Each month, we will be highlighting a benefit of your NEFU Membership (click here to view member benefits) in an effort to raise awareness and understanding, and grow participation in our programs and activities.

Highlighted Benefits for August:

• Travel funds to offset your costs to meet with members of Congress and Obama administration personnel in Washington, DC.
• Invitations to the NEFU Annual Meeting, special events, on-line workshops, and educational seminars.

This month's member benefit focuses on education and engagement. We invite you to join us as we visit Washington DC and other parts of the country to learn about national policy, how it is made, and how it affects our local communities. Throughout the year we offer opportunities to travel with NEFU members and staff, and members of other Farmers Unions across the country. NEFU and NFU we will notify you about such events and opportunities through mailings and e-mail communications. Stipends for travel are provided on a first come, first served basis. There is often an application process and we make every effort to distribute funds in a fair manner. It is our goal to be able to offset even more of the cost of these trips through the soon to be formed New England Farmers Union Education Foundation.

Thorough these unique opportunities for education and collaboration, our membership will become stronger and more informed, our voice amplified and our message far reaching, from local communities throughout New England, to policy makers at the highest levels in Washington.

Upcoming Opportunity:
Take New England's Seat at the Table!
We hope you will consider joining us September 12-15 for Fly-In, an educational opportunity organized by National Farmers Union.

During this 3-day session, farmers, fishermen, and consumers from all 25 Farmers Union chapters are invited to walk the halls of Congress, talk with legislators and their staffs, and meet with administration employees who run programs that impact New England every day. Until they hear the power of our collective voice, New England won't have a say in agriculture policy making. Click here to view the preliminary agenda. Here is your chance to tell lawmakers, firsthand, how national policies affect farms, farmers markets, greenhouse operations, livestock production, dairy farmers, orchardists, and forest management. Join us for these advocacy sessions. Go beyond buying local, beyond the farmers market, beyond the CSA or the CSF, beyond state policy. Bring your New England voice to the national table.

We have some funds to defray travel and housing expenses, available on a first-come, first-served basis. If you are interested in taking our local voice to the national table, click here to download the registration form. The application deadline has been extended to August 25th. Email the completed form to Cayte McDonough or fax it to 413-625-3061.

Seize this opportunity to prepare for the 2012 Farm Bill. Of the $180 billion in the 2008 Farm Bill, less than 5% was returned to New England states. Meanwhile, between 2002 and 2007, the number of farms in all six states grew from between 19% to 27%. To learn more about why New Englanders need to show up and participate in this DC event, click here. If you cannot join us, consider helping fund another attendee.

Near the end of a recent session in Massachusetts, legislators passed a bill to create a Massachusetts Food Policy Council. The bill was sponsored by state Rep. Steven Kulik-a Franklin County Democrat and champion of local agriculture. "By building ties between agencies and stakeholders, the Council will strengthen relationships between Massachusetts farmers and communities to address inadequate access to healthy, affordable food," Kulik said in a statement announcing the bill's passage. According to Agriculture Commissioner Scott J. Soares, Governor Patrick signed the bill early this week. Read more...

Thanks to every one who contacted their state representatives in support of this important bill.

Michael Faber, General Manager, Wild Oats Market

Some of my favorite local spots/organizations include:

• Lakeview Orchards (south of Williamstown, Lanesboro): They do amazing things for the community with a retail market that sells cherries, plums, peaches, raspberries, berries, and great fruit.
• Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation: They work to protect farmland and other lands types in this area. Also, Berkshire Natural Resources Council. Collectively these organizations have done a really great job protecting the rural qualities of the Berkshires and that work is very exciting to me. Thanks to their efforts, I can continue to enjoy those open spaces.

My favorite local food and farm/nursery event is: The co-op does an Earth Day event, and we recently did an ice cream social that was a fundraiser for a youth center project in town. In August, the co-op will be doing "Eat Local" Month and we will be kicking it off with an Eat Local BBQ with local bbq, chicken, and veggies. There will be a local musician there and we will have a coffeehouse.

My passions and interests include: I get excited about sustainable living, homesteading, and self suffiency. Outside of that, hiking, mountain biking, canoeing/paddling, and getting outdoors. I love visiting the White Mountains.

I decided to join NEFU as a Founding Member because: What captured me were some of the commonalities in seeking to develop a more sustainable and more local food supply. From our conversations, it seemed that there is a lot of overlap in what we are trying to do.

Some of my biggest concerns about the New England agriculture are: Losing agriculture land to development, and losing farms that are going out of production. There is difficulty in the Northeast, especially in Vermont dairy, where farms fold because it is so difficult to be financially viable. The dairy system and the inputs on selling milk--it's a crazy system. There's a struggle to convince people to change the equation on how we look at food, to stop buying on cost alone. The low-cost foods are at odds with quality, and the low cost foods tend to be the ones grown and produced far away. I am optimistic about the ways production is shifting in the Northeast, such as grain production taking hold here. If you start putting local grains into the mix, before you know if you are very close to having near sufficiency to produce all foods in New England.

