Today’s guest post was written by Stephen Leslie, dairy farmer at Cedar Mountain Farm in Hartland, Vermont. Stephen represented NOFA VT at our annual D.C. fly-in, where our coalition advocated for fair and equitable farm policies on Capitol Hill.
Cover photo: NFFC Dairy Group meeting with Senator Peter Welch (D-VT). Official U.S. Senate photo by Daniel Rios.
Back in December, when Grace Oedel, the director of NOFA-VT asked me if I would consider being a farmer-representative for the organization at the annual NFFC DC-Fly-in, I was honored to have the opportunity to step up and speak up for small farmers and the earth. But that was all in some other country, in another time.
On January 20th, 2025 at Donald J.Trump’s second inauguration ceremony, a group of tech-industry billionaires were in attendance with the best seats in the White House. For the first time the men of wealth and power stood in the light of day, revealing a reality that has always existed but tended to remain behind the scenes and in the shadows. Today in America, it seems as if the last strands of our grip on democracy are slipping out of our hands. An authoritarian president has gained control over the other two branches of our federal government. A hostile corporate takeover of the US government by the world’s richest men is unfolding in real time. In the 2nd Trump term the president has been granted immunity from prosecution by the courts and usurped the power of the purse by canceling programs and putting spending freezes on funds already approved through legislation.
NFFC members and staff meeting with Representative Jim McGovern’s (D-MA-2) office. Pictured L-R. Back row: Sarah Lloyd, Rep. Jim McGovern, Randy Violette, and Stephen Leslie. Front row: Patti Naylor, Samantha Cave, Meg Stratton, Maeve Leslie, and Kelly Scheetz. Photo by NFFC.
One of the important markers on the Economist’s Democracy Index is the civil liberty to form associations that can then petition or have the power to lobby for their causes. In the US this liberty has been severely tested but has persisted. Claiming that agency is what inspired me to join the delegation of farmers, ranchers, and fishers that traveled to DC with the National Family Farm Coalition to meet with Congressional staffers and representatives to advocate for such issues as fair pricing for farmers, food sovereignty, equitable access to farm land and farm credit. In DC, as a farmer-representative for NOFA-VT, I was accompanied by my 17 year old daughter, Maeve, who just happens to be studying the History of Democracy at her high school.
After I heard all the introductions of these farmers, fishers, and ranchers from all across the country telling who they were and why they were showing up, I felt so grateful for their passion for what they do and their courage and willingness to step up to defend it. I knew we were in the right place at the right time.
Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC-12) was a special guest at the fly-in’s welcome dinner. (Photo by NFFC)
When all the NFFC delegates and staff got together on our first afternoon at the Presbyterian Church to meet up and strategize, and after I heard all the introductions of these farmers, fishers, and ranchers from all across the country telling who they were and why they were showing up, I felt so grateful for their passion for what they do and their courage and willingness to step up to defend it. I knew we were in the right place at the right time. Congresswoman Alma Adams of North Carolina, a long-time member on the Ag Committee, graciously joined us to share her view on the moment and on the prospects for the Farm Bill. She told us there was a time to show up, a time to speak up, and sometimes there is a time to “cut up”—and it seems that such a moment has arrived. A moment to ask, “What would John Lewis do?”
For the Fly-In, Maeve and I were part of the Dairy Team. We had a dairy farmer on our team from a South Dakota Farm that has been in the family for four generations. Kelly Scheetz spoke of how her grandparents had raised 15 children on the farm, whereas they were having a hard time supporting three. Last year, after two months of getting a milk check in which all their profits went to cover the cost of trucking, they said “enough.” Now, they are selling raw milk to neighbors and developing their first-in-the-state cream line yogurt business. Sarah Lloyd from Wisconsin recounted that she and her husband had recently sold off their 450 cows because, with operational costs constantly rising, they could no longer make the multi-generational farm business pay. They were holding onto the land and making plans to begin introducing elements of agroforestry into the farm landscape. And Patti Naylor, an organic farmer from Iowa, related how she was raised on a small diversified farm – like most farms were at that time. She described how her brother still operates the family farm, but due to low prices for milk, the dairy cows that once served as the fertility for the field crops were sold nearly 30 years ago. Although her brother still maintains a beef cow-calf herd on the farm, the stress of low prices, the disappearance of local communities and neighboring farmers, and the loss of the skills and knowledge of caring for livestock means that he may be the last generation to farm the family’s farm in this ecologically-sound way. These powerful women farmers are active with local and national farmer-led organizations including Family Farm Defenders and Dakota Rural Action.
Each Fly-In Team was accompanied by an NFFC staff member. We were graced to have communications and media specialist, Samantha Cave, on the Dairy Team, who somehow manages to combine fun and efficient time-management. The folks at NFFC did an incredible job orchestrating the entire event. They are proposing a comprehensive reform of the dairy sector through the Milk from Family Dairies Act. This proposal could dramatically reform the dairy sector through a non-monetized national quota system—incentivizing small and mid-size farms and gradually de-consolidating CAFO-style operations.
