And we'd like to call this joint meeting between the Senate and House Ag Committees to order. And welcome all you folks here. This legislation in this report was developed through legislation last session to have the agency of Ag come up with a strategic plan and something to look to the future and reference back and try to set up a track that we could follow in some orderly fashion. And many people spent many hours putting this together and it's kind of exciting to be here early in the session and have this report given. To start off, Carolyn, did you have anything you'd like to add? I would just say thank you to the folks who worked on this. I think this was a pretty comprehensive process. And we thank in particular Alan Kaler and Abby Willard for their work on this and all of the people who contributed to this piece of work. Yeah, so we'll take just a minute and run quickly around the room and introduce the committee members and care. You want to start on your side? Sir, representative Derry Norris, Senator St. Benson, Orwell-Shawrm, and Dwighting, with the Addison Rockland District. Representative Tom Bach, I represent Chester and over at Baltimore and North Stringfield. Senator Mike Hallamore from the Rockland District. Senator Ruth Hardy from the Addison District. Representative Rodney Graham, Orange One District, Williams Town, Chelsea, Orange Northshire, correct. Representative Carolyn Partridge, I represent the Towns of Athens, Brooklyn, Grafton, part of Northwestminster, all of Rockingham and my hometown of Wyndham. Yes. Well, I'm Bobby Stern. I'd like to mention the Towns that I represent, but there's 42 of them, so I think I'll pass. I represent Orleans and Essex County, parts of LaMoyle and a little bit of Franklin. Pleasure to be here. Chris Pearson, Senator from Chittenden. Representative John Barthelme from Parkland, also representative Windsor and West Windsor. Senator Anthony Polita, Washington County. Representative Vicki Strong, I live in Albany and represent Seven Towns of the Northeast Kingdom for Orleans, Caledonia One. Representative O'Brien, I represent Royalty and my hometown of Cambridge. Representative Sharon Figuard, my district includes Highgate, Franklin, Berkshire and Richmond. So, welcome everyone again, and as you can see, how well the Senate and House get along, we're all divided up proportionately, mixed in with reps, but seriously, we do work well together and that's the way your government should work as well and we try to do that. I guess the first presenter is Secretary of Agriculture, Vincent and Tevitz. Thank you. Well, you all have it, so here it is, and it's quite comprehensive for the record, Vincent and Tevitz with the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, and thank you for the opportunity to present this comprehensive report on strengthening of Vermont Agriculture. We are here because Vermont sets the table. Farmers and food companies set the table with our award-winning dairy, maple, apples, fresh vegetables, specialty products and much more. This plan lays out a strategy to stimulate more rural economic development and brings Vermont products to people throughout Vermont and beyond. Our goal is to improve the lives of Vermont's hard-working farmers and producers while delivering world-class food to consumers. Just a few of the findings in this report. Between 2007 and 2017, the Vermont Food System Economic Output expanded from 7.5 billion to 11.3 billion. Food manufacturing is the second largest manufacturing industry in Vermont. Over 64,000 Vermonters are directly employed by over 11,500 farms and food-related businesses. These are all impressive numbers, but we can do more. Governor Scott, the agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, the legislature, and public and private partners like Farm to Plate are committed to improving and growing Vermont's economy. Any discussion about improving the rural economy in Vermont should include a plan about agriculture. We heard yesterday from Governor Scott and his commitment, the governor proposing more support for Vermont agriculture by increasing the working lands program by $750,000. This is just part of the plan, there is much more. This plan will outline goals, objectives, and strategies. It is a comprehensive look at more than two dozen fields that are part of the agriculture landscape. The plans, goals include greater collaboration and stronger approaches to product development, storage, and processing, marketing, and distribution. These ideas will be further developed in the coming year and coming years. It's a plan that outlines the current conditions, examines the bottlenecks and the gas, looks at opportunities, and makes a set of recommendations. In a moment, you'll hear more details from the authors and those who put this plan together. Vermont's rural communities are tied to our economy, to our identity, and our way of life. While at the same time, all of Vermont suffers when our farm and forestry sectors falter. The agency in Vermont Farm to Plate and the legislature are taking steps to build on our strengths and innovate for the future. In collaboration with a variety of farmers, producers, and business development experts, the plan asked the agency of agriculture to set the table for the future of Vermont. Our current agriculture economy is encouraging amid the gaps and bottlenecks the plan outlines the opportunities. We all can relate to that award-winning cheese, the crisp Vermont produce and fruit, our award-winning meats, a brew or a cider, our specialty products, and top-notch forest products, and so much more. At the same time, these numbers behind the foods illustrate the magnitude of Vermont's farmers' contribution as well as its strength and potential in the Vermont food and farm industry. So how do we grow others' preferences to these products? Ultimately, Vermont's agriculture story illustrates the power of rural communities and how much more we'll accomplish when we harness that power. In our next steps, the plan also asks our policy makers to research and develop recommendations to stabilize and revitalize Vermont's agriculture industry. We invite you, our private and public partners, and our industry leaders to review this plan, get in touch with us, offer their comments and suggestions, and of course, act. We will come together for a bright future in agriculture in the 21st century. Thank you. Thank you, Anderson. Thanks, Anderson. So I think next on the list is Abby Willard. I don't know if you wanted to take questions at this point, or I think it makes sense maybe to run through the presentation and save our questions to the end. Yeah, great, thanks. Well, thank you. I thought you were going separately, otherwise I would have introduced Ellen, too. That's okay. Thanks. So thanks for joining today for this presentation and discussion about the agriculture and food system plan, published in 2020, that was outlined in section one six, or, yeah, Senate Bill 160, section one, which became Act 83, back in May of 2019, as Senator Starr alerted, alluded to. So the Agency of Agriculture contracted with the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund to collaborate on the development and delivery of this plan to your committees for the legislative request. In such a challenging economic time for our agricultural industry, and specifically dairy, where we're really experiencing evolving consumer trends, a transitions of land ownership, shifting climate patterns, different landscape and business pressures, new market innovation, new product innovation, there was agreement that there truly is a need for a plan for the future of agriculture in our state. So this report that we present today is a compilation plan of 23 briefs focused on markets, products, and issues that represent some of the most critical spots for the stabilization, revitalization, and diversification of agriculture in Vermont. The report is the result of a truly collaborative process. So led by two organizations, the Agency of Agriculture and Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, with 23 lead authors from within the ag and food sector that offered their leadership and expertise in the various topic areas, and over 130 total contributors that shared their perspective and knowledge towards the 23 briefs that are contained in the report. So I just wanted to briefly acknowledge the team that pulled together this document. So under the direction of Secretary Tavis and Deputy Secretary Eastman who couldn't be here today, the team from the agency was myself and Kyle Harris in a collaborative effort with Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, Helen Kaler, and her team, including leadership support from Jake Clarem, Sarah Danaly, Bepper Warren, and others. And then the lead authors and brief contributors who provided content, they reviewed language, they offered their ideas, and they proposed the recommendations. So would it be acceptable for those individuals in this room to just acknowledge themselves to use the e-sense or co- Would they like to stand? Would people stand? If you're a contributor or an author on a brief or a part of the agency. That's great. Our vision, put in motion by your request, was for the agency of agriculture in the SJF to use the development of these briefs as a comprehensive representation of what's currently happening in agriculture and offer very specific and robust recommendations that could influence policy creation, new program development, staff expansion, and funding appropriations. The goal was to really look at the products, the markets, and the issues facing Vermont's agriculture currently and offer a strategy for that stabilization, diversification, and revitalization of the ag industry in the state. And also explore how this is gonna impact our rural economy and affect our local and regional food system. So as you might expect, the consensus was we wanna keep agriculture a vibrant land use within our state. And there's many recommendations of how to get there. Over 119 are offered in this plan. Many of those recommendations require additional staff and resources, and the suggestions are each complex and require a systematic scaling up of support and assistance. So our hope is that you as policy makers and other agency leadership and producer associations and funders will review these briefs and the recommendations as a foundation for a plan to support and maintain a viable agricultural industry in our state in response to the transitions we're all seeing in our communities and upon the agricultural working landscape. So thanks for the vision, and we're excited to sort of dig in and spend time talking about what we found. Thank you. Ellen. And to put an even finer point on Abby's last point, the plan is coming out now, and we have no expectation that everything, all the recommendations are gonna get implemented in the next year. We are really trying to set things up for the next five. So there are some of the recommendations and we'll spend a little time with them. You know, there are some things that are ready for you to consider this session and other things that may take a couple more years to really gestate and be able to really clarify what is gonna be of greatest need. Some of the recommendations don't require legislative action, they're gonna be things that Farm to Plate Network member organizations will be taking on. So, but we really felt it was important to provide a comprehensive look at all the types of recommendations that would move the farm and food sector forward. And I just wanna really call attention to on page seven at the top. This is, we asked Roger Albee as sort of the grandfather of a lot of this important work and the historian of local agriculture. And he really, I think, provided a great historical overview that is so relevant for today, which is that over the last 150 plus years it's been the ingenuity of Vermont farmers and their ability to recognize market niches that has allowed them to adapt to economic forces and market changes, many of which are beyond their control. And so it is, and what we have found and you will see throughout these briefs that it is once again time for substantive change and adaptation within Vermont's agriculture industry. The market forces and conditions are such that adaptation and change at a fairly rapid pace is required. And that's in part because of the climate change, water quality, land use patterns, changing consumer preferences in markets, which are all really forcing us to accelerate that adaptation. And so our hope is that through these briefs and the recommendations, that it provides a bit of a roadmap for how we might go forward with that. And it does suggest that it's not gonna happen without additional investment of people and money. So I wanted to just walk you through the briefs or the structure of this. So if you wanna turn to page 13, there are nine product briefs. We have many more product briefs that are currently under development, but we chose these nine to present to you this session because we felt these were the ones that had some both greatest need and greatest opportunity. So the way that these briefs are structured, if you turn to the next page on apples, there's an upfront section of sort of what's at stake. And our intention is that if you only read one part of a brief, read the what's at stake because that will give you a synopsis of what's really important here about, in this case, apples. Then there is a short current conditions section which also provides some data points to help augment what is discussed in terms of the current conditions going on, in this case with apples. The next page over, then followed by bottlenecks and gaps as well as opportunities. And then followed by a series of five, around five recommendations per brief. Now what I wanna just point down to the very bottom right of any of the briefs, it says this brief was prepared by and it provides a lead author and a set of contributors. And what's really important to understand, I think, is that this, the text that's in this document is not that of the agency and the jobs fund getting together and just having a brain dump, right? This is about thoughtful experts with real on the ground knowledge who contributed their time mostly in a volunteer capacity to do this work for all of us. So we've required that each of the lead authors had several private sector members be part of that contributions team because we wanted to make sure that these recommendations and the input was grounded in what's happening on the ground as well as what the research and the data suggests. So, and we asked that in the review process after the first draft was prepared, then it went back to the contributors and the lead author that in essence, they all agreed, yep, this is an accurate reflection of what we think is going on. So this is not only what the lead author thinks. This is truly a shared notion of what's important to know about apples, about cheese, about dairy and such. So these are folks, for instance, you can bring in for further testimony and they will be happy to do so. If you flip to page 43, you will see we have four market grease where we covered direct markets which are your farmers markets, CSAs and such, school for food procurement, college and hospital procurement and grocers. If you, and so four more briefs there. Then if you flip to page 59, you will see that there are nine issue briefs on climate change, water quality, succession planning, supporting future farmers is about helping the next generation of farmers get onto the land, access to capital, business and technical assistance, consumer demand, agriculture and food access and farm viability. So we are covering a wide swath of both production agriculture as well as the food system in total and providing a sense of what are these, what's going on. Each one of these briefs is two to four pages long with the exception of dairy which is eight pages and we think that they provide a really a wonderful synopsis of what is going on in the field. Yeah, okay. So if we flip back, so I just wanted you to understand the structure of the report. There were, in looking at the 119 recommendations that came out of the totality of these briefs, we noticed that the recommendations fell into a couple, a few different themes as being where we want to really focus and those themes are around marketing and that's both marketing of individual products that individual producers need to improve their overall marketing abilities as well as the state of Vermont as a whole needing to do a better job of marketing a totality of Vermont products or particular subsectors of products. Another theme was around market development. That really relates to the need to open up new market for our products get into. So for instance, getting into more wholesale markets whether that's grocery stores in Vermont or across New England. It might be figuring out how to develop a better aggregation opportunity for grass-fed beef farmers who can then sell that aggregated beef with high quality standards and attributes in to say the New York City marketplace as a for instance. So that's market development of really looking at the entire process of getting product into the market. Another theme is around the need for business and technical assistance to support our farm and feed business owners. What we will notice in the recommendations if you move the board to count them all up and this is the first time that any of us have actually done this. We've all known we need more boots on the ground helping farmers and business owners but we've never done the exercise of actually counting it up. And we counted 17 additional full-time individuals that are needed to be based at extension, at the agency, at NOFA, at any of the other farm viability