will support a cooperative project between the UVM Institute for Agroecology, Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE), Northeast Kingdom Organizing (NEKO) and Rural Vermont, with the goal of seeding an ongoing program of collaborative research, action and learning.
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Final Notice and Public Explanation of a Proposed Activity in a Floodplain – Hardwick, Vermont.
and
NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY
The Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC) has independently reviewed the following
Environmental Assessment (EA) prepared by the Economic Development Administration (EDA) ,
completed on January 30, 2020 : Hardwick Yellow Barn and Business Accelerator Environmental
Assessment (hereinafter “the 2020 EA”). NBRC has determined that the proposed action analyzed under
the 2020 EA adequately covers the Proposed Action under consideration by NBRC, and the information
and analysis presented in the 2020 EA are still accurate and sufficient. NBRC has chosen to adopt the
2020 EA prepared by EDA for the Proposed Action. The adoption of another agency’s final EA is
permissible under 40 CFR 1506.3 for the purpose of eliminating duplication.
Application #: NBRC23GVT02
Applicant: The Center for an Agricultural Economy
Project Title: Hardwick Yellow Barn Business Accelerator
Location: 281 VT RT 15 W, Hardwick, Vermont
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"It was peak lunch in the University of Vermont's Central Campus Dining hall on a recent Friday around noon. Students lined up for grilled cheese sandwiches, while a few chose Vermont Bean Crafters bean burgers to go with their fries. Nearby, a rustic-style wooden cart held crates of apples. A sign with the logo "Vermont First" indicated their source: Champlain Orchards in Shoreham."
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Through the “Build Back Better” initiative authorized by the American Rescue Plan, the state of Vermont has announced the first five projects that will be receiving funding, including $50,000 to CAE's Produce to Pantries program.
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Vermont’s eighth Open Farm Week August 7 to 14 will celebrate local foods and the people who grow them. It will offer chances for the public to connect with farmers, see the animals, learn about farming traditions, and taste the foods. In the Northeast Kingdom, the regional Kingdom Farm and Food Days was running for five years before that, offering the same opportunities within the region until the two parallel efforts merged into one.
The Northeast Kingdom possesses an abundance of agricultural history, pride, knowledge and skill that can still be found on our local farms today. One person who has been deeply involved in promoting and celebrating this culture is the Center for an Agricultural Economy’s (CAE) Community Programs Manager, Bethany M. Dunbar.
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The Center for an Agricultural Economy is excited to be one of the recipients of the State of Vermont's Working Land Enterprise Board Market Level Infrastructure Investment grants. CAE will use the funds to support our Farm Connex distribution service, the launch of the Vermont Way Foods collaboration, and the development of the Yellow Barn Warehouse to expand storage capacity for CAE programs.
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We are so excited to share the news of this funding that will support CAE’s food hub activities.
At the Center for an Agricultural Economy in Hardwick, VT we will use the $71,823 award to support the outfit of our 3,000 square foot space at the Hardwick Yellow Barn Business Accelerator project, doubling our local product storage capacity. This will support expanded cold and frozen warehouse capacity for our Farm Connex and Just Cut programs. It will serve farms and food business, institutional markets, and better position Farm Connex to distribute local food throughout Vermont and beyond to Boston, New York City, and other regional markets in partnership with Vermont Way Foods.
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A creative collaboration turns CAE's mission into wearable art.
Day to day, our program staff is out in the world doing the work - delivering food, chopping vegetables, working with farmers on efficiencies, helping food start-ups scale up, taking students to meet a cow for the first time - all while collecting stories of those experiences. Meaningful and inspirational, these stories describe not only the work that CAE does, but the importance of that work. The challenge is then how to best share those stories with the community. There are many different ways to tell a story, through the written word video, statistics, infographics and more.
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The Vermont Farm Fund (VFF), a non-profit revolving loan fund for local farmers and food producers, has launched a new loan program for start-up farmers and food businesses. The VFF’s New Producer Loan will provide access to no-hassle, friendly-term loans up to $20,000 at a low 3% interest rate. A true revolving loan fund, as the community of recipients pays back their loans, funds are replenished for the next cycle of borrowers. The Vermont Farm Fund is a program of CAE.
