Hi, I’m Brian Kemp.
I manage Mountain Meadows Farm for Dr. Amiel Cooper, a retired pathologist from Boston. Amiel started the farm 19 years ago with eight heifers and one bull. MMF is now a certified organic beef farm growing 375 finished beef all born and raised on our 1900 acre farm. We direct market all of our beef to Wholefoods Markets from New York through southern New England.
Some recent projects we have implemented on our farm range from over 80 acres of CREP work in our pastures with over 1700 trees planted to stabilize stream banks and improve water quality in the Lemon Fair which is a tributary of Otter Creek. We decommissioned three small manure lagoons and built three new larger and more accessible lagoons. Currently all of our barnyards now have 100% containment of manure preventing unwanted runoff. The last several years we have been implementing grass waterways, buffers and manure setbacks which all meet VT Agency of Ag AAP’s. Recently we have started using cover crops with our corn rotation and manure incorporation with the use of an airway which is leased when needed from our local conservation district.
Two years ago I joined eleven other prominent farmers from Addison and Chittenden counties to form CVFC. We all felt it was time for the farming community in our area to have a unified voice. We strive to educate other farmers, the general public, and state and federal agencies on the good things that are happening on our farms daily. We are all doing many water quality practices on our farms daily. We hope to share our accomplishments and failures with other farmers. I feel that we can all improve our farms and continue to help with the efforts to clean up Lake Champlain. These reasons are why I feel CVFC can play a key role in VT’s future for a sustainable and viable agricultural future.
