Introduction
Food systems sustainability is a topic of interest to scholars and other stakeholders, yet its measurement is elusive and contested (Wiltshire et al., Reference Wiltshire, Beckage, Callahan, Chase, Conner, Darby, Kolodinsky, Kraft, Neher, Poleman, Ricketts, Tobin, von Wettberg and Niles2024). The lack of sustainability and need for improvement in the US food system has been a topic of research and discourse for decades (e.g., Feenstra, Reference Feenstra1997). Moreover, it is difficult to provide clear guidelines on practices and policies to increase sustainability, given the numerous inherent tradeoffs. This preliminary report presents results of in-depth interviews of six farms in Vermont as a means of better understanding farmers’ definitions, goals, and practices to achieve sustainability goals, as well as embedded tradeoffs (Morrison-Saunders and Therivel, Reference Morrison-Saunders and Therivel2006; Wiltshire et al., Reference Wiltshire, Beckage, Callahan, Chase, Conner, Darby, Kolodinsky, Kraft, Neher, Poleman, Ricketts, Tobin, von Wettberg and Niles2024). The research was conducted as part of a large and ongoing project at the University of Vermont (UVM) and its USDA Food Systems Research Institute (FSRI).
This preliminary report presents research conducted thus far, as part of the FSRI’s Sustainability Metrics Project. Our project focuses on Consumer Facing Agriculture (CFA), which we define as farms that have direct-to-consumer sales, host visitors on the farm, or both. CFA is an important part of Vermont’s agricultural economy, working landscape, and culture. CFA sales have a high economic return to farms. CFA revenues generally go directly to the farm households, unlike intermediated sales (e.g., commodity dairy) in which a large percentage of the consumer dollar goes to processors, distributors, and retailers.
We report here on the first phase of the research: a set of key informant interviews of six CFA farms in Vermont. The intent was to understand how farmers define sustainability, overall and by each of the five dimensions posited by Wiltshire et al. (Reference Wiltshire, Beckage, Callahan, Chase, Conner, Darby, Kolodinsky, Kraft, Neher, Poleman, Ricketts, Tobin, von Wettberg and Niles2024)—environmental, social, economic, human (health), and production—as well as questions on farm-level decision-making. Later phases of the research will test the results from this phase on a larger sample of farms via survey and posit broader implications for sustainability transitions for Vermont’s food systems.
Literature review
There have been numerous studies over the years that measure the sustainability of agriculture and food systems. Our approach builds substantially on Wiltshire et al. (Reference Wiltshire, Beckage, Callahan, Chase, Conner, Darby, Kolodinsky, Kraft, Neher, Poleman, Ricketts, Tobin, von Wettberg and Niles2024), which emphasizes the complexity of measuring sustainability, emphasizing the need to acknowledge and address non-linearity, complex institutional contexts, feedback loops, and tradeoffs. It highlights the principles of completeness, parsimony, compatibility, and feasibility among metrics.
Many studies begin by positing dimensions and/or indicators of sustainability. The 1987 Brundtland Report is often cited as the beginning of efforts to define sustainability (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Purvis, Mao and Robinson (Reference Purvis, Mao and Robinson2018) detail the origins of the three-legged stool or three pillars model, which has been commonly used over the years. These pillars continue to comprise many models and definitions since then. Critiques such as that of Dawe and Ryan (Reference Dawe and Ryan2003) emphasize the need to place environmental priorities above others. Our research adopts the Wiltshire et al. model, which adds production and human dimensions to the traditional three (ecological, economic, and social). The following paragraphs discuss dimensions and indicators as well as methods that are found in the extant literature.
Some studies use secondary data to measure various aspects of food systems sustainability, positing multiple indicators across dimensions, usually with nations or regions being the units of analysis (Chaudhary, Gustafson and Mathys, Reference Chaudhary, Gustafson and Mathys2018; Bene et al., Reference Bene, Prager, Achicanoy, Toro, Lamotte, Bonilla and Mapes2019). Bacon et al. (Reference Bacon, Getz, Kraus, Montenegro and Holland2012) also draw on the literature and secondary data to develop indicators, focusing on social sustainability in three regions of the world. They propose seven indicators for social sustainability: human health; democracy; work; quality of life and human well-being; equity, justice, and ethics; resiliency and vulnerability; and biological and cultural diversity.
