A bit over a year ago, we lost a shining light in the organic farming and food movement: Jack Lazor of Butterworks Farm.
Jack and his wife Anne worked tirelessly for 50 years to create Butterworks Farm, which is one of the most consistently successful regenerative and biodynamic farms I have personally encountered. Jack always strove to cultivate a harmonious vision of what farming and food production could be, and he believed deeply in focusing on the health of the soil as the source of overall health.
Appropriately, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont has created the Jack Lazor Soil Health Memorial Fund, a soil health program to honor the legacy and wisdom of Jack Lazor.
This program will promote farmer-to-farmer education and relationship building in an effort to address both short term mitigation strategies around soil health as well as long term systems change.
As Jack would always emphasize, we are all soil farmers in the end, caring for the heart and the foundation of health on our farms: our soil.
Importantly now, with the terrible erosion of the National Organic Standards, this focus on soil health is more important than ever if we are to heal our farms, our families and our planet. Healthy soil is the key to our future, and the key to mitigating severe climate change. Sourcing our families’ food from farms that practice good soil stewardship supports and encourages these right actions and practices so our children can continue to live on a healthy planet and eat healthy food.
When I first had this idea of Farmers To You, Jack was the first farmer I called. His opinion was important to me, and I was grateful for his support and encouragement. He told me that the concept of partnering families with their farmers could be key to uplifting organic family farmers in Vermont. His support never wavered.
Jack personified both the brilliance and determination that makes our partner farmers at Farmers To You so special. I consider Jack and Anne’s yogurt to be some of the best in the country, because of the integrity they bring to its production, their animals and their farm.
I will remember him and hold him warmly in my heart as we carry on his work and give generously of ourselves as he always did.
Thank you Jack and Anne, and thank you Farmers To You families for your support of healthy food from healthy soil.
With Gratitude,
Greg
