On July 11th and 12th, the Intervale experienced major flooding from heavy precipitation and rising waters from the Winooski river. Intervale Center programs, trails, and the seven farms at the Intervale are recovering from an estimated $1.5 million in community losses and damages – as well as the unquantifiable grief from this devastating event, with many farms experiencing a season or more worth of love and labor turned to total crop loss. We are mobilizing towards recovery with the help of our community. As frontline responders who have experienced the impacts of severe weather firsthand, the Intervale Center continues to lead the way for climate resilient agriculture and ecosystems statewide and regionally.

*Volunteers assisting with clean-up at Pitchfork farm on July 19th, a week after flooding peaked at the Intervale.*

Our land stewardship team has worked tirelessly to respond to emerging needs at the Intervale, from cleaning debris from agricultural land and trails to coordinating hundreds of volunteers and implementing soil testing across farms, as well as providing immediate support with land and equipment management for farmers. Intervale trails reopened to the public on July 31st, just over two weeks after the flood, thanks to efforts from our lands team and Burlington Wildways Trail Stewards. People’s Farm Crew restored the community-powered farm and People’s Garden for planting crops that will be ready to harvest by fall to supplement our Fair Share CSA.

On July 11th, we announced the Intervale Farmers Recovery Fund, a fund that was originally created in 2011 to help farms recover following Hurricane Irene. In a moving show of community support, the fund raised over $100,000 in just a few days and has currently raised more than $350,000 for Intervale farmers. First rounds of funds were distributed on August 3rd, with each of the five participating farms, including New Farms for New Americans, receiving up to $30,000 and $10,000 The next round of funds will be distributed in early September.

The New Farms for New Americans program was uniquely impacted by flooding because participants of the program are subsistence farmers who depend on their harvest to feed their families through the winter – meaning most will not qualify for state or federal flood relief. The Intervale Center and the city of Burlington have distributed $100 farmer’s market vouchers to 100 impacted families for use at the Old North End and Winooski farmer’s markets to address food insecurity caused by the flood’s destruction of crops at NFNA. In addition, our Food Hub is providing space for the Vermont Foodbank to pack weekly food shares for distribution to 90 impacted families.

We have coordinated more than 510 total meals for Intervale farmers by working with restaurant partners to provide lunch nearly every weekday since the flood. These meals have created crucial space for our community to share joy and connection over delicious food. As one Intervale farmer notes, “These lunches provide a big morale boost…it’s just one less thing for us to think about during the day, and that’s a big help.” Restaurants generously donated meals for three weeks following the flood; thanks to the Vermont Emergency Eats program we are able to continue to provide meals to farmworkers as well as Intervale Center staff.

We’re continuing to distribute our Fair Share CSA to 200+ families each week. Last year, our food access team gleaned more than half of their total produce for the season from farms at the Intervale as well as Jericho Settler’s Farm, which was also flooded. The Intervale Center has secured additional funding to purchase produce through our Food Hub to supplement Fair Share in order to provide our community access to fresh, local food.

Many of the farms we work with across the state have also been devastated by flooding. In total, Vermont farms have lost an estimated $12 million in crops, animal feed, land, and infrastructure damages – and longer-term implications for many farms are still uncertain. Our farm business planning team is offering crucial emotional and technical support to farms during the challenging process of applying for state and federal relief resources. In addition to July’s widespread floods, Vermont’s farms have experienced crop loss due to early season frosts and heavy precipitation. The climate crisis will have huge implications on our community and global food systems - we are strategizing for long-term mitigation around climate risk, both in collaboration with the farms we work with and through our land stewardship work.

Across the state, we have seen in real-time that trees slow floodwaters. Our Conservation Nursery experienced tremendous loss in the flood, but as a leader in national reforestation efforts with tens of thousands of native trees being planted in riparian restoration projects each year, we recognize that our work through the Nursery is more important than ever. While we lost 64% of first-year seedlings, many of our more established trees are thriving. New trees will be key to climate mitigation efforts in line with national goals to plant one billion trees over the next ten years, and we are collaborating with regional partners to double seedling production over the next several years to grow and plant a variety of native trees for climate resiliency.

*Representative Balint with Diggers’ Mirth Collective Farm member Micah Barritt and the Intervale Center’s Executive Director, Travis Marcotte*

We were grateful to host Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Peter Welch, Representative Becca Balint, Under Secretary of Agriculture Under Secretary Robert Bonnie, Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Anson Tebbetts, and their teams this past month. Legislators toured flood damage, spoke to farmers and staff about the impact of flood as well as flood relief programs, and learned how farms and Intervale Center programs have been working towards recovery. Climate change is happening now, and has real-time effects on our food system. We hope the Intervale can serve as a model for climate event recovery and inspire policy action to address the impacts of climate change on our environment and food.

We have engaged hundreds of volunteers to help with immediate flood relief at Intervale farms, as well as Intervale Center trails, the Conservation Nursery, and the People’s Farm. We’ve continued to celebrate our community at Summervale, where donations from each week have benefitted the Farmer Recovery Fund. The first Summervale following flooding at the Intervale raised an all-time high of over $1,000 for the Recovery Fund and 700 attendees. Our community has shown up for us in so many ways, from attending Summervale to fundraising to offering skills like carpentry, artmaking, and cooking to help Intervale Center staff and farms. THANK YOU for all of your support – every bit has been crucial in mobilizing towards recovery.

As we look to the future, we see the need to radically reimagine the economic and social systems that have led to climate crisis. We are confident in our ability to strengthen community food systems and lead a movement for climate justice in Vermont. ⬢