FEATURE
The Road Less Traveled By:
Community-based Food Systems in Vermont
Grazing Brown Swiss cows and Farm Barn, Shelburne Farms. Photo by Daria Bishop.
We all eat and drink. And we’re all curious about how what we consume is produced and by whom—which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. What we eat varies by culture and from place to place. In Vermont, food and beverage, and the farms and other venues that produce them, are an integral part of its citizens’ identity and sense of place. And so are the community-based food systems they embrace, their predilection for high levels of social capital, social justice, and their strong environmental ethic and deep concern about the existential crises of climate change and loss of biodiversity.
Effective interpretation that enhances visitors’ experiences and connects to Vermonters’ cultural identity and sense of place contributes greatly to astute advertising/marketing/public relations to provide competitive advantages and build name recognition and customer identity with their unique brand: “The Road Less Traveled By” (Robert Frost). This is especially important in Vermont, where tourism is an important part (9 percent of Gross Domestic Product, 10 percent of workforce) of the economy.
Gilded Age mansion-turned-Inn at Shelburne Farms. Photo by Holly Brough.
The Road Taken: Conventional Agriculture
In We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix our Food System and Save Our Climate, Michael Grunwald (2025) reminds us that we have to figure out how “to feed the world without frying the world.” Yet that is exactly what we are doing in our country when we produce most of the food (what we could call “The Road Taken”) in conventional large-scale industrialized agriculture operations—for example, massive wheat, corn, soybean fields in the Midwest; vast vegetable fields in California’s Central Valley; concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) prevalent in much of the U.S.
These operations maximize agricultural production, economies of scale, and huge federal subsidies, making their food less expensive to purchase, but at great cost to Mother Earth and future generations—with their profligate use of pesticides, herbicides, synthetic chemical fertilizers (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus), and fossil fuels from intensive use of machines and transportation of products from farm to plate—1500 miles on average—thereby increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists remind us that the agricultural sector contributes about 30 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions and also emphasizes monocropping (which attributes to diversity loss). Their intensive tillage results in soil erosion and mining of rich topsoil. Water pollution from runoff contributes to hypoxia/dead zone the size of Connecticut in the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi River. All of these, and more, are threats to human health.
The Road Less Traveled By: Community-based Food Systems in Vermont
Readily distinguishable from such approaches are community-based food systems (CFS, or what we could call “The Road Less Traveled By”), in which small, rural Vermont is a national leader.
Community-based food systems (CFS) integrate the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food within a specific locality to enhance the environmental, economic, and social health of that area. These systems promote sustainability, food security, and self-reliance by strengthening relationships between local farmers and consumers through direct, shorter supply chains.
Food and beverage, and the farms and other venues that produce them, are an integral part of Vermonters’ identity and sense of place. Think Holstein cows and sheep grazing on lush green pastures and the cheese, ice cream, and yogurt made from their milk. Vegetable and berry farms, apple orchards, grape vineyards, community gardens. Making cider, kombucha, wine, distilled spirits, chocolates. Brewing artisan beers (Vermont has the most artisan breweries per capita in the country). Collecting and boiling maple sap to make syrup. Farmers markets, small general stores, food coops, and a beautiful green landscape that is a mosaic of farmland, forests, mountains, and tightly-clustered villages with a town green with white-steepled church at their center.
There is a high level of social capital—the collective value of social networks, trust, and reciprocity that enables individuals and communities to achieve goals, improve health and well-being, and increase economic opportunity, according to scholar Robert Putnam—among many Vermonters. They often value social connections/relationships, cooperation, shared knowledge, and community resilience. And they also often strongly support food sovereignty: treating food as a fundamental human right and a sacred resource rather than a mere commodity. They often believe everyone should be able to enjoy tasty, nutritious, locally grown food, not just the wealthy.
Grazing Brown Swiss cow—one of 110 in the milking herd at Shelburne Farms—whose milk is used to produce artisanal farmstead cheddar cheese. Photo by Daria Bishop.
Environmental and social justice are extremely important to most Vermonters. There are fewer and fewer dairy farms in Vermont, and the ones that continue to exist are highly dependent on migrant laborers—mostly from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador—who often work 60-80 hours per week and endure extreme isolation to earn money to send back to their families. Migrant Justice advocates on their behalf by building the voice, capacity, and power of the farmworker community and engaging community partners to organize for economic justice and human rights.
Many Vermonters want to know where their food comes from and how it is cultivated and feel connected personally, on a first-name basis, to the people who produce their food and sell it at farmers’ markets, CSAs, food hubs, farm stands, pick-your-own, Vermont Fresh Network restaurants, food coops, grocery stores, and farm-to-institution venues including schools, colleges, and hospitals.
