(Host) The face of Vermont agriculture is changing, and its future may look more like the past.

A new report shows that dairy farming is still dominant in the state, as measured by total sales. But the report also notes that the dairy industry here has been in decline for decades.

At the same time, the state has seen another trend: Smaller, more diversified operations are booming. The farms are more like those of 75 years ago, when most of our food was raised locally.

VPR's John Dillon went to small farm in East Montpelier and has this report:

(sfx barn sounds, lambs, sheep, rooster crows etc)

(Erica Zimmerman) "So they're mostly Border Leicesters and Border Leicester crosses.."

(Dillon) In an old dairy barn in East Montpelier, Erica Zimmerman's sheep munch hay where cows once waited to be milked.

(Zimmerman) "The first couple of years we tried a few different breeds, so .. it's a motley crew but then we stuck with the Border Leicesters."

(Dillon) Zimmerman and her husband Kevin McCollister both have jobs off the farm. But they're committed to the land as well.
Their goal at the Center Farm is to raise grass-fed lamb on a scale that the farm's 58 acres can sustain. They produce about 30 to 40 lambs now for the local market; they'd like to get that up to 60 or so. But like many farms, there's always more work than time or money to do it.

Take the back pasture, which hasn't seen a fence for 20 years. It's a perfect place for a few goats to roam and clear the brush.

(Zimmerman) "We'd love to turn it back to usable pasture and goats would be great for that but we need to have enough fencing to keep them in there and keep them safe from predators ‘cause there's a lot of coyotes that go through there. And it's just something that hasn't risen to the top of what we can afford to do yet."

(Dillon) The Center Farm is part of a statewide trend. As Vermont's dairy industry reels from low milk prices and competition from western states, the number of smaller, more diversified farms is growing.

The latest census from the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirms what you can observe in any local farmers market. There's an explosion of small scale agriculture.

The USDA said that since 2002, all but five of the farms that started up in Vermont are "small." The government defines a "small" farm as between one and 179 acres.

(Roger Allbee) "I think it's exciting. ... I call it a renaissance of the past.."

(Dillon) Agriculture Secretary Roger Allbee says the boom of local food production marks the return of an older economic model.

(Allbee) "When I was a kid growing up on a hillside farm, a lot of the produce was local, you know, people raised their own meat. They may have a dairy farm, but they also did maple sugar production."

(Dillon) On the Center Farm in East Montpelier, Erica Zimmerman and her family raise chickens and pigs along with the lamb.

Finding customers has not been difficult.

(Zimmerman) "Including all of our products we have about 90 customers, who all live within - almost all of them live with 10 miles. ... And they're all people who wanted to find a source of local meat and healthier meat, and meat that actually contributes to the health of the land rather than depleting it."

(Dillon) The newer, smaller farms in Vermont face some traditional challenges.

First there's the ancient variable of weather. Too much rain can ruin a hay crop. Too little and the fields are stunted. On a sheep farm like Zimmerman's, lambing season can be a gamble.

But there are some man-made obstacles that the smaller farmers say stand in the way of their less capitalized, more diversified operations.

(Walden farmer) "I'm from Walden and I want to thank you for your time and interest this evening. Us little farmers are not corporate entities and we should not be subject to the rules that govern corporate agribusiness.."

(Dillon) About 300 farmers - many representing small farms -packed the Statehouse recently for a forum on the future of farming. They pointed out that the state lacks sufficient infrastructure - such as slaughter houses and food processing facilities -- to support small farms.

Zimmerman says the state needs to implement a law that allows animals to be slaughtered on the farm.

(Zimmerman) "The regulations and infrastructure for slaughter and processing of meat don't yet seem to allow flexibility for a small farm."

(Dillon) The on-farm slaughter law was passed last year, but it hasn't yet gone into effect. And it faces a new round of questions from the state Agency of Agriculture.

(Zimmerman) "We're seeing that small farms play a really important role in keeping land open, keeping it a working landscape and preserving agriculture heritage and doing it in an environmentally sound way - and producing local food. But it seems that maybe the agency's culture or approach to regulation is geared towards large scale agriculture that has a larger level of risk."

(Dillon) But Agriculture Secretary Allbee says the state needs to be very cautious. He said the state has to protect its reputation for food quality and safety.

For VPR News, I'm John Dillon in Montpelier.