Gliessman et al. (Reference Gliessman, Méndez, Izzo and Engles2022) posit a number of indicators at the individual, community, and food system levels, with an emphasis on measuring the presence of elements needed for long term health. Key categories of biological indicators are soil, hydrology, biota, and ecosystem-level stocks and flows. Social indicators include individual education and health, community measures of farm numbers and income, and farmer networks. Food systems measures include production costs and returns, debt and equity, and local decision making. Finally, they posit national measures like food security and sovereignty, balance of trade, and power.
Ludden et al. (Reference Ludden, Welsh, Weissman, Hilchey, Gillespie and Guptill2018) created a progressive agriculture index. They use USDA Census of Agriculture (secondary) data for measurements across five dimensions: land use, economic returns and viability, community and policy support, market access, and workforce quality. They compare USDA Farm Resource Regions over time and across counties and regions. Other studies collect primary data to measure food systems performance (e.g., Gillum et al., Reference Gillum, Johnson, Hudson and Williams2016; Campbell et al., Reference Campbell, Papanek, DeLong, Diaz, Gusto and Tropp2022). Many studies involve stakeholders to inform actions within a given sector (Boons and Mendoza, Reference Boons and Mendoza2010; Pullman and Wikoff, Reference Pullman and Wikoff2017; Garcia-Gonzalez and Eakin, Reference Garcia-Gonzalez and Eakin2019). Like our study, Bruce et al. (Reference Bruce, Neidecker, Zheng, Leslie and Wilhelm2025) used semi-structured interviews of small- and medium-scale farms in the Northeast US to document their understanding of farm viability.
Our study utilizes the five-dimensional framework from Wiltshire et al. (Reference Wiltshire, Beckage, Callahan, Chase, Conner, Darby, Kolodinsky, Kraft, Neher, Poleman, Ricketts, Tobin, von Wettberg and Niles2024) and builds upon Bruce et al.’s (Reference Bruce, Neidecker, Zheng, Leslie and Wilhelm2025) research in its focus on smaller-scale Northeast farmers and a more holistic view of farm viability. It aims to address the following research questions:
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• How do these farms define or conceive of sustainability in their operations?
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• How, if at all, do they measure and/or achieve it?
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• What do they aspire to measure and achieve?
The following sections will discuss the methods and results of the research, followed by discussion and conclusions.
Methods
The project team consists of 12 faculty (a Project Director (PD), four co-PDs (three from UVM Extension), and seven more faculty key personnel) plus a Graduate Research Assistant, a Post-Doctoral Researcher, and a staff Research Associate. In addition, representatives from four Vermont food systems non-profit organizations and a state government official serve as community partners and advisors.
The first step of the process was to choose six case study farms for the first phase. A task force (subset of the project team and community partners) created a spreadsheet for nominations. The goal was to select a purposive sample of six farms that spanned the diversity of Vermont CFA farms across multiple metrics: demographics, geography, product types, scale, and experience. The task force populated the spreadsheet with names and attributes of 49 farms. From here, we pared down the list to 12 farms that best represented the diversity of Vermont CFA across all categories. The task force then ranked these 12 to develop six target farms and an alternate. Five of the six target farms and the alternate agreed to participate.
The project team developed an interview guide comprised of questions on the overall meaning or definition of sustainability, its importance to the farm, how (if at all) they currently measure sustainability, what they would like to measure, and how they would use the information. We then posed a similar set of questions about each of the five dimensions (social, economic, environmental, human (health), and production). The protocols were approved by UVM’s IRB (STUDY00002547). The interviews were conducted by the GRA and post-doc at the farmers’ homes between March and May of 2023 and lasted up to 3 h. In some cases, the research team was given a tour of the farm. The interviews were recorded, then transcribed using a computer program, and finally, checked for transcription accuracy by the project team. Data were analyzed by specific responses to questions and then via multiple iterations of thematic coding (Braun and Clarke, Reference Braun and Clarke2006; Cope, Reference Cope and Hay2021) with research team member cross-checking (Cope, Reference Cope and Hay2021) to identify recurring cross-cutting patterns and trade-offs. Specifically, the first three authors all coded the data independently. The first author shared codes with the second and third, who validated the order and emphasis of the results below.
