NEWPORT — Waterfront Cinema will be showing two videos from the Faces of Vermont Agriculture series, which is a collection of eight short video profiles that highlight outstanding stewards of the land who live and farm in the Green Mountain State.
These dedicated farmers tell viewers in their own words, why conservation matters to their bottom line, to the health and sustainability of the resources on and around their farm, and to the future of farming.
Two local farmers, Merle Young III, and Paul Lisai, are highlighted in the series and their video profiles will be featured as opening trailers to every movie at Waterfront Cinema in Newport for the next three months.
Merle Young III, is a fifth-generation farmer who understands and believes in the importance of maintaining good soil health.
He and his family have been working for many years to improve the farm’s soil health by seeding cover crops in the fall on their silage corn fields, following crop rotations, expanding their vegetative buffers and understanding the farms nutrient management plan, all of which reduce soil loss and protect water quality.
The Young farm also has the only NRCS funded strip cropped fields in Orleans County.
Strip cropping is the practice of growing planned rotations of row crops, forages, small grains, or fallow in a systematic arrangement of equal width strips across a field to reduce soil erosion from water and transport of sediment.
Paul Lisai, former Orleans County NRCD board member, is doing a great deal of work to protect and improve his farm’s natural resources, including installing pasture infrastructure and implementing an intensive grazing system to improve the farms forages, soil health, milk production, and climate resiliency.
“The short but powerful messages in the videos help the public better understand the efforts that many of our cherished NEK farmers are making to ensure that their impact on natural resources is beneficial.” Sarah Damsell, the Orleans County NRCD Manager said.
You can view the videos below:
