Since 2009, PEC has offered the Exploring the Small Farm Dream course to aspiring farmers—helping them take a long hard look at their dreams and to answer the question, “Is starting a farm business a good fit for me?” As the title of the course suggests, every partici­pant comes to the course with their own unique dream—an idea that they want to explore. It is these dreams that form the starting point of the course, which evaluates student’s goals, skills, interests, physical and financial resources, and the merits of their ideas in order to settle on a course of action.

In early November, the National Society of the Madison Family Descendants honored PEC with the Madison Family Cup for its noteworthy conservation efforts at Montpelier and the surrounding Orange County environs.

One of the important characteristics of PEC is that we are relevant. Our mission, our programs, our actions, and our words are taken seriously, both within our communities and by theoutside world. And even though PEC gets the most attention for our stances in oppositionto questionable or poorly conceived projects such as the Dominion Transmission Line projector the Charlottesville Western Bypass, the reality is that the bulk of our work is proactive and positive in nature, and it matters

The Piedmont Environmental Council is always looking for ways to strengthen our local food economy. After a lot of brain­storming, developing and website testing, Farmer-Chef Express was launched this past August!

Virginia’s state fish, the eastern brook trout, is in trouble. The Commonwealth’s only native trout has seen a sharp decline in population due to a detrimental combination of rising temper­atures, physical barriers to streamflow, pollution, and habitat loss. Many expect the species to be added to VA’s Wildlife Action Plan list in the near future.