Results
Table 1 provides a description of our sample. We identified common themes in the overall definition of sustainability among case study farms. Farmers also identified similar sub-themes in each dimension of sustainability and discussed common tradeoffs between dimensions of sustainability they encountered in farm decision-making. We explore these themes in the section below.
Table 1. Sample description
Overall definition
When we asked case study farmers how they defined overall sustainability, they agreed that sustainability meant the ability to continue to farm into the future. Farm 1 defined sustainability as the ability ‘to continue to do what you’re doing the next year’, while Farm 2 defined it as ‘continuity. … something that can be sustained within time. Something that works now and that will work in the future, or that will work for the future to provide continuity’. Farm 3 described it as ‘pay the mortgage, the taxes, and keep on doing what we’re doing’. Farm 4 discussed the ‘viability of this farm that keeps it going from year to year’. Farm 3 noted that ‘sustainability is not this static point in time. I think there is the simple perspective that farming in and of itself is disruptive’. Farm 4 emphasized the need for a long-term view in farming: ‘Don’t walk away, otherwise you just keep walking away. So, we will be here, and we’ll figure out a way to keep doing this’.
Environmental dimension
In a case study, farmers all felt responsible for environmental stewardship. We categorized their responses to our question about environmental sustainability into five sub-themes. Four of these related to internal farm management: use of plastic and waste, chemicals, soil health (maintaining and building healthy soils), and habitat provision. The fifth and final theme was external to the farm, being instability in the climate.
Nearly all farmers saw the minimization of plastics and plastic waste as an important environmental indicator and goal of their operations. Farm 1 said, ‘if you keep on throwing plastic in the water […] eventually you’re going to run out of clean water’. Farm 1 tried to minimize plastic packaging. Farm 5 was not able to eliminate plastic packaging and saw it as a broader problem ‘Everything’s vacuum packed and plastic…there’s not really any way to not be generating that waste’. Farm 6 was able to decrease some plastic use by using reusable plastic bins.
Farm 4 used plastic mulch and row cover out of perceived necessity: ‘at the end of the season we have a pile of plastic over there. Is it desirable? No. And it doesn’t feel sustainable at all’. Farm 3 also used plastic in production, reporting: ‘we produce more waste than we want to. There’s a dumpster out there that is trucked out of here every two weeks, full of who knows what’. Farm 2 tried to use plastic strategically: ‘we use minimum plastic in the farm, but the plastic that we buy for a specific area that are around the perimeter of the garden beds… a grade of plastic fabric that will last. Otherwise, we ended up with micro particles of plastic everywhere’. Farm 4 believed there was broader community support from consumers for farmers who minimize plastic and waste: they are ‘trying to reduce our consumption. … and in Vermont it’s supported’.
Farmers also tried to minimize synthetic chemical and petroleum inputs. Farm 3 stated: ‘we’re not spraying chemicals that are unilaterally killing beneficials as well. And to me that feels a little bit more sustainable’. It has found alternative pest control measures that eliminate spraying for certain crops. Yet Farm 3 still relied on external inputs like petroleum for tractors. All but one used organic growing practices.
Fostering soil health was likewise central to farmers’ dimensions of environmental sustainability. Farm 3 saw soil health as fundamental: ‘we want to increase that organic matter, not deplete it. … we create practices around cover cropping, around less tillage…so that the microbes and other living organisms can survive in that soil’. Farm 2 stated, ‘we are committed to regenerative, no-tilling soil… we do regenerating, no tilling, we do a lot of mulching and also composting over the beds to replenish the nutrients, to allow the soil to replenish’. Farm 4 noted: ‘it’s important to me to not destroy the environment, the soil in general… are we building the soil? Are we stewarding the soil? Are we taking care of the soil? Are we adding enough organic matter and compost back into the soil? Let’s not disturb the soil any more than we need to’, concluding ‘we do practices like cover cropping too, which I think is one of the best ways to conserve the land’. Farm 6 saw soil as a source of wealth and resilience: ‘This soil can catch water where it falls and holds in place life. This soil can grow pest resistant things’.
The farmers used practices that not only built soil but also provided habitat for other organisms. Farm 3 avoided pesticides, as stated above. Farm 2 was interested in measuring biodiversity on farm ‘we have seen an increase of birds in the farm, and there’s houses… they’re very beneficial for the ecosystem of the farm. So, it would be interesting if we could measure how the biodiversity of the landscape has changed since we came’. Farm 4 remarked ‘we’re always thinking about how can we just positively impact the ecosystem here in terms of insects, plant life, biodiversity’.
