It started about a year ago, when the Pasture Program was contacted by the VT Envirothon Current Issues coordinator. Envirothon is a national environmental competition where high school students compete in four standard categories (aquatics, soil, forestry, and wildlife) and one current issue which changes each year. We were contacted because the national program had chosen “Sustainable Rangeland Management” as the issue, which in Vermont is quickly translated to rotational grazing. Naturally, we jumped on the chance to teach high school students about the benefits of pasture!

Bellows Falls Envirothon Team B won this year’s Current Issue: Sustainable Grassland Management. They are working with a farm family seeking to improve its land management after severe flooding damage from T.S. Irene.

The Current Issue represents a problem or challenge that the students must learn about in order to make recommendations for improvement. There’s a lot of work involved. In this case each participating school had to pick a farm with livestock, meet the farmer and learn about their goals and challenges, make maps describing the farm system, understand what is working well or needs improvement, and make recommendations to address those challenges. My colleague Kimberly Hagen and I shared educational materials and resources for the teams, connected schools with farms, answered emails, delivered presentations during a training day, and worked with teams directly when invited. Today was the culmination of that year, where the students made presentations at the state competition.

All day, I was struck by the hard work every student had done to learn more about good pasture management and the farmers themselves. Their creativity in drawing, performance of short skits and descriptions of technical information were simply inspiring. We were impressed with the range of farms they chose to work with, from a two-horse farm to a 700-cow dairy, and with the affection and appreciation they clearly held for their farmers. Multiple teams stated an intention to return to the farm to help the farmer implement some of the practices they’d recommended (and one team already had). I could not have been happier or prouder of the students. Whether they become future environmental stewards, farmers, consumers, or all three…they will clearly do so with a greater understanding of how good land management and food production go hand in hand.

Driving home, I spent some time ruminating on what this type of event means to me, as a woman farmer. Whether hosting elementary school kids at the farm, visiting a classroom at school, rooting for a whole lacrosse team, or keeping your fingers crossed for some kids you barely know, there is something buried deep inside that says, “if you succeed, we all succeed, the world succeeds.” Maybe there’s some connection with kids that we naturally feel. After all, for thousands of years women have been the keepers of the community web.

Bellows Falls Envirothon Team A won Team of the Year. They will be competing in Montana later this summer to represent Vermont nationally.

This is consistent with recent and historical national volunteer data and even data collected about VT grass-based farms in 2011, where women participated at a higher rate than men in all nine social activity categories.

Genetic predisposition, or not, I held my breath for a few moments today. A team of extremely bright high school students are off to compete in the National Envirothon this summer, and 70 other kids represent shining examples of Vermont’s agricultural and environmental future. Congratulations, every one!

Lindsey Ruhl (photo courtesy of UVM Dept of Plant & Soil Science).

Lindsey is a recent recipient of a Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (SARE) graduate student grant. Her project, called “Mitigating and Preventing Flood-Related Soil Quality Degradation Using Cover Crop Blends,” is a response to questions she had about soil health following a natural disaster, in this case Tropical Storm Irene. Lindsey is looking at strategies farmers can use when their fields are faced with “post-flood syndrome,” a variety of soil fertility problems that arise after flooding. In particular, she is investigating different cover crops—winter rye, forage radish, hairy vetch, and lupine—and their abilities to “alleviate post-flood deficiencies in organic vegetable production systems” and rejuvenate soils after a flood event.

Lindsey’s interests in sustainable agriculture were cultivated during her undergraduate work at Evergreen State College where she studied food systems. She said, “I was very interested in how we could  increase food sovereignty at the local level and at the global level. And this led me to my next big question: How can we produce more food locally? And, more fundamentally, what helps plants grow?” The answer—the building block of sustainable agriculture—was healthy soil.

She moved to Burlington and joined the field crew at Arethusa Farm, a certified organic vegetable farm at the Intervale. Lindsey said, “I am interested in eventually pursuing policy or extension work, but I felt I first needed some hands-on experience and a solid science background.” Next came her enrollment to the Master of Science program at UVM and the NE-SARE graduate student grant. “I feel the SARE grant got me into graduate school,” she said, “Being funded was key.”

UVM PSS graduate student Lindsey Ruhl takes a break from finals to sample her research plots at the Intervale.

Lindsey said the most important skill she’s gained through her NE-SARE experience has been grant management. “SARE has been great to learn how to manage a grant. I’ve learned how to budget time for both sampling and processing data. And I’ve learned that it can be challenging to coordinate schedules for farmer cooperators, faculty advisors, and myself!” She’s also learning the challenges and rewards that come with conducting applied, field-based research (eg., the spring floods she was expecting for her project just haven’t come this spring!) and the juggling needed to balance school work and field work (especially in the spring when finals—this week!—coincide with good planting weather!)

Perhaps the most rewarding part of her SARE grant has been taking charge of her own research project—a skill she’ll likely use throughout her career. She said, “NE-SARE really gave me the opportunity to design and implement my own research.”

You can learn more about Lindsey’s work through a blog she’s developed called “Flooded Soils.” Applications for the 2013 NE-SARE Graduate Students Grants Program are due soon – May 21, 2013 – see the NE-SARE website for applicant instructions and additional information.