service provider organizations. Some of it is for succession planning and you'll hear from Ella Chapman about that. And some of it is very technical, like we don't have a livestock specialist in the state. We need the apple industry desperately needs a full-time technical advisor on apple production. So there are some very concrete personnel needs that we've identified. And then the other theme, the other theme is around product research and development. We don't know yet what the next hard cider equivalent or CBD infused such and such is that has real potential, market potential. But as we said upfront and that Roger so eloquently says it's about looking for these niche products where we can have the greatest opportunity for profitability and that we will always be challenged to be competing in a commodity market. So we used to have the Vermont Artisan Cheese Institute at the University of Vermont. That doesn't exist anymore. But that was a foundational institute that helped lead to the unbelievable artisan cheese industry that we have today. And probably you could argue that without having had that institute for the years we did we wouldn't have the level of cheese, the diversity of the cheese production that's going on today. At this point all we have is the Proctor Maple Center in terms of actual product research. We think that there's a real need for additional public investment in having product development happening. So I guess what I can add is so these 23 briefs are just the beginning. There's an additional set of products and markets and issues that aren't yet included and have not yet been drafted. And as Ellen said is in that second tier of briefs that will be produced within the next year and presented to you about this same time in 2021. I guess they are listed on the back page. That cover has the list of additional briefs that are currently under development with another whole set of lead authors and set of contributors. So in relation to the themes that Ellen mentioned there's very specific recommendations that talk about the need for more business assistance that's focused on say accounting and bookkeeping assistance. There's recommendations around the infrastructure needs as to whether that's for dairy or building a goat industry that's more robust in the state or looking at produce infrastructure assistance. There's recommendations that speak about the money that's needed to invest in value added production whether that's in a variety of maple products or apple products as examples. There's as Ellen mentioned that need for increased marketing efforts and market access so whether that's reaching retail markets or understanding the procurement in farm to school and other farm to institutions for both producers and processors. So overall I'd say there's additional annual investments needed to support these efforts that are outlined in the recommendations. There is a need for more boots on the ground whether it's the 17 additional technical assistance positions over time and there's a need for identification of the organizations that can do this work and what they need to scale up to offer the support that the industry needs. If you were to flip to page 91 there's one other section to call your attention to which is some supplemental materials and these relate directly to the legislative requests that was made. There was a few additional components besides the plan itself that you all asked for. One was a sense of who are the capital providers available to invest in farms and food businesses. And I've got two copies for the Senate Committee and two copies for the House Committee. The Jobs Fund Repri updated an inventory that we had first published back in 2011 of all the capital providers in the state that will provide debt, equity, grants, you name it, to farm and food businesses. So we went through and updated that. There are 64 unique capital providers some of whom are regional but they all they do actually invest in companies in Vermont. And there are about 113 I think unique funding programs that are out there. This Excel spreadsheet is on your webpage. It went up there this morning and it's gonna be made available to any of the applicants that for Working Lands Enterprise Fund and we'll get it out far and wide. So I have copies of that that I can leave with you. They'll just give you a sense of the breadth and the depth of the types of capital that's out there and you'll hear a little later from Janice Stonch who was the lead author on the access to capital brief. Secondly, there's a business assistance continuum basically a business farm and food business development directory that's also been under development that is coming from the Working Lands Enterprise Board and I've been working on that with Lynn Allen Schmollier at the agency. It will be an actual online tool and that will be ruled out and demonstrated to you all on February 6th when the Working Lands Day is happening and the hearing will be taking place. But basically what it is is a webpage that you can go to and click on what you're looking for. Like I'm a farm and I'm looking for a grant to invest it to be able to do some infrastructure investment and what will come up from that search is all the entities that can provide business and technical assistance to that farm or food business. So the intention is to be sort of a portal to accelerate and match make between farm and food businesses with advisors that can support and help them. So that's not, the link to it is in here but obviously it's a web interface so we couldn't publish it but that's also coming and it was one of those things that you requested in the legislation. And then thirdly, had a piece about collaborating with NOFA and Vermont Feed about some farm to school products and opportunities and you'll see here they had produced a pretty extensive done some survey work and a pretty extensive report. We didn't wanna include that in here because it's really