By Scott Durgin, MD and Anna Herby, DHSc, RD
Vermont has a truly visionary program that provides grants to farmers who would like to transition from one type of farming to another—kudos to Rep. Heather Surprenant and others who sponsored the enabling legislation. If a dairy farm is encountering challenges, the farmer might choose to stay on the land and switch to growing profitable crops. According to a recent analysis, nearly one thousand farms in Vermont have transitioned from dairy to other products since 2002.
For farmers interested in Vermont’s Transition Grants, the application deadline was March 4, 2024, but it’s important for this program to continue. Lawmakers in Montpelier should make sure there’s funds for another round of transition grants in the fall.
In other parts of the country, farm transitions are underway and other state governments should follow Vermont’s lead and provide funding and assistance. In Iowa, former dairy farmer Denise O’Brien sold the cows when milk prices were low and transitioned to growing crops including strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, and apple trees. In Wisconsin, Greg Zwald embraced the life of a dairy farmer, but things changed and he now runs a pick-your-own-berries enterprise and rents out a renovated barn for events.
But these transitions aren’t easy and governments should provide support and assistance. As a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Sen. Peter Welch should keep this in mind as he and his colleagues craft the Farm Bill.
Why is it important for governments to support farmers who would like to phase out livestock and instead grow crops? In Vermont, farmers grow many kinds of fruit and nut trees including walnuts, hazelnuts, peaches, and apples. These trees provide healthful food and oxygen for us to breathe. Trees can store carbon dioxide in their fibers, reducing the harm of this planet-warming gas. If your farm is in a low-lying area near a river, planting trees like hazelnuts can help control flooding.
By contrast, large-scale livestock operations produce methane and other planet-warming gases. The World Health Organization says, “Reducing livestock herds would also reduce emissions of methane, which is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide.”
But if we shift from dairies to berries and other crops, where will we get our calcium? In Vermont, farmers grow many plant-based sources of calcium including beans, figs, kale, sweet potatoes, hazelnuts, and walnuts. As a Vermont physician specializing in lifestyle medicine, and a registered dietitian, we would recommend these foods as well as plant sources of protein such as beans and mushrooms. A plant-based diet that includes plenty of berries, beans, veggies, and whole grains can benefit you in many ways including lowering blood pressure, preventing diabetes, and improving heart health.
With recent discussions of aging and memory, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, President Biden, and other elder statesmen should take note of studies revealing the brain-boosting properties of certain foods. High-fiber foods like beans can improve information processing, attention, and memory in older people, according to a study in the American Journal of Medicine.
A recent study with older adults found that consuming strawberries daily can improve cognitive function by increasing processing speed by 5.2%, according to Neuroscience News. Blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries also boost brain health, and it could be partly because all berries contain flavonoids. According to Scientific American, flavonoids may improve memory, learning, and general cognitive function.
The acreage devoted to berries in Vermont has increased according to new data just released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Strawberries are grown on 125 farms in Vermont, and blueberries are grown on 294 farms. When strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries in Vermont begin to ripen this summer, elder statesmen, and everyone else, should head to your nearest pick-your-own-berries farm.
Scott Durgin, MD, in a physician in Dorset, Vermont, specializing in lifestyle medicine. He can be reached at swdurgin@gmail.com, 802-952-8884, 1380 Dorset West Rd. Anna Herby, DHSc, RD, holds a doctorate in health sciences with a focus on nutrition. She is also a registered dietitian in Spring Branch, Texas, aherby@pcrm.org, 540-494-2293.
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Categories: Agriculture, Commentary, Legislation
Sounds good as long as the grants or other mechanisms don’t include the risk of a state lien on the farmer’s property.
Can someone tell me who walked around and waited for a cow to burp or fart, bottle that and run back to there lab and measure the amount of methane in it??? If we continue to encourage farmers to stop milking, what will that do to the price of a gallon of milk, or will we start impoting milk like we do oil????
This complete asinine nonsense. The soil is a living co-habitat that helps the earth and environment. Cow farms are amazing for the earth.
The government destroyed competition through price fixing schemes, making it an impossible and non-viable business without extremely large scale corner cutting and subsidized factory farming. The government wants you poor, unhealthy, and helpless.
It is proven that the government is the BIGGEST destroyer of the earth, carbon waster, as well as waster of every other resource that exists. People are so damn stupid, we get what we deserve for allowing all of this to be done to us.
no more milk/// no more ice cream//// no more cheese/// no more butter/// make sure you all turn into squirrels and chew on your nut and berries/// many people living off grant money would be more than happy to follow cows all day with a vacuum cleaner collecting methane gas///
WAKE UP PEOPLE! This is about BEEF! Think, no more rib eyes, no more burger, no more racks of ribs, no more T-bones. ” You will eat bugs, own nothing and be happy. Also, enjoy your stay in the “15 minute cities”.
