Vermont is taking big steps in cultivating happiness!!

Well, to fill in a little space (since I am still slacking!) here's an old post I wrote for my work at the Center for an Agricultural Economy.  Although it's not about play, it's about happiness, which is related.  Enjoy!

Vermont is taking big steps in cultivating happiness!!

By Heather Davis, Food Systems Monitoring and Evaluation Research Associate at the Center for an Agricultural Economy

June 11^th, 2012

Happiness.  What does it really look like?  How do we achieve it?  How do we measure it?  Where does responsibility lie in achieving this state?  With us as individuals?  With the state to support policies that will enhance happiness and well-being?  Or both?  These are the questions that Vermonters are now asking themselves due to a new law passed this year, S.237, which calls for the State of Vermont to measure the well-being of its citizens.  The indicators and the associated data that are being developed for this state initiative will be a real asset in decision-making; for the state budget, for local businesses and organizations, in creating laws and policy, and for individuals in making decisions about their own lives.  This is exciting and progressive stuff!

On May 30^th, I spent the day at the University of Vermont attending the Measuring What Matters: Pathways to Sustainable Well-Being in Vermont conference, sponsored by the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Gross National Happiness USA, and Common Good Vermont.  I am a data geek and I love measures, so the idea of measuring our well-being in a way that is more representative and accurate than the traditional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) method really appeals to me.  Monitoring progress toward goals is the only way we can really know if we are really making our way toward those goals – and what a more worthwhile goal than happiness!  This conference was really up my alley!

After some wonderful speakers, there was some great discussion in the break-out group I attended addressing the question of measuring well-being.  Some of the words that emerged to describe happiness and well-being include “Thriving,” “Community,” “Time balance,” “Resiliency,” “Work-life balance,” “Relationships,” “Access to nature,” and “Basic needs,” and “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” 

After coming up with the definition of happiness and well-being, the next step will be to develop ways to measure these things.  This can be the more difficult part of the process: it’s very important to find the right measures (indicators) – if you measure the wrong thing, you’ll get misleading results and/or the information will not be useful at all.  This problem can be seen in the over-emphasis of measuring GDP.  The U.S. and other countries have generally focused on this measure – which describes the total sum of all economic activity – and have used it to tell us how “well” a nation is doing.  This approach is very problematic for many reasons – not the least of which is that our well-being goes far beyond economics.  Yes, economics is an important part of well-being – to a point – but there are many more factors that we need to pay attention to, such as those mentioned above.  If one of these factors is languishing we need to do something to address it – both as individuals and collectively as a community, state, or nation.  This is why measuring the elements that contribute to happiness is so important – “What you measure affects what you do. If you don’t measure the right thing, you don’t do the right thing” -Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz.

The idea of measuring well-being, beyond the traditional and problematic measure of GDP, began in Bhutan in 1972 when the new young king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, declared that his country would be measuring the Gross National Happiness of his people, which was a more well-rounded way to measure well-being.  It has taken some time (Bhutan was way ahead of the curve here), but the idea has caught on in recent years and several other countries, states, the UN have now begun the process of measuring well-being in a more holistic way.

Now, Vermont is part of this progressive group and will be measuring the well-being of its citizens.  This conference was the first step in this process. 

How does measuring happiness and well-being relate to the work I do at the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) and the general work of the organization?  The CAE’s mission is to, “bring together community resources and programs needed to develop a locally based food system that supports the desire of rural communities to rebuild their economic and ecological health.”  We, as an organization, must reflect on why we want to develop the local food system in the first place?  What are our intended outcomes of doing so?  We need to have a vision of the larger impacts of our work.  What benefits does our work have for individual citizens and the community as a whole?

There are four main outcomes of a healthy food system that have developed through my work here and are also reflected in other work that I have come across in my research, which also happen to reflect well-being, in general:

·      Healthy Communities

·      Robust & Equitable Local Economy

·      Food Security

·      Healthy Environment

A portion of my work here at the CAE has been measuring the health of the local food system and the well-being of the Hardwick-area.  My Master’s Thesis, A Framework for Monitoring Local and Regional Food Systems, which I worked on while here at the CAE, took a holistic approach to measuring the health of food systems and includes all the various elements that make up a food system (Farms, Food Waste Recycling, Processing, etc), as well as those four outcomes.  This also includes measures on well-being to reflect “Healthy Communities” as one of the intended outcomes of a healthy food system.  Some of the specific indicators relating to this that were developed include:

·      Percent of respondents who participate in bartering

·      Percent of farms who participate in bartering

·      # of Buffalo Mountain Co‐op members (total members & working members)

·      # of members of North Country Farming Network

·      Percent of registered voters who voted in most recent mid‐term election

·      Percent of respondents who indicated that they currently volunteer

·      Average score on community satisfaction index

·      Average score on the “Well‐being Index”

·      Homeownership rate

·      Crimes against property: Number of property crimes / 1000 pop.

·      Crimes against people: Number of crimes against people / 1000 pop.

The intentions of the above indicators (there are a total of 200+) are to get an accurate sense of community vitality, engagement, and well-being.  Other indicators look specifically at details relating to farming, food processing, etc.  The data for this portion of the larger framework is being collected from area organizations, state and federal data sources and via community survey.

In rural areas where farming is integral to the community - and even in more urban areas where we’re seeing the development of more urban agriculture and increased engagement in the production of food – we need to consider the health of the food system when considering our greater well-being, and vice versa.  Food is one of our basic human needs and for true well-being we need to have healthy food and a healthy food system.

The Measuring What Matters Conference and these conversations will be part of the ongoing process of creating the state-mandated well-being index for Vermont.  It really is exciting to see this coming together – another way that this small and humble state is leading the way!