I'm so excited about this video from 2010, which I found while perusing the archives to migrate old files and videos onto our new website. It features great footage and really quotable quotes from many of the agricultural bigwigs in the Hardwick area: Tom Stearns (High Mowing Seeds), Pete Johnson (Pete's Greens), Andrew Meyer (Vermont Soy), Andy Kehler (Jasper Cellars), and a few others.
And of course, there's our own Tom Gilbert, former executive director of Highfields, who speaks eloquently and persuasively about closing the loop on our food systems.
In Part 2 of the video, starting at around 4:33, Tom says, “We call our programs close the loop programs because the composting is the end and the beginning of the food system. So we take that material that would otherwise be destined for the landfill and put it back into production, taking that linear food system model and bending it back into the image of an ecosystem.”
Later in the interview, Tom explains how composting is an essential part of tackling climate change.
“How we eat is a big piece to solving global warming,” says Tom. “In Vermont, if we were to take all of our food scraps, and take them out of the waste stream, the emissions offset would be equivalent to not burning somewhere around 12 or 13 million gallons of gas annually. “
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!
Kim Mercer (Highfields' communications manager)