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The Work of Working Landscapes Vermont’s Farmlands and the Production of Place Cheryl Morse, PhD

University of Vermont March 14, 2011. The Work of Working Landscapes Vermont’s Farmlands and the Production of Place Cheryl Morse, PhD. “The renaissance in Vermont agriculture…” Governor Peter Shumlin, Inaugural Address, Jan 6, 2011 . Talk of Hope and Crisis in Vermont’s Food Systems.

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The Work of Working Landscapes Vermont’s Farmlands and the Production of Place Cheryl Morse, PhD

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  1. University of Vermont March 14, 2011 The Work of Working Landscapes Vermont’s Farmlands and the Production of Place Cheryl Morse, PhD

  2. “The renaissance in Vermont agriculture…” Governor Peter Shumlin, Inaugural Address, Jan 6, 2011 Talk of Hope and Crisis in Vermont’s Food Systems “…[VT’s] wonderful marketshed from Montreal to Boston to Providence to Hartford to NY and Philadelphia…” [We need to] “maintain this incredible landscape that makes Vermont such a special place" and “the culture we create by having working landscapes of farmers and foresters in our communities" Chuck Ross, Sec. of Agriculture, Food and Markets, VPR, Jan 24, 2011 “…Vermont's farmers, right now, are in a constant economic struggle. Every year they have to figure out ways to work and survive so that we can all benefit: these are the folks who maintain a great piece of the landscape, jobs, and culture that is part of the fabric of what makes Vermont, Vermont.” Dan Kirk, “My Turn” BFP “We need to ensure that Vermont is the milk-bowl and breadbasket of New England…” Working Landscape Partnership, VT Council on Rural Development

  3. The Work of Working Landscapes • Vermont’s Farmlands and the Production of Place • What ‘work’ do we expect Vermont’s landscapes to perform?

  4. The Work of Working Landscapes • Explain how I got to working landscapes, in other words, my theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of rural places

  5. The Work of Working Landscapes • Explain how I got to working landscapes, in other words, my theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of rural places • Describe public and media discourses about Vermont’s pastoral countryside, and why they are important objects of study

  6. The Work of Working Landscapes • Explain how I got to working landscapes, in other words, my theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of rural places • Describe public and media discourses about Vermont’s pastoral countryside, and why they are important objects of study • Point out possible conflicts on the working landscape horizon

  7. The Work of Working Landscapes • Explain how I got to working landscapes, in other words, my theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of rural places • Describe public and media discourses about Vermont’s pastoral countryside, and why they are important objects of study • Point out possible conflicts on the working landscape horizon • Recommend a suite of research projects to address these issues

  8. The Work of Working Landscapes • Explain how I got to working landscapes, in other words, my theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of rural places • Describe public and media discourses about Vermont’s pastoral countryside, and why they are important objects of study • Point out possible conflicts on the working landscape horizon • Recommend a suite of research projects to address these issues • Outline the contributions such research will make to rural communities, public policy, food systems and geography

  9. My Starting Point: nature (rural) experience meaning people Master’s Thesis Question: How do teenagers living in northern Vermont experience their rural landscape as it relates to their social lives? • Contributions: • Quantitative and qualitative findings • Gendered analysis • Production of identity in relation to place • Power, class, social clique analysis • Lacking: • Landscape was passive, quiet

  10. Next Question: How does wilderness civilize anti-social youth?

  11. Lessons from: Nature Discipline: The Practice of Wilderness Therapy at Camp E-Wen-Akee • focus on strategy, practices, interactions among heterogeneous actants (Actor Network Theory) • “[a]ny course of action will thread a trajectory through completely foreign modes of existence that have been brought together in spite of their heterogeneity.”Latour 2004, 227 spatial tactics (Foucault) embodiment as object of study and a methodological approach

  12. taskscape (Cloke and Jones; Ingold) the “entire ensemble of tasks, in their mutual interlocking’” Ingold, 2000) “Therapy both takes and makes place” (Dunkley 2009) place and identity are co-constituted from embodied, material engagements

  13. Actor-Network Theory Relational Ontology Relational Rural In Food Systems Alternative Agriculture Movements Rural Geography Landscape Studies

