Times Argus

By PETER HIRSCHFELD, VERMONT PRESS BUREAU

MONTPELIER — The idea wasn’t new: Energize a flagging agriculture sector by treating farm-based enterprises like dot.com startups.

But backers of the “working lands” program proposed at the outset of the 2012 session asked for more than just the feel-good policy language.

They wanted money — $3 million, to be precise.

I believe that the working landscape of Vermont — that familiar tapestry of farm fields, forests, small cities and compact villages — is vital to the future of Vermont, and is endangered.

The working landscape is part of the signature of our state — important to our farm economy and our tourist economy, a place where Vermonters work, a producer of food and fiber, refreshing and beautiful to look at. It is part of our “brand” if you will, and part of who we as Vermonters are.

Letter to the editor of the Times Argus by Dan Breslaw of West Corinth: I hear a lot of arguments over whether the government or the private sector should be planning our future. What I like best about the Working Landscape bill now before the Legislature is it that it’s a partnership between the two. It asks government to facilitate the kind of economic development that benefits us all, but that only private citizens can carry out.

George Aiken really was the man with a plan. When he was governor, he took many of the qualities of Vermont he loved and built policy around them. Nearly all of the public policy he solidified had direct affects on farming, agriculture and Vermont’s rural heritage. For decades now, many of those policies have been carried forward (and modified), preserving the quality of life Vermonters covet. But economies of scale have been unkind to our state over the years, making it harder for people working in agriculture.