Many care deeply that their farmers use sustainable, regenerative, agroecological agriculture practices to minimize negative environmental impacts, especially using manure and compost—not synthetic chemicals— to feed the soil. And they gladly choose to buy locally to reduce the carbon footprint and increased costs associated with long-distance food transportation—as well as to enjoy fresh, delicious, nutrient-dense, and seasonal food. They recognize that they are supporting their local economy by keeping money within the community and creating opportunities for small family farms.
CFS also relates to Vermont’s role as a national leader in environmental, sustainability, climate-change, and biodiversity protection initiatives (think solar panels, conserved farmlands and forests, plantings to attract monarch butterflies, honey bees, and other pollinators). Everywhere on the globe, there is increased risk to food production because of extreme weather events such as flooding, droughts, wildfires, excessive heat, or sea level rise. Even in Vermont, we are learning how vulnerable we are to climate impacts—devastating floods (Hurricane Irene in 2011; 2023; 2024) with related landslides; late frost issues; significant increases in rainfall and storms; warmer and shorter winters; more unpredictability in weather patterns. Many towns and the state are seeking to become more climate resilient in anticipation of even more powerful deluges/torrential rainstorms and droughts in the future.
As Shelburne Farms reflected in their Annual Financial Report for 2020, "The seasons and cycles of our farm helped anchor and uplift people during an anxious year. In keeping our 10 miles of walking trails open by donation, community members and countless visitors were able to reconnect to the land—and each other. At the same time, we were able to continue building climate resiliency across the farm: extending our commitment to solar power and cutting back our lawn mowing schedule to shrink our carbon footprint. Shelburne Farms’ response to global climate change is integrated through all current and future planning." Photo by Sarah Webb.
Interpretation
Personal, face-to-face interpretation involves direct physical contact or interaction with the interpreter and the visitor and, very importantly, allows for two-way communication. It is often more effective at conveying compelling, engaging stories and passionately inspiring, stimulating, and provoking visitors to attach meanings to, and make emotional and intellectual connections with, Vermont food and beverage and how and by whom they are produced than non-personal interpretive media such as signs, brochures, self-guiding trails, exhibits, websites, etc. (Hudspeth et al, 2015).
Recognizing this, most farmers and food producers in Vermont utilize guided tours of their farms or food production facilities and skill demonstrations of the actual means of creating food and beverage products from components/raw materials. They humanize, “put a face” on the local, often organic, farm products; accentuate the CFS approaches employed in their production; and point out how they all collectively support the Vermont Farm-to-Plate Strategic Plan: Strengthening Vermont’s Food System.
In Vermont, there are countless examples of such interpretation of cheese, ice cream, maple syrup, beer, apple cider, bread, chocolate, etc. Below are three examples representing vastly different scales: Shelburne Farms, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, and Bee the Change.
Sugarhouse where sap from sugar maple trees in forests at Shelburne Farms is boiled down to make maple syrup, with interpretive guides explaining the process to visitors (and offering tasty samples!). Photo by Sarah Webb.
Shelburne Farms
In 1885, wealthy railroad tycoon William Vanderbilt died, leaving an inheritance of 10 million dollars to his youngest daughter Lila. Between 1886 and 1902, she and her husband Dr. William Seward Webb bought 32 farms on Shelburne Point along the shore of Lake Champlain and consolidated them into a single 4000-acre agricultural estate planned by noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. He believed that nature is a balm for the human spirit, and that access to nature is essential for all. His plan divided the property into farm, forest, and parklands. Roads were laid out through the natural topography of hills and hollows to alternately obscure and reveal vistas, creating mystery and surprise in the landscape, and framing the magnificent buildings—immense Shelburne House with formal gardens, Farm Barn with “massive turreted copper roof and clock tower that rises into view like a fairy tale castle,” Coach Barn, and other buildings and farm structures—designed by architect Robert H. Robertson. The Webbs intended for their estate to serve as a model farm, to demonstrate modern agricultural practices.
Over time and generations, as the wealth became exhausted, it turned from a gentleman farm into a working farm and a burden to maintain; labor-intensive operations became increasingly unsupportable and were scaled back. Under financial pressures, separate parcels of the consolidated estate were bequeathed, sold, or transferred to others. Many of the immense buildings fell into disrepair. By the late 1960s it faced mounting property taxes, crumbling infrastructure, and intense development pressure, as the founders’ grandson Derick continued to dairy farm with a Brown Swiss herd.
Grazing Brown Swiss cows and Inn, Shelburne Farms. Photo by Daria Bishop.
