Maja Smith
Incumbent
1. Describe your past and current involvement with Intervale Community Farm (ICF) and why you are excited about serving on the Board.
I have been a member of the ICF since 1998 and was first elected to the Board in 2015. While on the Board I have championed the cooperative principles that undergird the organization, and I hope to continue to keep emphasizing the cooperative nature of the farm and its decision-making.
2. Please describe any relevant skills you would like to contribute to ICF that make you a good candidate for the Board. This may include specific skills such as accounting and financial planning, land management, engineering, flood management, farm and food sovereignty policy, experience with cooperatives, addressing diversity issues, strategic planning, or past board or community organization experience. Or, you may have never served on a Board or don’t have specific skills but have a passion for food, health or farming and love ICF; describe these qualities as well.
My primary activities as a member of the board have been to promote the co-operative approach to managing the farm (I have been a member of one or more consumer-based food co-op since college, for over 50 years). I also spent a career as a research forester and ecologist, and I want to continue to use my expertise in ecology and forestry to enhance the farm’s ecological aspects. In addition, I constructed and maintain the little libraries at the farm, which I see as a useful way to spread knowledge and encourage education for all ages. My main additional objectives in running again are to do my part to ensure that the farm’s employees are adequately paid, to help the farm address challenges from climate change such as flooding, to promote racial equity in the farm’s operations, and to improve board-staff relationships.
3. The ICF Board has identified the importance of serving the diverse members of the Burlington community whether because of wealth, racial, ethnic or religious background, recent immigration, gender or LGBT identity or other. What experience do you have, personal, business or organizational, that could help ICF work towards this goal? Do you have any suggestions?
First, through my history of involvement with cooperatives for many years, I have extensive experience working through a consensus-based decision-making model, which strives to ensure that all voices are heard and considered. I believe that ICF needs to continue to strive to increase the diversity of those voices, and I think the cooperative model can work to accomplish that. Second, in my career as a research scientist I needed to be open to many new ideas from many different sources, and I believe I have developed some skills with regard to listening and learning from others that could be useful in achieving the shared goal of diversity.
4. ICF experienced tremendous flooding this year which impacted our food, our land, and our personnel. We think these events might become more frequent in the future, what ideas do you have about the future of ICF and how it might deal with these challenges? Do you currently have the time outside of Board meetings to help grapple with these challenges which involve both short-term and long-term solutions?
The floods in 2023 and 2024 have indeed had a major impact on ICF. One of the beauties of ICF and the cooperative model of our CSA is that the risk is shared among all the consumers of the food and is not just a burden on the farmers. I believe the Intervale is still an excellent place to farm, in part because of its proximity to Burlington, but also because it is in a floodplain. Floodplains offer excellent opportunities for raising crops despite the increased risk. However, we clearly need to adapt to the changing climate and develop contingencies. Those contingencies include finding less flood-prone land near enough to Burlington on which to raise some of our long-season crops. Because I am retired, I am available, and I do intend to help deal with these challenges outside board meetings.
5. What else would you like ICF members to know about you?
I love ICF: its people, the food we produce, and the principles we stand for.