Co-op Connects returns April 19, with the General Manager (GM) and one or two Council Members  

General Manager Mary Mullally, council member Steven Farnham, and I hung out in the café on the morning of Monday, March 10, with an open invitation to members to stop by to talk about matters related to the council or to the operations of the store. We had some lively conversations! Mary and I will be doing this again, in connection with the Co-op’s Earth Day celebration on April 19 at 10 am, and we expect to have another council member there, as well. Please stop by! 

The Trump administration’s threat to local food: A congressman’s warning 

A group of four Hunger Mountain Co-op staff and council members heard U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern deliver a stark warning last Saturday about the dangers of Trump Administration actions to dismantle local food systems. He spoke at the annual meeting of the Neighboring Food Co-op Association (NFCA), held in Greenfield, Massachusetts, which is part of his district. He urged co-ops and their members to use our collective power to resist federal policies that he said are designed to marginalize independent farmers and erode access to fresh, locally sourced food.  

McGovern described the current administration’s policies as “a concerted effort to starve out independent farmers and dismantle local food systems.” He noted that federal programs designed to support farmers are being frozen or eliminated without justification, leaving co-ops and rural economies at risk.  

“If we do not support independent local farmers in this country, if we lose them, then the corporate players will be only too happy to fill the void,” he warned. “They would be happy if people in Massachusetts and in New England do not have thriving local alternatives to what they’re selling.” 

I’m just going to quote McGovern at length: 

“I think we are witnessing a concerted effort to starve out independent farmers and dismantle local food systems. Funds that rightfully belong to farmers have been frozen without any legal basis or even feigned rationale. 

Those freezes, especially of conservation program funds, hit hardest in the Northeast. Farmers here don’t have the same federal safety opportunities as farmers in square states, and conservation is often the most important federal programming. 

Just this week, USDA told states that local food purchasing program agreements were being pulled with no warning at all. These programs get real, healthy, local food into our schools and childcare centers. They stock our food banks. They increase choices for consumers at the grocery store or the farm stand, so we don’t have to rely on food from the other side of the country or the other side of the world. And add to that the attempted purge of career staff at USDA and the threats to close regional offices. It’s surreal.” 

McGovern pointed out the power just of the grocery co-ops that are members of NFCA, with more than 30 member co-ops in the Northeast, owned by 174,000 members and employing more than 2,100 people.  

He concluded with a call for co-ops to take action, urging us to organize, advocate for policies that protect local food systems, and engage our communities in the fight for food justice. “This is like a five-alarm fire,” he said. “And the only way we’re going to stop it is through people power. Institutions are not going to save people. People are going to save people. And that means all of us have to have a renewed sense of purpose and activism and determination as we confront the coming weeks and months, and—I hate to say it—years, of what we have in Washington right now.” 

McGovern serves as a senior member of the Committee on Agriculture’s Subcommittee on Nutrition and Oversight, is the ranking member of the House Committee on Rules and is a member of the bipartisan Congressional Cooperative Business Caucus.  

The NFCA is a co-op of community-owned grocery stores like Hunger Mountain Co-op. It was founded in 2011 by a group including Hunger Mountain Co-op’s then-GM Kari Bradley. Our co-op is a member of NFCA, and current GM Mary Mullally serves NFCA as Vice-President of the board. 

What actions are you taking to help preserve and strengthen our local food systems? What would you like to see our co-op do? Please email me with your ideas. 

The Wrap 

On our way to the NFCA conference at Greenfield Community College in Massachusetts, we stopped at Franklin Community Co-op in Greenfield. I asked at the checkout what the fastest way to get to the community college was. The cashier asked, “Are you walking or driving?”  

“Driving,” I said.  

“That’s the fastest way,” she replied. 

—Carl Etnier, Council President

Do you have any questions or comments about the council? Do you know any jokes even faintly related to food and/or co-ops? Please email them to me!