Interview with Emily Brodsky
For our interview we went to speak to Emily Brodsky, a graduate student whose focus is in sustainable and ecologically conscience farming practices. Brodsky has experience working on various farms, ranging from small organic family farms to large food systems at the Windham farm and food network. Our first question for Brodsky asked what her own personal definition of sustainable farming would be. Her response was a farm that serves the food and resources that are desired without depleting resources for future generations. She emphasized the balance between ecological, social, and economic sustainability, and the fact any farm can’t have one without the other. Next, Brodsky described for us what her version of the "perfect farm" would include. "It should be a place spaced thing," meaning that the workings of the farm would be highly dependent on the ecology, location, and social situation in surrounding areas. Her first goal would be to serve the local community and then focus on external markets. She strongly believes that people should have access to local food which puts accountability on small scale farming. Throughout the whole interview this idea of combining the environmental, social, and economic realms continued to come up. When we were envisioning what we wanted in our project, the idea of economic feasibility came up often. Brodsky expressed a need for subsidies of commodity crops and a shift in the government to put funding towards healthy foods in order to increase the economic feasibility for farms to switch to more ecologically conscious practices.
"It'll be a really long process," said Brodsky, "and it won't be feasible for every farm but in Vermont it is feasible". She then went on to discuss the best practices farms can do in order to increase their sustainability. Recommended was diversifying crops, using organic growing practices, such as crop rotation, and using resources efficiently. A more obvious but easily forgotten practice that can be implemented by farms easily is growing food that make sense for the ecosystem the farm is living in. A farm has to think about what is reasonable to grow in an area and balance it with what consumers want to eat. "You can't grow pineapples in Vermont, but you can easily grow leafy greens," stated Brodsky, highlighting that while the consumer may want something, if it doesn't make sense to grow it there, don't.
While most of what was discussed was about making farms more ecologically conscience in terms of soil and environmental health, practices and ways to balance farming and wildlife habitat were also discussed. Suggestions included riparian corridors and buffers to prevent run-off, wildlife corridors to help species move across the landscape, adding perinnial crops to keep the soil and crop health, and adding hedgerows to add heterogeneity and allow for pollinators and birds to move in and out of the farm.
You can read the full interview with Emily Brodsky here.
All pictures taken by Max Siegel and Rochelle Streker