a standalone useful document that bears some attention in and of itself. So we provided the link to where that document is and you can both check that out and as well as have Betsy Roosevelt and others come in and speak with you. So there are these other supplemental materials that I think will be very helpful to you all in understanding the landscape. Oh and one other thing just the business assistance continuum, if you flip to page 78, there is a graphic so that you can see the graphic doesn't, it's not the exact same thing as the portal but just for a quick so that you have a sense what we did do is we reached out to and identified all the different, this is for business assistance so helping with business planning, enterprise analysis, how to raise capital, those kinds of things. We identified all the organizations that can provide some amount of service either to farms or food and our food businesses along this continuum of a stage of development. So some entities have specific programs that are really designed for more startup or new and beginning farmers while other programs are really designed for more mature businesses that are accessing same retail markets. So we know who they are, we've collected their information and this is the, a lot of what's, and their information is what's going into this web based portal that is currently being fine tuned and getting ready to be released. Well, sounds good. Has a plan like this ever been put together prior or is this first one that you folks can think, remember? Well, 2011 was the farm-to-place strategic plan. Well, we did that one. Yeah, and so that was very lengthy and at the time, I think that's what was required and what was really gonna be most helpful because we were all in a place of trying to understand what is this thing called the food system? We didn't even use that language as much. Agriculture, production agriculture is a very important part of a larger food system. So that plan had a number of, had about 52 high priority recommendations in that plan which we're going to be evaluating over the next year to see like how many of these did we actually accomplish but having read through them about three years in, we had already accomplished a lot of those recommendations. So, you know, but that was 10 years ago, right? So this iteration I think is the next generation of a plan and it builds off of what we knew but it could be much shorter because we all know more now. We couldn't have written a plan like this 10 years ago. It just, it wasn't possible. But the fact that we had so many people, like I don't think anybody actually said no to us when we asked them, could you write this brief? Everybody said yes and everybody put dozens of hours into writing their brief and in some cases there were authors that told us, wow, I'm really glad I did this process because it actually helped to clarify for my sector what it is we should be focusing on. So they really took it seriously and they're planning to use it as a guiding document for their own work on the ground. And I would say there's a variety of other plans and reports out there that are in development or recently produced that speak about the future of agriculture and strategies and recommendations, as part of a plan about how to support dairy or maintain a working landscape going forward. Not quite organized in that thereby product, market and supporting issue quite like this plan is. But there's a lot of great minds that are thinking about this topic and really passionate about putting forth suggestions for what the future looks like. This is an amazing, amazing piece of work. In a very short period of time. In a very short period of time. I can't believe that you've accomplished this so. And I will say that my team actually took off between Christmas and New Year's and did not work on this. So, I'm glad you did. Good boss. Do you have questions now or should I? Are you gonna hear from Laura and others before? Well, so what happens, what will you propose next? And I don't know, Senator, if your question is more around the process or specifically. It's not about the process, it's just something that you said about product development that I wanted to. But, are you Mr. Chair? Or Ms. Chair? Well, you're okay with her. Okay, so I think Abby, you said something about the need for investment in product development as one of your sort of broader recommendations and that sort of speaks to the technical assistance piece that you were talking about. And the reason I'm asking is it kind of directly contradicts testimony that we heard last week from people at the Mad River Food Hub who came in and spoke to us about their transition and what's happening there. And they were talking about how there's actually plenty of products being developed but the real crucial thing is marketing. And you talked about both, you say that we need marketing too. But they're sort of, at least when I got out was the thrust should be on marketing because right now we have products that just, there's no market for them or we have producers who don't know how to get their products to market. So that the marketing needs to come before we develop more products that we can't sell. So I just wondered if you could speak to that. That was what I heard from them. Yeah, I think both are true. I think some of the product research and development recommendations that we found or that were presented in these briefs maybe had to do with thinking grain production of what are the research, what grain varieties grow well in Vermont and could be value added to be used in beer production or as feed sources for baking or other value added products in Vermont. So I think there's some product development and research that's still needed. It may not be making more sauces and sauces and zoops and certain things that may be under production at the food hub level and that those products actually need more market access and more marketing