Our State is being run by the United Nations, New World Order, Agenda 2030, One World Government. Can’t you see? George Soros picks and funds our Judiciary, our Legislators and, I wouldn’t doubt, our Governor. All “policy” is brought into our State by special interest, lobbyists and NGO’s all working for the same end goal….complete and total control of our lives.
Look at Latitia James in New York. She is currently putting a law suit (LAWFAIR)against the biggest meat packing company in the U.S. to bankrupt and drive them out of business. Ms. James alleges that the meat packing company is contributing to “GLOBAL WARMING”. (you know, that bludgeon they use to take everything away from us).
In the end we can all look back and say, “wow, was I lazy and stupid for letting this happen, for not speaking out, for not standing up and for being frightened that the spotlight would be shined on me. Beaten into submission by the Utopian dreamers and their Marxist Judiciary……
If you vote for Prog/Dems you deserve everything you get. Vote Vermont first! Or, are you frightened?
I couldn’t agree with you more. The United Nations finger prints are everywhere, in all legislation, education and media output, locally and nationally.
And don’t forget about all that yummy protein in crickets!
Keep listening to Tedros!
Vax up, slaves!
I was disappointed to see this piece published in VDC without a full explanation of the organization that Dr. Durgin and Dr. Herby represent. In short, it is the extremist and notorious animal rights organization known as Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM), whose founder Neal Barnard has been directly linked with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and its founder, Ingrid Newkirk. Make no mistake, this isn’t really about your diet, this is disguised propaganda intended to bring about the destruction of animal agriculture in Vermont and across the nation. Dr. Durgin and Dr. Herby have written a very politely-worded advocacy piece for vegetarian/vegan diets for the VDC, but readers here need to understand that these animal rights groups employ a wide variety of “nice” and decidedly not-so-nice tactics to advance their objectives. VDC readers are owed a more well-balanced view of the issues at hand. Read more here:
https://www.activistfacts.com/organizations/23-physicians-committee-for-responsible-medicine/
There’s a good chance that no one has considered what to do with the 300 extra acres after only 20 acres are used for the ‘transition”.
Transitioning to Strawberries, raspberries, nut trees, fruit trees and/or veggies will likely only utilize a small area compared to dairy farming.
BTW, a cheap fruit tree costs around $70.00, 1 raspberry bush – $7.00, strawberry – $1.00, blueberry $12.00 and they all need a constant supply of manual labor from day one.
For efficient utilization of the land, return on investment, and for the environment … it’s hard to beat a dairy cow.
There’s a better chance that they HAVE thought about what to do with those lovely 300 extra acres…. Thus the propaganda to yield it.
All farms are labor intensive, but as you note, fruit and vegetable farms are particularly so. The larger ones in the south and west have traditionally relied on cheap migrant labor, and even the comparatively smaller ones in Vermont employ migrant labor. GPS technology combined with heavy cultivating equipment may be viable in corporate farming with huge land bases, but outsized for our largely hilly terrain and relatively small farms and communities. And do you really know how much of the chemical inputs to fertilize and battle crop loss from weeds, birds and insects ends up in your meal?
We’ll keep the cows, thank you, and our garden too.
“Trees can store carbon dioxide in their fibers, reducing the harm of this planet-warming gas. ” This is patently false — when trees die they release their carbon, while well-managed rotational grasslands sequester FAR more carbon dioxide while producing food, in perpetuity. We aren’t all switching to strawberries (one of the worst culprits for pesticide residues: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php), so where are Vermonters to get their meat — China, Chile, or the mid-west, refrigerated and trucked here to “save the planet.” Instead of doctors teaching Vermonters how to farm, maybe farmers ought to teach medicine — it can’t possibly be more clueless than this plan. Get ready to starve, folks — Vermont has abandoned the food backbone that served it through the Great Depression. I know this culture can’t imagine that event re-occurring. Which is why it will, only exponentially worse….. And it ain’t the cows’ fault. Anybody who quotes the WHO for agriculture policy demonstrates their cognitive dissonance. Vermont can’t meet out-of-state demand for grass-fed (rotationally grazed) meats, so why are we being told by non-farmers to grow strawberries? (You would think the authors (as doctors) would at least advocate organic strawberries, but it goes unmentioned. ).
Perhaps the authors will open their eyes to reality:
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2023/01/the-coming-cow-wars-why-raising-cows-is-a-revolutionary-act/
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2024/02/in-defense-of-livestock/
When food inflation and shortages destroy us, we will all recall the elitists who clamored, “Let them eat chemical-saturated strawberries and grow all Vermont grasslands back to wilderness.” No society in history has been this disconnected from, or ignorant of, its food supply. Red meat is good for you, and if raised as God/Nature intended, would sequester more carbon than humans have released in the entire industrial revolution. But it’s not really about carbon at all. It’s about power and control.
answer to john klar/// medical industry needs more lab rats to make money/// big pharma needs your money until you die/// population control people will make as much money as they can until you die///