A Community-Oriented Food Scrap & Agricultural Organic Waste Management Toolkit
A project of the Composting Association of Vermont
This multimedia toolkit provides technical support and training for community-oriented food scrap composting and manure management on farms in rural and small communities throughout the U.S.
The goal of this program is to reduce solid waste, avoid water pollution, and increase soil health and farm resiliency.
The project was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Utility Services Solid Waste Management Grant Program and supported by our Project Farmers and the members of the Project Steering Committee.
What is community-oriented on-farm composting?
Composting is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to remove food and organic residues from the waste stream and turn them into value-added products.
Connecting farmers with community members looking to divert food scraps from landfills provides farmers with a valuable resource. Whether used on-farm or moved off-farm through compost sales, it provides a mechanism to move nutrients to where they are most needed.
For communities, it provides a possible solution for stabilizing food scrap management costs. This can be especially helpful in rural areas where population density does not support hauling routes or centralized commercial compost operations.
In rural and small communities, farm viability is often closely linked to community viability.
Why community-oriented food scrap composting on farms?
In this video, we talk with our partner farmers about why they were interested in joining the On-Farm Community-Oriented Food Scrap & Agricultural Residue Management project. Hear their perspectives to understand how this approach adds value to their farming enterprises.
Why community-oriented food scrap composting on farms? (8:23) Special thanks to Jolie Scott for her work on this video.
Ready to learn how to get involved?
“I’m really excited about joining the community-based composting project because I'm learning how to compost. I have some amount of confidence in it now, whereas before, I felt like it was sort of out of reach. I'm also really excited about involving my community, especially in an underprivileged rural population. We're able to take control of a small part of our lives.”
— Sayer Palmer, Open Woods Farm in Grafton, NH
For more information about this project, contact Natasha Duarte, CAV Director, by email (natasha@compostingvermont.org) or phone (802-373-6499).
This toolkit was funded by a USDA Rural Utilities Solid Waste Management Grant. The Composting Association of Vermont is an equal opportunity employer and service provider.
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