In addition to noting how they contributed to environmental sustainability, farmers also discussed how their own environmental sustainability was impacted by climate change, particularly by more frequent and intense rainfall events. All six farms recounted recent severe storms and flooding of historic magnitude in Vermont. Farm 5 discussed experiences of anxiety around a recent storm: ‘I don’t know if it was a microburst or whatever this summer, it was supposed to be a passing thunderstorm. But we went down the hill to get something done, and we were coming up the hill …I almost thought it was a tornado. That’s how intense the winds were’. Farm 1 recalled one recent weather event which resulted in widespread flooding in Vermont: ‘There was… 10, 15, 20 inches of rain…. Well, let’s start to look at impact because the flood is not the impact. Inability to transplant, inability to cultivate, inability to spray, inability to fertilize. You’re out. You can’t manage the crop anymore. So, it’s not like you’re going to pivot and all of a sudden grow something else’.
Economic dimension
Case study farmers discussed economic sustainability in terms of their farm’s financial status and its ability to provide a livelihood for the farm and farm family. They also raised two main external factors to economic sustainability: input prices and labor availability and costs.
Farmers largely defined economic sustainability in terms of farm finances. Farm 1 defined it as the ability to ‘pay the mortgage, the taxes, and keep on doing what we are doing’ measured by profits and losses. Farm 3 discussed the ‘economic viability of this farm that keeps it going from year-to -year, stating ‘I’m a businessperson first and foremost’. Farm 2 said, ‘we want to be financially stable in a way that our earnings are still in proportion with our investments and that we are steadily generating and growing’. Farm 5 emphasized the need for economic viability for the farm’s survival: ‘You continue at a break-even point, or you sustain at a high-profit margin’. They hoped to be ‘able to support our family and live a modest lifestyle. We’re not trying to drive Rolls Royces and Range Rovers but being able to have reliable vehicles and pay the bills and not worry about where the money’s coming from’.
Farmers also tried to minimize debts in the aim of economic sustainability. Farm 1 aimed to operate ‘without more loans’. Farm 2 added, ‘we don’t want to get in debt in a way that we just live to pay our debts’. Farm 5 agreed, stating: ‘We’ve also tried not to grow with any loans to make sure that if stuff doesn’t work out, we don’t have a big payment to go with a failed project’.
Farm economic sustainability and personal economic sustainability go hand in hand. All but one of our case study farmers were unable to pay themselves a livable wage. Farm 1 strove to be ‘profitable in that you’re able to pay your bills with it and pay yourself’. Farm 4 stated, ‘you got to pay yourself. It’s a lot easier said than done for the farmer to pay themselves, right?’ Farm 2 wondered aloud about their customers, asking: ‘If you value me so much, why don’t you pay me more?’ Farm 6 believed that low pay for farmers needs to be discussed more openly: ‘the community is obscured to how maybe difficult the finances are for every farm…so, we’ve outed ourselves of not paying ourselves’.
Multiple farmers emphasized that efficient operations and use of resources were essential to farm economic sustainability. Farm 2 stated, ‘We do have the value of efficiency as part of our business’ and ‘the equipment that we use have to be efficient under the scale that we are’. Farm 4 asserted: ‘you don’t need to physically grow more; you need to become more efficient. And that’s what our motto is’. Farm 4 reported asking themself: ‘how we can use those tools in a way that is efficient and will be sustainable in the future?’ Farm 5 believed that input prices, especially fuel costs, impede efficiency: ‘those economic factors also stop our investment. If feeds up and all. I’m making less money, then I have less money to do the capital investments that I need to do, which then makes us less efficient. It’s a big snowball effect. The external pressures are unreal, and it’s all based on fuel [costs]’.
Farmers discussed two main external factors to economic sustainability: the affordability of inputs and the availability/costs of labor. Farm 4 lamented that ‘the cost of everything has gone up’. Farm 5 bemoaned high input costs for organic livestock feed.
Two farms mentioned difficulty hiring skilled farm laborers. Farm 2 summed it up, stating: ‘One of the things that have hurt us in terms of sustainability is the lack of qualified experienced farm workers. We have had a couple of mental health crisis of people working here, especially young people’. Farm 3 believed it was important to measure labor availability: ‘Did you find everybody you needed to work for you this year? Do you have the help? Were you able to get the job done? Was the competency of your help adequate to get the job done?’