  14. Vermonters’ Concerns about Working Landscapes Imagining Vermont, p.12

  15. From “Imagining Vermont” • Threats to agricultural landscapes: • Cost of land • Rising cost of doing business • Lack of young farmers • Loss of dairy farms • Loss of arable land to development • Dairy’s vulnerability to global and national market shifts • Promise of agriculture: • Attract tourists • Attract new residents • Provide revenue from landscape impacts • Provide revenue from sales of products outside the state

  16. The Endangered Working Landscapes of Vermont “Place in the Country” “Green pastures, bales of hay, and mountainous backdrop provide a pastoral setting for this landscape photograph.” Orwell, VT photo: John David Geery http://johndavidgeery.com

  17. A Brief Environmental History of Vermont’s Landscape (in Crisis) ‘great swarming time’, chartering of towns sheep craze dairy farming outmigration tourism and agriculture work as leisure (Blake Harrison, 2006)

  18. What Do These Maple Landscapes Produce, How, and For Whom? Vermont Department of Tourism ad in Spring 2011 Vermont Life

  19. What Do These Maple Landscapes Produce, How, and For Whom? Jordan’s Sugaring Operation, Essex

  20. The Tension Between the Productive and Aesthetic Functions of Vermont’s Working Landscapes Taskscapes of multiple agricultural products Viewsheds Tourism (in state and out of state) Recreation Place and identity Class Paying attention to aesthetics is crucial to working landscape analysis The division between conventional agricultural and alternative agricultural movements is replicated in academic and public discourse about food systems

  21. Vermont Farm Data Number of farms (2009): 7,000 Dairy farms (2010): 1,010 Organic dairy farms : 205 Conventional dairy farms: 805 Organic dairy farms make up 20% of the state total; They produce about 5-7% of the state's milk Data: National Agricultural Statistics Service

  22. Vermont County Population, 2010 Two Vermonts? GRAND ISLE 6,970 FRANKLIN 47,746 ORLEANS One of every four Vermonters lives in Chittenden County ESSEX 6,306 LAMOILLE 24,575 CHITTENDEN 156,545 CALEDONIA WASHINGTON Chitt. County’s population is 2.5 times larger than the next most populated county, Rutland ADDISON 36,821 ORANGE WINDSOR RUTLAND 61,642 POPULATION 6,000-7,000 24,000-62,000 BENNINGTON 156, 545 loss of pop since 2000 WINDHAM

  23. Vermont’s Top Five Counties in Agricultural Sales, 2007 How Many Agricultural Vermonts? Together, Addison and Franklin counties constitute nearly half of VT’s agricultural production The county in third place produces half that of the counties in first and second place 2 3 FRANKLIN $160,619,000 ORLEANS $82,348,000 1 4 ADDISON $161,417,000 ORANGE $43,292,000 5 RUTLAND $35,286,000 23.5-24 12.2 5.2-6.4 PERCENT OF VT’S STATE AGRICULTURAL SALES

  24. Addison County Total number of farms: 773 # farms w/ $500,000 + in sales: 79 Milk is 78% of ag sales Cattle and calves are 8% of sales Franklin County Total number of farms: 740 # farms w/ $500,000 + in sales: 80 Milk is 81% of ag sales Cattle and calves are 11% of sales Orleans County Total number of farms: 635 # of farms w/ $500,000 + in sales: 25 Milk is 85% of ag sales Cattle and calves are 8% of sales

  25. Map: Jan Albers, 2002, Hands on the Land

  26. The Freestall Landscape

  27. Smaller Farm Landscapes

  28. The Vermont Farmlands Project • Vermont Community Agricultural Lands Spatial Analysis

  29. The Vermont Farmlands Project • Vermont Community Agricultural Lands Spatial Analysis • ‘Working The Landscape’ Community Narratives Study

  30. The Vermont Farmlands Project • Vermont Community Agricultural Lands Spatial Analysis • ‘Working The Landscape’ Community Narratives Study • Rural Landscape Perception and Value Study

  31. The Vermont Farmlands Project • Vermont Community Agricultural Lands Spatial Analysis • ‘Working The Landscape’ Community Narratives Study • Rural Landscape Perception and Value Study • Public Policy Debate Analysis

  32. The Vermont Farmlands Project Anticipated Contributions Community Development Initiatives UVM – Community of Vermonters Collaboration Public Policy and Planning Transdisciplinary Food Systems Work Rural Geography in North America Nature-Culture Theory

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