BRATTLEBORO — Rural Vermont and Post Oil Solutions announce a collaboration to facilitate discussions about local food sovereignty in the Brattleboro community.
The first meeting will be held at the Marlboro Graduate Center, Room 2 East, 28 Vernon St., Brattleboro, on Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. A half hour video presentation featuring Bob St. Peter's discussion about Sedgwick, Maine's local food and self governance ordinances will be aired to stimulate the conversation that will follow.
St. Peter, who organized the passing of the ordinance in Sedgwick, is the executive director of Food for Maine's Future and is currently on the board of the National Family Farm Coalition. Light refreshments will be available.
The main part of the evening will focus on the possibility of crafting and getting warned before the January 2012 deadline a food sovereignty resolution that would then be presented at the Brattleboro town meeting in March, 2012. We will also talk about the possibility of a food sovereignty ordinance in Brattleboro, and the steps that would need to be taken to accomplish this.
Rural Vermont, a statewide advocacy organization, has embarked on a campaign to facilitate discussions with local partners on developing local food sovereignty. Over the past 26 years, Rural Vermont has been engaged in advocating for agricultural policy change in Vermont, and continues to face enormous hurdles with federal and state policies and a commodity food system that undervalues local sourced food.
Rural Vermont is working with communities all throughout Vermont in their campaign to support food sovereignty. Robb Kidd, Rural Vermont organizer, said that “too many times food policy discussions take place in small meeting rooms in Montpelier, and inadvertently leave the communities out of the discussion. Rural Vermont is bringing food discussions back to the local community, where it belongs.”
Tim Stevenson, founding director of Post Oil solutions, said that “food sovereignty means food democracy, the right of a people to choose how we will feed ourselves. It means reclaiming our right as communities to control our food system, from seed to table, to produce, process, sell and purchase our local foods as we decide. As an organization dedicated to building a regional community-based food system, Post Oil Solutions believes that food sovereignty is second to none to fulfilling this mission.”
Rural Vermont and Post Oil Solutions welcome input from the Brattleboro community. Part of the agenda of the meeting is to begin a process for Brattleboro and Windham County communities to cultivate local food sovereignty as each community feels appropriate. Whether the approach is to adopt local food sovereignty ordinances similar to what the community of Sedgwick passed last March, or to proceed with Vermont's tradition of Town Meeting Day advisory resolutions, we hope to build upon the success of the growing international movement for food sovereignty.
For more information, contact Rural Vermont at 802-223-7222 or robb@ruralvermont.org, or Post Oil Solutions at 802-869-2141 or info@postoilsolutions.org.