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UVM To Offer Nation's First Food Hub Certificate Program

Angela Evancie
/
VPR
Baskets of Red Hen Baking Company bread and local veggies await pickup at the Intervale Food Hub on June 17, 2014. The University of Vermont will offer the nation's first professional certificate in Food Hub Management beginning in January.

Beginning in January, the University of Vermont will offer a first-of-its kind professional certificate in food hub management.

Food hubs are organizations that help connect farmers with restaurants and stores to sell their food, and they’ve been growing in popularity in recent years. 

Ann Karlen will be one of the faculty members of the new program. She’s the founding director of the group Fair Food in Philadelphia, and says food hubs are especially important to farmers who need a distributor for selling to larger markets.

“There’s so many wonderful relationships between individual growers and, let’s say, a white table cloth restaurant, where specialty products are really highlighted," Karlen says. "But when we start to move into retail stores, grocery stores and institutions like hospitals and colleges or elder care facilities it really becomes unwieldy for individual growers to sell into that market.”

"When we start to move into retail stores, grocery stores and institutions like hospitals ... it really becomes unwieldy for individual growers to sell into that market." - Ann Karlen, lead faculty member

UVM, whose students have access to local food "subscriptions" thanks to a partnership with the Intervale Food Hub, isn't alone in recognizing the need for stronger food hubs. On Sept. 29, the United States Department of Agriculture announced over $52 million in grants to grow local and organic food economies, including farmers markets, farm-to-institutionactivities and food hubs.

"These Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program grants provide farmers and ranchers around the country with tools to reach consumers, strengthen ties between urban and rural communities, and help meet the growing demand for locally and regionally produced food," said Anne Alonzo, administrator of the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) in a statement.

In an interview with the New York Times, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack noted that food hubs hire about 20 people on average.

"Small and medium-sized operations end up helping to generate more employment than commercial operations because of their different distribution systems and their local natures," Vilsack said.

Meanwhile, Ann Karlen says the professional certificate in food hub management offered by UVM is critical because many of the skills needed in retail businesses are equally important in running a successful food hub.

“Inventory management, and marketing and sales and finance, and all the things you need to run a business … and it has been challenging for many of those food hubs, as they’ve grown, to find those people.”

Karlen adds that all of the courses in the UVM food hub management program will be taught by food hub practitioners. 

Melody is the Contributing Editor for But Why: A Podcast For Curious Kids and the co-author of two But Why books with Jane Lindholm.
A graduate of NYU with a Master's Degree in journalism, Mitch has more than 20 years experience in radio news. He got his start as news director at NYU's college station, and moved on to a news director (and part-time DJ position) for commercial radio station WMVY on Martha's Vineyard. But public radio was where Mitch wanted to be and he eventually moved on to Boston where he worked for six years in a number of different capacities at member station WBUR...as a Senior Producer, Editor, and fill-in co-host of the nationally distributed Here and Now. Mitch has been a guest host of the national NPR sports program "Only A Game". He's also worked as an editor and producer for international news coverage with Monitor Radio in Boston.
Angela Evancie serves as Vermont Public's Senior VP of Content, and was the Director of Engagement Journalism and the Executive Producer of Brave Little State, the station's people-powered journalism project.
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