Social dimension
Social sustainability is perhaps the broadest and most nebulous dimension in this study, based on responses. Discussions with interviewees revolved around relationships with customers and the community. Specifically, interviewees included providing on-farm educational opportunities, charitable donations from farm to community, and the ability to trade and barter in their descriptions of farm social sustainability. The most commonly mentioned external factor to social sustainability was having an inclusive community environment.
The farmers valued relationships with their community, seeing their neighbors and patrons as more than customers. They felt that this support was vital to their farm’s sustainability. Farm 3 defined social sustainability as ‘the ability of communities to support this [farming] endeavor and seeing it as value’. Farm 3 believed that Vermont met this definition: ‘in our state, in our community, people recognize the value of Ag. That is not always true’. Farm 4 strove for ‘sustainability that integrates the community… together, we are creating a visible, tangible proof that small-scale farming in a community is a possibility’. Farm 2 emphasized personal relationships with customers: ‘we are going through all these people’s lives phases. It’s talking to a customer, grieving with them about that, or just asking them how their loved one is doing. Or also somebody just died, that kind of stuff. So, it’s like that sustainability is being present in those different phases of the life of our community’.
Our study focused on consumer-facing farms, and this aspect of our interviewees’ operations was central to their definitions of social sustainability. Our interviewees saw bringing consumers onto the farm and/or interacting at farmers’ markets as a vital community-building exercise. Farm 6 reported that ‘we’ve always tried to be very connected’. Farm 5 found that agritourism activities built the farm’s social connections: ‘I’ve hosted on-farm dinners and events before, and especially when they’re smaller…it’s just a nice way to build community…people tend to really appreciate what you’re doing because they’re not just tasting it, they’re seeing it, they’re being in the environment’. Farm 1 likewise stated that: ‘We do events on our farm…that would be part of social sustainability…we do have some customers who are local people who come back year after year, and then there’s also so many new people that have moved to the area’. Farm 5 worked to maintain connections with customers through social media and newsletters, believing it ‘keeps them engaged…something I’d be interested to keep track of.’ Farm 5 continued to say that: ‘most [customers] are super excited when the market season starts. They’re super excited to see us. And that’s part of what I pride ourselves on, is there’s not many customers we don’t know’.
Two of our case study farmers discussed feeding community members, often through donations, in the context of social sustainability. Each had different strategies for supporting community food access, given that a fair price for high-quality local food can be out of reach for many. Farm 4 elaborated, ‘the beautiful local food that is produced here is not available to everyone in the communities…you have to sell your stuff for a premium dollar, but also how can other people access that? And so that’s kind of part of our mission in doing that and just getting people exposed to this…we are very happy to donate to them and just like sometimes you just see someone at the light asking for help’. Farm 5 donated farm dinner tickets to community members and also got a small grant to build their farmstand, which required the farm to have a pay-what-you-can option for some products. Farm 6 offered sliding scale pricing. Farm 2 had ‘an angel CSA member, which helped us financially to make things possible’.
We coded themes around mutual support, barter, and trade between farms and farmers as an aspect of social sustainability. Farm 1 purchased hay from their neighbor, lent their apple press and other equipment, and offered advice on food safety plans to neighboring farms and organizations. Farm 1 grew enough apples to eat and give to neighbors. Farm 4 was able to buy and sell with other farms, focusing on items each produces efficiently. Farm 4 also participated in collective input buying efforts at discounted costs.
Farmers also discussed societal factors contributing to the social sustainability of agriculture. One farm emphasized that racism, homophobia, and other systems of oppression were at odds with sustainability: ‘I think if you’re thinking about diversifying agriculture in this state, people need to really grapple with, what does that mean? How are we going to actually include people from other cultures and other backgrounds?’ They cited examples of obstacles to social sustainability, including subtle racism in organizations like farmers’ markets, and the fact that many resources for farmers are not available in languages other than English. In contrast, one farm celebrated its neighbors’ acceptance of LGBTQ+ couples.