support. So I think it sort of depends upon what product category and what market scale we're talking. But I think both are needed to sort of see the landscape staying agriculture and the product innovation and diversification in Vermont so well known for to continue to grow in an ag and food sector. So what we had planned for this next section if it suits you is there's three different sections and categories of brief presentations. The first three sort of generally representing kind of like our backbone of agriculture in Vermont. Not that other sectors of agriculture aren't equally important but to have dairy, maple and produce highlighted as our backbone industries. And then the support structure that's critical for those industries to be successful which is the succession planning and business assistance as well as the access to capital and the market development and product procurement example through farm to school. And then looking at where there is additional research and development opportunity and diversification possibilities in the hemp and the beef and the goat industries. So you have some of the best and brightest here to share as they contributed to the briefs as mostly lead authors or in some cases contributors. So our thought was that the three could come up in the section. We're gonna try to keep them to five minutes and so while it's gonna be our timekeeper not because they don't have more to say than five minutes but to allow us to kind of cut through the content and then you have a robust period of time for question and answer that could be those three individuals or Ellen and I or any of the folks in the room that might have also been contributors if you're open to hearing from the group. Sounds good. Sounds like a plan. And then Ellen and I can come back up and tell us, tell you where we come from here. Yep. So would you like Laura to come up first? So Laura, Mark and Will. Welcome everybody. Yeah, welcome and glad you're here and glad you're here with us. Good morning. Laura, do you want to kick it off? Sure. My name is on the list first, so. So do I also need to introduce myself? Sure, why don't you introduce yourself? Thanks. I'm Laura Ginsberg. I work for the Agency of Agriculture and Food and Markets as the section chief for the Agriculture Development Division. And I'm here today to talk about the dairy grief in which I was the lead off author with a robust group of commuter readers of whom are here today. All right, thank you. So many people in this state and across the country think that the dairy sector is experiencing an irreversible downward spiral. Even USDA Secretary Perdue said that in America the big get bigger and the small go out. The fact that we are here today, I believe, speaks to the fact that many of us respectfully disagree. The author Malcolm Gladwell in his book, David and Goliath, discusses the power of the underdog of the player most revet against given perceived disadvantages. Gladwell's argument is to, and I quote, look at the shepherd and the giant and understand where power and advantage really lie. It matters in 100 specific and practical ways. It shapes the way we understand creativity and entrepreneurship and the way the oppressed seek to take on bullies and tyrants. We aren't very good at confronting these lessons about power. Understanding the power of the underdog requires an effort. It requires standing up to conventional wisdom. I believe that all of the recent movement in Vermont's dairy sector shows that we are poised to be a successful underdog. This dairy grief and the ideas it brings forward, the selection of Vermont is one of three national dairy innovation centers. The enthusiasm and attendance of the Northern Tier Dairy Summit and all of the positive energy involvement from Vermont dairy farmers tells me that we're heading in the right direction. This is not to discount the emotional and financial pain that many in our dairy sector currently face, but I believe if that becomes our narrative, if we let settle the thought that only the big farms will last, then we have not been dogged enough in our work. And so you'll see in the dairy grief, which begins on page 19, ideas and recommendations that are unconventional. As the national industry continues to move towards large farms, Vermont has an opportunity to refocus on small farms, particularly important since 43% milk fewer than 50 cows. This is unusual for the rest of the nation, but common in our region. Small farms compete on the market differently than larger farms and generally have the ability to be more flexible with production systems. Smaller farms often come more easily meet the needs of specialty processors, such as those looking for milk produced without fermented feed. Our proximity to large markets, capacity to process milk, and perception domestically and internationally as a producer of high quality products means that we are well positioned to take advantage of ever changing consumer trends without drastically changing the way the sector operates. The continued growth of dairy processors and recent market research continue to show that there is room for additional value added products. Vermont grows an incredible diversity of forefathers that are well suited to dairy. By providing additional technical assistance, there is room to grow the number of farms who utilize a grass-fed model, both for conventional and organic farms. This can have multiple benefits, such as lowering the cost of production and improving consumers' perception of dairy. Considering other models for milk pricing, such as components-based pricing or production strategies like seasonal milking, are other possibilities that can affect change within the system as it currently exists. By valuing the decades of knowledge and experience a retiring farmer has, creating intentional space for farmers to learn from each other and incentivizing the next generation to move here to start a farm, we can create