Vermont Farmer, Stoic Survivor

By Jenny Attiyeh on Wednesday, September 16, 2009.
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About 40 years ago, farms were thick on the ground in Andover, a rural town in southern Vermont. Today, 75-year-old Lydia Ratcliff’s Lovejoy Brook Farm is one of the last working farms in Andover. Lydia Ratcliff is a survivor. She's farmed her 90 acre plot of land in Andover Vermont for 43 years, and though she's now come down with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, she still climbs on top of that tractor in hay season. Does she represent the future of the small farmer in Vermont, or is she one of the last of a dying breed? ThoughtCast's Jenny Attiyeh went to Andover, Vermont to find out.

The Future of Farming in Vermont - on ThoughtCast from thoughtcast on Vimeo.

(photo by Jenny Attiyeh)

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