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Sterling College recently announced their international collaboration with 5 communities to examine the ecological and social challenges resulting from extractive growth.
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Over the past ten years, the Vermont Farm Fund, a non-profit revolving loan fund, has made over 2 million dollars in loans to Vermont farmers and food producers to help build the local agricultural economy.
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On Thursday, April 29, Vermont Everyone Eats celebrated one million meals served to Vermonters! CAE has been honored to manage six different sites who coordinate and distribute meals. With the help of community partners, supporters, and meal recipients, CAE has distributed 27,600 of those one million meals!
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Center for an Agricultural Economy is requesting proposals for the design and execution of a strategic visioning and comprehensive planning process. We are seeking a strong facilitator with deep experience guiding the successful development of consensus-based strategic plans. Applicants must demonstrate knowledge of non-profit organizational development, impact evaluation and accountability metrics, and approaches that center equity and anti-racist principles.
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The Local Food Production Manager role is a critical position for the aggregation, processing, and distribution of ready-to-use local and regional produce products for institutional and bulk buyers. Operating within a shared-use kitchen poses logistical and food safety challenges that require consistent attention to detail. The primary goals of the program are to provide farmers with new markets, and consistently provide institutions with high quality local processed products. An emphasis is placed on buyers that feed food insecure individuals (schools, hospitals and colleges).
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Center for an Agricultural Economy(CAE) announces COVID-19 Response Micro-Grants for Farmers. Grants of $500 maximum per farm business are available for projects that demonstrate sales and marketing innovation in response to challenges presented by COVID-19 disruptions.
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Friends,
We wanted to reach out and let you know that the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) is taking steps to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, and how we intend to respond to this ongoing health crisis. Please read the full letter below.
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The Antioch Center for School Renewal is hosting a two-part webinar on using the three Es as a design and decision-making tool in personal, professional, and cultural settings. CAE is thrilled to co-sponsor this event as part of the ongoing work we do to champion and support place-based education in Vermont.
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Pies for People is the event each year that truly gets to the heart of the community. It's that simple act of coming together to ensure that everyone in our community has access to local, homemade food.
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We would like to extend a warm welcome to our new JustCut Production Manager, Thomas Neel! Thomas has years of experience in local food system work, most recently spending the past decade as a brewer in craft breweries. We sat down with Thomas to learn more about his background, his favorite foods to cook and what excites him about his work with CAE.
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* This event is STILL ON! Please drive carefully! *
How do I find capital? What is the role of a lender, are they all the same? What is the Center for an Agricultural Economy? If you have a small business and ask yourself these questions, come learn more at our CAE open house and financing panel during NEK Entrepreneurship Week. Join us on Tuesday, November 19th from 5:00-7:00PM.
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We are excited to share the news that the CAE has hired Jon Ramsay as the new executive director.
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The Center for an Agricultural Economy’s (CAE) Atkins Field pavilion project is fully funded. A contract was signed this week with Makaio Maher of Green Timber Works, a construction company based in Glover. Demolition will start in the first week of May, with construction to follow.
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In 2019, our beloved Executive Director will step down to pursue state-wide work. We will miss her!
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After 7 years of providing business incubation services in Hardwick, the Vt Food Venture Center celebrates with partners and neighbors!
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What is your favorite thing about Atkins Field? The granite, the garden, the horse, dog biscuits, sunflowers, the pump track, the farmers market, Ramsey burgers, sense of community: these are some of the actual answers penned as part of a scavenger hunt during Kingdom Farm and Food Days August 18.
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Seven Days author and contributor Sally Pollack wrote up a brief overview of the new project in Hardwick where the Town of Hardwick and CAE will be partners.
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On August 10th, Governor Phil Scott and Senator Patrick Leahy visited Hardwick to announce the award winning grantees for the Northern Borders Regional Commission. These included a signature project that the Town of Hardwick and the CAE will be partners on.