Human dimension
Responses to the human dimension focused on the farmer’s quality of life. Many farmers expressed how much they enjoyed farming as an occupation and lifestyle. Farm 2 felt that the human dimension was sustainable when ‘we as humans, have the capabilities to continue doing the work in the scale that we are doing and living a dignified life where we feel satisfied…One of our values is happiness’. Farm 1 said ‘we feel really lucky to be self-employed. We really love it for the most part, getting to define our workday’. Farm 3 stated, ‘it’s quality of life…we’re all mortal. And at the end of the day, you’re going to have to ask yourself if you did what you wanted to do’. Farm 3 concluded, ‘There’s nothing else that really calls me like this does’. Farm 4 simply remarked, ‘I love it. I love what I’m doing’.
Yet the joy of the farmer lifestyle did not come without costs for our interviewees. The heavy workload of farming can preclude recreational activities and even family time. Farm 2 explained that farming can ‘come at the cost of our personal life…we could not go to a party, or to a birthday, or to canoeing, because we had to be here’. Farm 6 reflected ‘here you are working 60 to 80-hour work weeks…days off taken regularly, well, we never did it. I’ve ridden my bike once in 16 years, but we’d make it to the dentist and go to our annual appointments’. Farm 1 discussed the limits of ‘the workload and how much you can do, and how much you can keep doing it year after year…we [the owners] have a morning meeting every day that’s our informal way of measuring, “Oh, how are you doing? Are you burning out? Are you okay? Are you getting enough rest?”’
For those farmers who hired employees, these obstacles to the human sustainability of agriculture extended to non-owner workers. Farm 2 states, ‘we have had a couple of mental health crisis of people working here, especially young people…they have other jobs, and they get very exhausted and then they don’t have a secure place to live, and they don’t have health insurance’. Farm 6 tried to improve the sustainability of agricultural work by being proactive in caring for employees. ‘People use terms like labor; we’ve always tried to use terms like talent. We’ve tried to be strengths-based…we’d always pay for the talent that we had assembled to attend learning; we’d always give everyone a learning budget. So, in keeping everyone’s skills and knowledge advancing and expanding’.
Given the challenges of farm careers to human sustainability for both owners and employees, Farm 3 was apprehensive about the future of farming. They asked: ‘do people still want to farm? Is farming a viable type of thing that people will want to do? Can we find people who are willing to do this?’
Production dimension
The farmers expressed three main priorities in production: high quality, healthful and nutritious foods; appropriate scale and diversity; and salability. Nearly all spoke of the desire to produce quality foods and were interested in tools to assess and measure food quality. Farm 2 expressed that ‘it would be lovely if we could measure something like that…the impact in the people’s health of our food’. Farm 6 sought a scientific assessment to understand if and how their practices produced higher-quality food: ‘we’ve sent carrots and spinach samples and soil samples, and we’ve tested their nutrient density. They continued, “So you think you are just buying a grape, but is a grape, is a grape, is a grape? Well [our’s are] 15 times more nourishing”.
To reach sustainability of production, the farmers we interviewed aimed for a balance of scale and diversity. Farm 4 believed that their farm was ‘more sustainable than other larger models [because]… we have such a diversity of product in such a small field…. diversified flowers and veggies and herbs, I think lends itself to resilience in that way. You have a bad year for brassicas. You couldn’t keep the cabbage moths out. You had a massive swede midge infestation, but you still have tomatoes and peppers and flower bouquets and lettuce and all these other things’. Farm 3 discussed the relationship of yield to production sustainability: ‘I get like 120,000 pounds of winter squash from my 15 acres [….] But my per acre ratio may be much lower than somebody who’s doing an acre of squash. So how do you replicate? And they’re much more sustainable in some ways, but they’re not going to feed the population’. Farm 4 believed that efficiency, especially through succession planting, was an important goal: ‘you don’t need to physically grow more, you need to become more efficient. That’s our goal, if we stick to our schedule and we get in as many successions as we can get in, how much can we actually produce?’
Sustainability of production likewise required growing items that would sell, a theme also tied to economic viability. Farm 1 stated, ‘we can’t keep our business going if we don’t have people buying our things’. Farm 6 lamented consumers’ unwillingness to pay the true cost of products: ‘I might be able to grab a little margin on there, but I kind of knew that we weren’t going to sell many of them’.
Tradeoffs
The farmers we interviewed identified tradeoffs between the five dimensions of sustainability used in this study, where optimizing one dimension of sustainability may require sacrificing the sustainability of another dimension. These tradeoffs are summarized below.
