Vermont Farm Show Revisioning: Scope of Work Released

The Vermont Farm Show Board recently released a Scope of Work to revision the Vermont Farm Show that represents the shifting and emerging needs of farming in Vermont, is financially sustainable to manage, and both celebrates and supports all of the people who grow and produce food in Vermont.

The Vermont Farm Show Board was created in 1979 as a nonprofit organization to conduct an annual agricultural industry event to promote Vermont agriculture, organize and conduct industry association meetings, and exhibit farm equipment, supplies, and products. 

The Vermont Farm Show was last held in 2020, just before the pandemic began and was not able to continue financially, operationally, or programmatically beyond the pandemic. The current nonprofit organizational and financial structure does not serve the current or potential purpose nor does it provide an advantage (and could be a disadvantage) to how the Farm Show is sustained over time. The way the Farm Show is currently structured provides minimal investment or incentive for organizing an event that meets the changing landscape of agriculture in Vermont.

In 2022, the Vermont Farm Show Board began to navigate planning for how to address shifts in Farm Show governance structure, funding, overall management, and how to plan for event programming. With a Vermont Community Foundation capacity building grant, the Vermont Farm Show Board hired Rae Carter of EmpowR Transformation (former Farm to Plate Network communications director) to facilitate a revisioning process through an equity lens. 

The revisioning process engaged a diverse representation of agricultural leaders to inform how, when, and where future farm shows can be offered. The result of this first stage of inquiry is preparation of a Scope of Work to address shifts in Farm Show governance structure, funding, overall management, and how to plan for event programming.

The Scope of Work suggests collaborative statewide leadership engagement to determine how a statewide agricultural gathering can become a shared effort among the organizations and institutions who serve farmers. The Scope of Work presents an invitation for dialogue among statewide agricultural leaders for the Farm Show to adopt a new organizational and event structure, determine a new fiscal model and funding sources, and shift from a one-person farm show manager to a shared management model.

Recommendations in the Scope of Work include planning for future Farm Show programming to be determined and driven by an inclusive community engagement process from a full range of Vermont agriculture audiences including farmers and food businesses, agricultural education/nonprofit/government institutions, farm vendors and service providers, agricultural students of all ages, and people who love and support agriculture.

The revisioning process presents an opportunity for resource and power sharing, inclusive community engagement, and to meet the expanding needs of a more diverse agricultural landscape. Revisioning the Vermont Farm Show with the recommendations in this Scope of Work aligns with Farm to Plate Vermont Agriculture and Food System Plan intentions for Vermont agriculture to be more economically viable, environmentally resilient, and socially just.

The Vermont Farm Show Scope of Work can be accessed here and is intended to be read and shared across the state with all types and scales of agricultural leadership to generate momentum towards the recommendations presented. 

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