I'm helping to implement change through: In part, I see more change happening as a result of more collaboration. There isn't a local source of fresh meat here but, for example, if we joined together and made a commitment to it, we could see that happen. I have been in discussion with some local farmers and Williams College about making that market exist, about making some investment in it, and seeing that happen. On a larger scale, I am working with the NFCA as a regional organization to do the same thing. People are becoming more and more interested in sourcing those foods.

My wish for New England agriculture is: If I had to make a wish, I would say whatever percentage of food we supply to ourselves--let's say its 3%--my hope is that we would set goals and really change that over the next 5-10-15-20 years to increase that percentage of food.

If you would like to nominate an individual or an organization to be included in a future member profile, please email their name and contact information to NewEnglandFarmersUnion@gmail.com. Feel free to nominate yourself, too!

Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Summer Conference:
August 13-15, Amherst, Massachusetts
Look for NEFU on August 13 to 15 at NOFA's 36th Festive and Educational Annual Summer Conference and Celebration of Sustainable Living located on the campus of University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA. This 3-day event has an attendance of approximately 1,500 people from New England, New York, New Jersey, as well as distant parts of the United States and Canada, and features workshops on a variety of farming and gardening topics, organic meals, and plenty of fun events for children and adults. NEFU will be in the exhibition tent and we look forward to seeing you there. For more information on the NOFA conference go to http://www.nofasummerconference.org.

Celebrate Rural Living at MOFGA's Common Ground Country Fair:
September 24-26, Unity, Maine
A not-to-be-missed event for folks from every corner of Maine and beyond, the Common Ground Country Fair allows fair goers to make connections with a rapidly expanding base of organic farms in Maine. Hundreds of vendors, exhibitors, and demonstrators, more than 1,000 volunteers, and tens of thousands of fair goers will gather to:

• share knowledge about sustainable living;
• eat delicious, organic, Maine-grown food;
• buy and sell beautiful Maine crafts and useful agricultural products;
• compete in various activities;
• dance, sing, and have a great time.

Please click here for more information about the planned activities, MOFGA membership, and ticket pricing.

Our own Annie Cheatham, President of NEFU, will be at MOFGA this year. Annie will be talking with fair goers about the development of Farmers Union in New England, listening to the issues that are most important to Maine organic farmers and consumers, and taking home a sense of where support is needed on the national level, and how NEFU can work to meet the needs of MOFGA supporters and friends.

Annie will be keeping great company while at MOFGA. NEFU Advisory Board Member Jim Gerritson will also be on hand as an event presenter, fair goer, and representative of NEFU. Click here for more information about Jim, whose farm produces organic early generation Maine Certified Seed Potatoes, seed crops, vegetables, and grains.

Be sure to stop by the NEFU table to talk to Annie and Jim, and to purchase your membership. To sweeten the deal, Jim will be giving away 1 lb bags of seed potatoes from Wood Prairie Farm to anyone who signs up for a NEFU membership at this event.

As reported in our June Newsletter, we have been hard at work developing an inaugural policy book for the New England Farmers Union. On track to present a comprehensive package of policies for review by the membership by the end of the summer, our team of consultants working with President Annie Cheatham and the NEFU Board have assembled draft policy statements on a broad array of issues from dairy pricing to maple syrup production to aquaculture to food assistance and nutrition.

Policies are arranged in major categories covering:

• Agricultural Products, including fisheries, aquaculture and forestry;
• Management Practices related to crop and livestock production;
• Government's Role in Agriculture from federal programs and regulations to state and local government relationships with agriculture;
• Energy with a particular emphasis on renewable energy opportunities and agriculture's role in addressing climate change;
• International Trade;
• Cooperatives;
• Land Tenure and Farm Succession;
• Nutrition and Food Assistance;
• Economics and the Family Farm; and
• the Environment and the Family Farm.

NEFU members will be encouraged to comment and offer feedback on the suite of policies once they are available for review. If you are not a member, please click here to join. Keep an eye on future newsletters and the website for an announcement on the availability of the policy book and your opportunity, as a NEFU member, to provide input.

Preserving New England's Capacity to Feed and Fuel Itself: Click here to read about New England Farmers Union in a recent issue of newsletter published by The Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society, Inc.

The Real Dirt: Toward Food Sufficiency and Farm Sustainability in New England: This is the latest book from John E. Carroll, University of New Hampshire (UNH) Professor of Environmental Conservation. Click here to learn more about this just-released title. His earlier UNH book, Pastures of Plenty: The Future of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Conservation in New England (NHAES Publication #2340), is also still available.

Special Report on Health Care Reform and Farmers: Published by the North Dakota Farmers Union, this report answers many important questions about how the new health care reform bill will affect farmers and rural communities. Click here to view the publication.

The Food Bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with It. By Frederick Kaufman. Harper's Magazine/July 2010. Click here to view article.

Russia, Crippled by Drought, Bans Grain Exports: By Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, August 5, 2010. A reminder that our current food system makes us vulnerable to events half way around the world, and that bolstering our local food security is crucial in the coming years. Click here to read the article.