Tradeoff 1: plastics
Four farmers discussed the tradeoffs between minimizing plastic (environmental) and both profitability (economic) and product quality (production). Farm 1 explained, ‘we buy hay that’s wrapped in plastic, because if we bought square bales [without plastic wrap], it would cost four times more, and then it would mess up our economic sustainability. So, there’s some things where we draw the line, and then other things where we’re like, “Well, I guess we have to compromise there.”’ Farm 5 wished they could have a glass greenhouse instead of a plastic greenhouse, but the tradeoff in cost was insurmountable: ‘look at the greenhouse…covered in plastic…a glass greenhouse…[would cost] 200 grand. What’s the return on that investment? None…It’d fall apart before you made your money back on it’. This problem continued down the supply chain all the way to the consumer. Farm 2 reported that their customers had requested alternatives to single-use plastic bags, but that ‘there’s nothing that will provide freshness of the produce and biodegrade; we haven’t found it yet. And the things that we’ve tried, yes, they biodegrade, but they come with the downfall that they don’t keep the freshness of the produce…We’re going to invest in this solution, but we have to commit all of us. But are you going to pay $3 when the salad itself costs already five?’
Tradeoff 2: land use
Our farmers also described tradeoffs between soil conservation practices and optimizing production. Conservation practices to improve soil health and reduce erosion (environmental) can require not using those beds to grow products for sale (economic and production). Farm 4 reported ‘Extension advised us that we should put the field in cover crop, but from an economic perspective, we were like, ‘we want to put these beds in production’. So, we did put those beds in production, and then unfortunately, those were the beds that were the most affected by the flood…that’s something we talk about a lot is what is the ecological and long-term soil health benefit of cover cropping versus what’s the revenue loss of not having that bed in production?’
Tradeoff 3: agritourism and social exhaustion
The third tradeoff our farmers discussed was a direct result of consumer-facing agriculture. Interviewees reported a tension between the benefits of increased customer interaction and their own workloads and well-being. Farm 1 reported that hosting events on-farm was profitable (economic) and built community (social), but could be tiring (human): ‘agritourism…that you like doing and that seems profitable but also takes a lot of energy…. And it can be an emotional toll on you’. Farm 2 felt there were societal benefits to opening their farm to visitors: ‘We are giving the opportunity for families to come and spend time together’. Yet, these group experiences came at the cost of their own privacy. Farm 1 expressed similar concerns: ‘I did a sheep camp last year, and it filled up in five seconds. And same with my cheese camp that I did, it was a two-day workshop. And people paid good money…But now I’m taking a little break from events…it’s hard to sustain the energy it takes to do events’. In contrast, Farm 6 enjoyed hosting events but was not certain they were profitable. They sought ways to better gain revenue from on-farm events.
Tradeoff 4: quality versus cost
The fourth tradeoff was between product quality and cost. The farmers wished to produce healthful and high-quality food (production) but knew the price they had to charge given the cost of production was unaffordable for many (social) or ultimately unsalable (economic). Farm 6 summed up this dilemma: ‘(Our livestock) have been fed all organic and not only all organic but highly nourishing…So just in terms of all the good things that can come from it, but every bit of these practices that we do, our cost of production is much higher than what we can get…we might have our cost of production, but we know we’d get laughed out of the market if we put the real price on it’. Farm 4 also noted a disconnect between their cost of production and the price they charged consumers: ‘the cost of everything has gone up, and we’re not very good at…pricing goods is difficult in agriculture…you’re at the market, so you got to be within the realm of what other people are selling it for’. Not only are these farmers pricing their goods in relation to other nearby small and medium farms, but at least five of six farms in our study also felt downward pressure on their pricing from larger actors selling on the regional and international scales. Farm 2 lamented, ‘we cannot compare our carrots with Walmart carrots. We can’t. We cannot sell at their prices. We cannot even sell at the prices of Pete’s greens [a larger regional farm and aggregator. We see those prices and we’re like, “Wow, do they even pay their employees?”’ Farm 1 also expressed similar price pressure, ‘you realize you have to make all these compromises, and one of them is that most of your neighbors can’t afford your organic apples, or they want to buy the 59-cents-a-pound apples at the store…’
Tradeoff 5: off-farm jobs
The final tradeoff described by our farmers was between their love of farming and pursuit of a farm lifestyle (human) and their family’s need for off-farm income (economic), as well as benefits like health insurance. All but two farms reported needing off-farm jobs to survive, and one of those two had wealth inherited from family as well as from careers before starting farming. Farm 4 stated, ‘it’s like people are killing themselves to have a family farm and not work off the farm’. A related tradeoff was the choice to produce and sell year-round versus taking a season to rest. Farm 4 wished to ‘generate revenue through more months of the season, but also keeping in mind that we need to think about our health and our ability to rest and our need to have a couple of months of downtime’.
