Organic Farming, Education, and Research for the Community
Founded in 2004, the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) is a nonprofit organization based in the Northeast Kingdom. Through programs that support food access, farm viability, and working landscapes, CAE is building a healthy, regenerative food system by promoting local foods and the people who produce them. “We believe in a whole systems approach that meets the needs and aspirations of the community and ensures economic and ecological stability and abundance.”
The community has really rallied. The day after the flood, people started asking how they could help, and the fundraising began. By the end of August, CAE has dispersed more than $200,000 in flood relief funds to community members and farmers through grocery vouchers and emergency loans.
We’ve distributed these resources throughout Hardwick and the Northeast Kingdom with the assistance of community partners. CAE has raised more than $40,000 in grocery vouchers that are available through several stores including Buffalo Market here in Hardwick and different small general stores in the Northeast Kingdom community. We distributed those through the community with our partnership with the food pantry, The Civic Standard, Hardwick Rescue, and Northeast Kingdom Organizing. CAE is currently participating in the Emergency Eats program that provides free prepared meals to people experiencing ongoing impacts from the flood.
The Farm Fund is CAE’s revolving loan program. We’ve raised more than $200,000 for emergency loans, which have a cap of $15,000 to farms across Vermont. We’ve done emergency loans that helped restore on-farm infrastructure and for farms that are going to be short on feed for their animals. The pipeline was full of inquiries in July and August. We’ve been trying to make those loans as accessible as possible so we can get those dollars out. There’s been unprecedented support from the community for the Farm Fund, so we have financial resources available for getting more of those emergency loans out the door. The money is still coming in.
We also work with about 100 other farmers through Farm Connex, which is our aggregation and distribution trucking service. Much of what we move through Farm Connex is perishable products. Getting that up and going was a priority because that represents roughly $30,000 to $40,000 a day of income for the producers with whom we work.
In that first week after the flood, it took us two hours to drive from here to Craftsbury, but we were able to do that and get people’s products in our trucks and back here to the warehouse. Our staff worked around the clock to ensure the farm products got out to the retailers. We have 300 to 350 pick-ups a week and deliver to every co-op, farm stand, and small grocer you can think of.
Just Cut is a social enterprise of the CAE. We make a line of ready-to-use produce for the institutional market. We contract for about 200,000 pounds of produce per year from about 10 different large farms in Vermont and buy from another 20. Farm Connex moves all that produce from farms to our Just Cut commercial kitchen here in Hardwick for processing and packing. We lost about a week of production, and many of the farms that we work with were heavily impacted by the flood, but fortunately, none of them lost all their crops.
We have dedicated staff who cover all aspects of the operation seven days a week.
