The Best Farm Products You Can’t Eat

We usually think of “food” when we think of “farming,” but many agricultural crops are turned into products that humans can’t eat. Such products are manufactured throughout Vermont today using various crops and livestock, and are therefore, like food items, creating jobs for Vermonters, keeping farmland in active use, and leading our state toward greater self-sufficiency.

What follows is a series of articles about nine inedible farm products. It’s by no means a comprehensive survey (for example, we left out biofuels, which require an issue of their own), and there are numerous businesses in addition to the ones profiled here that are growing and manufacturing these items. We’re simply profiling one business per product in order to give you a taste—well, more like a picture—of the diversity in what Vermonters are making from the land.

— Caroline Abels