Derick’s six children founded the education nonprofit Shelburne Farms (SF) in 1972 with a vision and a belief. “The vision was for a thriving and just world rooted in nature and community. The belief was that education was the path to get us there. From the beginning, we have offered programs for youth and operated in service to teachers and schools.” As Shelburne Farms states, “We sustain a working farm dedicated to sustainable and local agriculture. This land—and the ways we care for and use it—offer the most powerful lessons in what a thriving future for all can look like.”
Today, “Shelburne Farms is an education nonprofit on a mission to inspire and cultivate learning for a sustainable future through its programs, place, and products.” It strives to be a valuable resource for educators, to “inspire visitors from around the world to care for their own natural environments and communities.” And to “make a positive difference, help address environmental and social problems outside Shelburne Farms.”
Shelburne Farms took the estate’s historic idea—as a place to showcase agriculture—in a direction adapted to the realities of the day: as a place to repair society’s frayed relationship to agriculture and nature. The nonprofit’s tenure with the land has been marked by a deep commitment to sustainable agriculture, healthy local food systems, and above all, to education. Shelburne Farms has built a thriving farm: dairy, cheesemaking, sugar-making, and organic market gardens.
Its historic campus is a 1,400-acre diversified farm and National Historic Landmark. Since 2020 there has been free admission or by donation to its property and 10 miles of trails. “ We welcome learners and visitors to join us in connecting to—and caring for—the earth we all depend on.” There were 160,000 visitors in 2025. SF’s goal is to be net zero by 2028.
A cheesemaker crafts award-winning artisanal farmstead cheddar cheese—about 170,000 pounds each year—from milk produced by the herd of Brown Swiss cows at Shelburne Farms. Photo by Brent Harrewyn.
In 2025 the Coach Barn was overhauled to become the energy-efficient learning center and hub for SF’s Institute for Sustainable School’s professional educator programs. In 2024 ISS offered field trips and summer camps for 8000 youth and professional development workshops for 1500 teachers. Shelburne Farms is internationally recognized for its Sustainability Education, Place-based Education, and Food Systems programs. It has succeeded wildly in turning “a crumbling Gilded Age estate into a beacon of sustainability education.”
From mid-May to mid-October, SF offers daily guided interpretive tours of its working landscape and historic buildings. At the Welcome Center and Farm Store, visitors board open-air wagons pulled by tractors and traverse pastures and woodlands, taking in the spectacular scenery, including views of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. The guide informs them about the history of the farm and—when they come to the herd of 110 Brown Swiss cows that provide the milk for the farm’s cheesemaking business—the rotational grazing methods used.
They pass the Dairy where the cows are milked and the organic Market Garden where crops are grown for meals at the Inn, and disembark at several stops including the Coach Barn, the magnificent mansion-turned-Inn with its formal flower gardens, and the Farm Barn. There visitors can hand-milk a cow and interact with sheep, cows, goats, rabbits, horses, pigs, and donkeys in the Children’s Farmyard. They can watch bread-baking and wood-turning at two independent businesses. Visitors can also watch cheesemakers craft the milk of Brown Swiss cows into artisanal farmstead cheddar. In the spring, visitors can walk to the sugarhouse in the sugarbush near the Farm Barn. In the sugarhouse, guides describe the process of turning maple sap into maple syrup—and then offer samples.
Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory in Waterbury, Vermont, where upwards of 350,000 pints per day are manufactured, and extremely popular 30-minute guided tours are offered to explain the ice cream-making process to visitors to the most-visited tourist site in Vermont. Photo courtesy of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.
Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream
Ben and Jerry's is often cited as the top-selling or most popular ice cream brand in the U.S. The company’s factory in Waterbury—where they manufacture upwards of 350,000 pints per day—is the most-visited tourist site in Vermont. Besides signage, exhibits, and videos, they offer extremely popular 30-minute guided tours. A short introductory "moovie" about the company's history and culture starts the tour. Then experienced guides lead visitors through a glassed-in mezzanine overlooking the production floor, explaining the ice cream-making process. Then there is a Tasting, where visitors get a sample of chunks and an ice cream flavor in the Flavor Room. After the tour, visitors can go to the gift shop, scoop shop, playground, and unique Flavor Graveyard—“an actual graveyard onsite where we have laid to rest our Dearly De-pinted flavors with granite headstones and witty epitaphs” (a self-guided walk through retired flavors).
As Ben and Jerry’s shares, “Guided tours, which began in 1986, have allowed us to share with millions of guests the evolution of what started as a small local company from the early days in the gas station to the worldwide reach we’ve expanded to since we opened our first Scoop Shop on May 5, 1978! We can’t think of a better way to enjoy time with family and friends than learning how we make our ice cream.”
