CAV's on-farm composting project offers participating farms and communities a cost-effective solution for diverting food and organic waste to composting, significantly benefiting farmers and community members. These benefits include diverting food scraps from landfills, producing compost for on-farm use, helping to spark more interest in healthy soils, reducing the use of fertilizers, and - in some cases -  reducing food insecurity.

Additionally, it helps create a more "waste-aware" culture through local management, diversion, and composting of food scraps & other organic materials, increasing the adoption of creative food recovery to benefit communities & build resiliency.

Listen in to hear from some of our partner farmers and learn how to get involved!

Panelists:

• Athena Lee Bradley, independent consultant

• Cat Buxton, Grow More, Waste Less

• Natasha Duarte, Composting Association of Vermont

• Liz Freierman, Highwater Farm

• Dan Kilrain, Work Song Farm

• Ben Tipton, Firefly Farm

Video time stamps:

• 00:00 Welcome to VORS 2023 from Natasha Duarte

• 01:53 Introduction to the project, Natasha Duarte

• 05:28 Partner Farmers share their stories

• 29:14 On-farm Composting Toolkit

• 31:26 Q&A

Download the On-farm Community-Oriented Food Scrap Composting slide deck (pdf)

Resources shared:

• CAV’s On-farm Composting Toolkit

• Vermont’s Partnering Farms with Communities -  a regulatory and start-up guide for on-farm food scrap composting

• Vermont Farm to Plate Network

  • Food Cycle Coalition Community of Practice

  • Food Cycle Coalition website

• Example of an online compost recipe calculator (there are many freely available)

• Cornell’s compost recipe downloadable spreadsheets

• ILSR’s national community composter coalition

• USDA Rural Development Solid Waste Management Grant Program (VT link)

• USDA Rural Development Rural Energy for America Program for agricultural producers and small businesses (VT link)