NFFC Dairy Group meeting with Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s (R-WI-3) office.
This might be a moment when seeds are being sown for a bipartisan agrarian uprising.
We visited offices that NFFC had already identified as being potential allies for this bill, as well as new members from major dairy districts. And of course, when we spoke with staffers we all addressed how the freezes on USDA funding for programs and grants is directly impacting us, our farm neighbors, and our trusted partners. All the staffers we spoke with, from both parties, expressed a sense of shock and dismay at the freezes on USDA programs directly impacting their farmer constituents. Most everyone is familiar with the concept that “crisis” represents both “danger and opportunity”. With all those folks out in farm and ranch country feeling hung out to dry–this might be a moment when seeds are being sown for a bipartisan agrarian uprising.
VT Senator Peter Welch’s office was our last stop on Thursday afternoon. Senator Welch showed up and spent a generous amount of time with our dairy team, along with staffers Evelyn Vivar and Darryl Alexander. It seems many of the representatives are most responsive to requests for a meeting when they know their own constituents are going to be present, and Senator Welch was no exception. It probably didn’t hurt that he lived in the same town where our farm is located for over thirty years, and even used to get milk from the family that owned the farm before us. It’s a hallmark of our “Brave Little State” that engaged citizens can gain access to the ears of their elected representatives. The Dairy Team left the meeting encouraged that we have good incentive to continue follow-up with offices and to circulate the Act among farmers and rural organizations in our respective regions.
At all the offices we visited, I did my best to convey the grim details of the current dairy crisis in Vermont (and the country in general). Ours is a story of rapid consolidation. Back in 1996 when my wife Kerry and I first started buying heifers there were 2,500 dairy farms in the state of Vermont. Today there are less than 450. And yet the state is still producing the same amount of milk and has approximately the same number of cows. The dairy sector still makes up 80% of agricultural sales in the state (and occupies 80% of the Ag land) but all that production is increasingly concentrated into large CAFO-style operations located in a couple of counties. The small and mid-size farms that used to dot the countryside all across the state are quickly disappearing—with huge negative ramifications for local economies and culture. Even more alarming has been the conversion of farmland to development. We have lost 30% of our prime Ag lands since 1987—that’s more than 100,000 acres. The American Farmland Trust reports that Vermont and New Hampshire as a region lose 35 acres of rural land to conversion daily. All this is taking place in the context of a rapidly destabilizing climate system and loss of biodiversity.
Dairy cows at Cedar Mountain Farm in Vermont, where Stephen operates a diversified vegetable and livestock farm. (Photo courtesy of author)
We cannot expect farmers who are forced to have annual operating debt and long term debt on infrastructure and assets to be innovators and risk-takers. Dairy farmers invest enormous amounts of capital in equipment, infrastructure, inputs, and labor. They have seen profit margins flat-lined for 50 years while operating costs have sky-rocketed. Meanwhile, equipment manufacturers and purveyors of copy-righted seeds, fertilizers and pesticides rake in record profits. If agriculture continues to operate within the free market, it needs to be with built-in safety nets.
In recent history, the state and federal government’s response to the crisis in the dairy industry is to fund projects that prop up the existing model. One example of this would be the promotion of on-farm methane bio-digesters as a “green solution” for generating electricity. This is all heading in the wrong direction. Dairy farmers need to be offered viable options to reduce the number of cows, get them back out on the land grazing, and diversify their operations. Farmers need technical assistance to grow innovative specialty crops and to integrate elements of agroforestry into annual cropping systems The aim is to re-establish a regional food system. Consumers ought to be able to buy a full-diet of food grown within one-hundred miles of where they live—we don’t need more California lettuce coming to us on jet planes—but rather healthy organic and bio-regionally produced food—eaten with the seasons.
Stephen with daughter Maeve Leslie in Washington, D.C. for NFFC’s 2025 Fly-In. (Photo courtesy of NFFC)
When I entered into a farm apprenticeship back in 1992 with the idea of becoming a farmer, I did so because I felt that becoming a small diversified organic farmer in the US at that time was the most potent form of non-violent direct action to change the system that I could undertake. I still believe that is true and that this kind of farming represents our last best hope in surviving climate change. Every small farm and woodlot managed with organic-regenerative practices is like a stone tossed in a pool. There is no telling how far the ripple effects of such efforts will travel and how they might help to raise ecological awareness and give impulse to the systemic changes we so desperately need. Although we are just one small farm, if soil health practices are to be adopted widely it will be a grassroots movement of forward-thinking land caretakers who will be the catalysts. We are trying to implement practices on the foundational principle that the best adaptation is mitigation. We are part of a larger regional, national and international grassroots agroecological movement aiming to create resilient, just and equitable, re-localized and sovereign food systems. This re-rooting and reconnecting to the living earth is where there is real promise to turn things around and make human progress toward a regenerative global civilization.
Thanks to NFFC and La Via Campesina and all the partner organizations for helping farmers, fishers, and ranchers and their allies to stand united in these challenging times!
Stephen Leslie
Cedar Mountain Farm & Cobb Hill Cheese
Hartland, VT