We interpreters all know that humor can play an important role in making a well-organized tour enjoyable and engaging, helping to keep visitors entertained. And Ben and Jerry certainly know that! The “moovie,” guided journey through the production room, and visit to the Flavor Graveyard include lots of humorous anecdotes, visuals, etc. for visitors of all ages, although critics in the “less is more when it comes to puns” camp might have a point. And, of course, the names of some of their ice cream flavors are humorous themselves: Cherry Garcia, Phish Food, Americone Dream, Chubby Hubby, Chunky Monkey, Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road, One Sweet Whirled, The Tonight Dough, Karamel Sutra.
Some visitors like learning how Ben and Jerry’s uses its business to make positive changes in the world, supporting causes they passionately believe in like Farm Aid, Occupy Wall Street, free trade, and prison reform: “We love making ice cream, but using our business to make the world a better place gives our work its meaning. In other words: we use ice cream to change the world. Ben & Jerry's is founded on and dedicated to a sustainable corporate concept of linked prosperity. Central to the Mission of Ben & Jerry's is the belief that all three parts of its mission must thrive equally in a manner that commands deep respect for individuals inside and outside the Company and supports the communities of which they are a part.”
Through the Decades recounts the legendary journey of the “two guys and the ice cream business they built.” In 1978, with a five-dollar correspondence course in ice cream-making from Pennsylvania State University and a $12,000 investment, Ben and Jerry opened their first ice cream scoop shop in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont. The business took off and grew rapidly, such that by 1985 they established the Ben & Jerry's Foundation to fund community-oriented projects. The business continued to prosper, and in 2000 Ben & Jerry’s became a wholly-owned subsidiary of international food giant Unilever. Through a unique acquisition agreement, an independent Board of Directors was created to provide leadership focused on preserving and expanding Ben & Jerry's social mission, brand integrity, and product quality.
Ice cream on the production line in the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory, Waterbury, Vermont. Photo courtesy of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.
When a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream flavor gets discontinued, it doesn’t just disappear quietly–it gets a full tombstone in an actual graveyard at their Waterbury, Vermont, factory, complete with a poetic epitaph (and sometimes, fan favorites even get resurrected!). Photo courtesy of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.
Bee the Change
Over the past decade, beekeeper Mike Kiernan and plant whisperer Tawnya Kiernan started Bee the Change and have become agrivoltaic champions. In and around 30 solar fields ranging in size from one to fifty acres, they have installed a diverse array of plantings to support a diverse array of pollinators, thereby creating habitat equivalent to every Vermont household planting a ten-foot by ten-foot pollinator garden. Within three years they usually see greater than ten-fold increases in pollinators. In addition to creating habitat and measuring for success, they consider it a part of their mission to increase understanding of the importance of biodiversity and the key role that pollinators play.
Thus, with Bee the Change, the husband-wife team explain and illustrate what pollinators are and why they are so important for pollinating plants, especially those that provide a large percentage of the fruits and vegetables we eat. They demonstrate the hard work of removing turf grass or stones around solar orchards (installations of solar/photovoltaic panels that generate renewable energy while protecting plants), preparing the soil, and planting pollinator plants. They also monitor their plantings for pollinators. Interpretation cannot get more personal and intimate than that!
Bee the Change’s pollinator plants around solar/photovoltaic panels in Hinesburg, Vermont. Photo by Mike Kiernan at Bee the Change.
The Road Less Traveled By
There are countless examples of interpretation of Vermont food and beverage. Most are exciting and fun. But they go way beyond that in highlighting restorative, familiar, and human-scale food systems that offer alternatives to degrading, anonymous, and industrial ones. They offer innovative, replicable, viable, scalable, and place-based solutions to some of global and national agriculture’s most pressing problems, especially reducing emissions generated by agriculture. These smaller-scale solutions inspire and empower others by their examples.
Fellow interpreters, if your appetite has been whetted by reading about such interpretation, please come visit the Green Mountain State and directly experience for yourself The Road Less Traveled By.
For More Information
Grunwald, Michael. We are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix our Food System and Save Our Climate. Simon and Schuster, 2025.
Hudspeth, T., M. Camp, and J. Cirillo. “Chapter 5: Lifelong Learning.” In R. Manning, R. Diamant, N. Mitchell, and D. Harmon (editors), A Thinking Person’s Guide to America’s National Parks, pp. 57-67. George Braziller Publishers, 2015.
Pasanen, Melissa. “A New Heyday: How the Family behind Shelburne Farms Bootstrapped a Crumbling Gilded Age Estate into a Beacon of Sustainability.” Seven Days, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 24-31, Sept. 2025.