WE MUST PREVENT EXTINCTION

SIGNED BY 50 OF THE SMALL ORGANIC FAMILY FARMS OF ORGANIC VALLEY

By Selina Rooney, Organic Valley Farmer-Member and Lifelong Vermont Farmer

The food and farming system in the U.S. is at a critical juncture. A few entities and people are buying up farmland and consolidating at a record pace, and experienced farmers are aging out of the industry at a feverpitch. As a small family farm dedicated to growing good organic food through a natural system that respects the interdependence of all life, we see the move toward consolidated farmland ownership and loss of deep knowledge of how life intertwines on the farm as an existential threat.

Just last year, our farm was at risk of losing our market to sell organic milk. Dozens of us could have been all but forced to sell to the latest hedge fund snapping up the Vermont countryside or lose our farm forever. The birds, butterflies, and bees that call our pastures and forests homes could have vanished through the wave of a pen in a title company office. Without small family farms, the impact on the quality and diversity of our food would be felt across the nation. The delicious milk that thousands of consumers trust to fill their cups, top off their coffee, serve to their children, and enjoy in countless other ways would have disappeared.

On a fateful spring day, we received a call from the Organic Valley team, and then a visit from some of the cooperative’s employees. They said they had heard about the situation, and that they were here to do something about it. They offered a home for our farm, a community of over 1,600 other farms, and a way to continue farming the land organically.

Without the cooperative, and support from people across the country in countless store aisles, small organic family farms face extinction. But because of the support of thousands, Organic Valley is able to intercede on behalf of small family farms and helps us continue to farm in harmony with nature.

The following pages of this Impact Report will show you a glimpse into the power those natural systems have to improve the quality of life and the interdependence with nature which we all benefit from and rely on. These systems must be saved, and you can help us do it.