Discussion
Our results overlap with previous research and have some novel themes as well. Similar to previous studies (Gillum et al., Reference Gillum, Johnson, Hudson and Williams2016; Bene et al., Reference Bene, Prager, Achicanoy, Toro, Lamotte, Bonilla and Mapes2019; Gliessman et al., Reference Gliessman, Méndez, Izzo and Engles2022), our farmers center soil as key to environmental sustainability. Our respondents emphasize conservation, as do Boons and Mendoza (Reference Boons and Mendoza2010) and Campbell et al. (Reference Campbell, Papanek, DeLong, Diaz, Gusto and Tropp2022). Like Bruce et al. (Reference Bruce, Neidecker, Zheng, Leslie and Wilhelm2025), we found that climate change exacerbates challenges and complicates farming efforts.
Financial priorities such as income and debt underpin economic sustainability, and the ability to keep the farm going, similarly to previous studies (Ludden et al., Reference Ludden, Welsh, Weissman, Hilchey, Gillespie and Guptill2018; Bene et al., Reference Bene, Prager, Achicanoy, Toro, Lamotte, Bonilla and Mapes2019; Gliessman et al., Reference Gliessman, Méndez, Izzo and Engles2022; Bruce et al., Reference Bruce, Neidecker, Zheng, Leslie and Wilhelm2025). Like our respondents, Ludden et al. (Reference Ludden, Welsh, Weissman, Hilchey, Gillespie and Guptill2018) emphasize the need for skilled labor. Our respondents’ valuing of community, diversity, and inclusion mirrors that found in other studies (Bacon et al., Reference Bacon, Getz, Kraus, Montenegro and Holland2012; Chaudhary, Gustafson and Mathys, Reference Chaudhary, Gustafson and Mathys2018; Bene et al., Reference Bene, Prager, Achicanoy, Toro, Lamotte, Bonilla and Mapes2019). While Bacon et al. (Reference Bacon, Getz, Kraus, Montenegro and Holland2012) placed human health and quality of life under social sustainability, our framework breaks them out into the human/health dimension, focusing on farmer well-being. Finally, our production dimension includes diversity of supply, as previously posited by Chaudhary, Gustafson and Mathys (Reference Chaudhary, Gustafson and Mathys2018). Given the preliminary and exploratory nature of our inquiry, focus on the farm scale and primary data, and a small number of responses, there are numerous indicators in the literature not found in our results.
One relatively novel result of our analysis was an emphasis on tradeoffs. While Wiltshire et al. (Reference Wiltshire, Beckage, Callahan, Chase, Conner, Darby, Kolodinsky, Kraft, Neher, Poleman, Ricketts, Tobin, von Wettberg and Niles2024) and Morrison-Saunders and Therivel (Reference Morrison-Saunders and Therivel2006) show awareness of tradeoffs in sustainability metrics, our results posit a number of concrete examples faced by CFA farmers in Vermont, each of which must be addressed to increase sustainability.
The next phase of the research will entail creating variables from the aforementioned indicators and vetting them with the research team and community partners, then with the case study farmers. These variables will comprise an online survey to be administered to CFA farmers in Vermont using the contact lists of the research team and, critically, our community partners. Questions will focus both on how important goals around the indicators are to farms as well as their ability to achieve these goals. We launched the survey in late 2025, following the end of the harvest and leaf-peeping seasons in Vermont. We anticipate analyzing data and sharing results in 2026.
Conclusions
Food systems sustainability and its measurement are the subject of much discourse and effort. The majority of research to date has used secondary data. Our study utilizes qualitative primary data to bring forward farmers’ experiences in their own words. While our results cannot be generalized outside of the sample, they lay the groundwork for measurement on larger populations in the future. We look forward to sharing these results and continuing to contribute to this discourse.
Data availability statement
The data are not publicly available due to containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.
Open access