a cycle that's positive for development of the sector. Through the re-diversification of production strategies and the growth of value-added processing, we can grow the number of consumers who choose Vermont dairy first. These ideas, and many others, are outlined in the brief and through the work of the Agency of Agriculture. Thank you for your time today, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Will? All right. How are we going to guide you? Okay, great. Thank you so much. Mark Canella, University of Vermont Extension, Associate Professor of Extension with a focus in farm business management and applied economics. Pleased to be here and pleased to share the work I've been doing with Maple Industry and what we've come to find through the process of this program. We've come to find the process of this brief. It was a great process. I actually got to work with industry leaders, both leaders of the Vermont Sugar Makers Association, leading equipment manufacturers, leaders in distribution and bulk-surf buying and packaging, as well as some producers themselves, mid-scale producer and also a larger-scale producer that's doing their own marketing and movement surf throughout this country. I'm just going to take you through the highlights of the brief. We've got them in front of you, so I encourage you to look along and certainly ask questions now or later. So... What page are you on? Two-page, thirty-five. Page thirty-five? I'm on my page. I mean, this wasn't on the top. Hey, Gary. So, Vermont Maple has been rapidly growing. I'm sure a lot of you are aware of this. Vermont has a lot of cachet and a lot of branding that's carried through over the century, but the past 15 to 20 years has been dramatic and rapid growth in the Vermont Maple industry. So I think I'd like to share with you some highlights to recognize that growth, to recognize the opportunity for continued national leadership coming from Vermont in different forms, to consider the investments that are needed to maintain that leadership role, especially with the growing industry. We need to not be complacent and assume that we'll have leadership. I think there will need to be investments and partnerships to maintain that with a growing footprint. And also to initiate an awareness of the issues that are going to need to be addressed, not to manage what we've got, but to position for where we will be in 10, 15, and 20 years. And I'm pleased to work with a lot of Maple producers that have that level of foresight to kind of think about where we're going to be and to position for it. So the growth is clear. There's a couple of charts there. I think you should just be aware that production has been growing at a clip of 10 to 15 percent annually in the state of Vermont. We're developing the national leader in Maple production. Over 55 percent of the country's syrup is produced here in the state of Vermont. Important to note that approximately 60 percent of the national U.S. syrup consumption is imported from Canada. Canadian syrup comes over the border and supplies over half of the United States domestic consumption. But still within the United States we're leading the show. Market growth has been dramatic upwards of 8 to 10 percent growth annually. That's almost doubling in industry every decade. It's softened a little bit, but we're still feeling like 6 to 8 percent growth is what we're hearing from the marketers, which is strong. Well, I don't know if it's strong enough, but I think the emphasis of this brief is very much about continuing to market. So I'll highlight some of the bottlenecks and gaps and then a couple of opportunities and recommendations. Some of the bottlenecks are tight labor market. This isn't new for agriculture, but it's certainly something that we're aware of, especially with an industry that's growing. We're not looking to retain businesses. We're looking to provide employment opportunities for people coming from the state and to the businesses that have positioning to grow in the market. Everyone assumes data limitations and statistical limitations. It's good for you all to know that everyone assumes that the Vermont and national statistics are probably 20 to 30 percent under reported at least. So when we say this is a $60 million farm gate sales industry, it could be $90 million in the state of Vermont. It's not quite clear. So more data would be helpful or more accurate data. And then a couple of the uncertainties. Climate change, demographic of farmers. These are not necessarily specific to maple, but things that we're aware of. Okay, a couple of the opportunities. And I want to emphasize that there's a huge private motivation and huge private success pushing forward in the maple industry. So I think a lot of the emphasis on marketing is the assumption that the private firms are really working hard and continue to work hard to pull syrup from our state and to get it out the door to the known buyers. We know that there's none succeeded. So it's clear that maple is really positioned as a natural sweetener, a plant-based and minimally processed sweetener, which is going to serve really well in the national market sphere. But more promotion will be necessary, both for Vermont and domestic syrup. There's opportunities in ingredient markets. There's opportunities for pure Vermont syrup. And Abby I think mentioned quite well, there's opportunities for product development. And this product is development at scale. It's not just innovation and niche marketing from producers, but it's scale based processing and packaging that can move the product out. So we'd like to see more pulling of that syrup through market initiatives. And then I'll scan down to some of the recommendations where I think the public good is a little more clearly at stake and I think where your roles may be a little more obvious. The public private market initiatives will have to be partnerships. We've got large scale and mid scale and small scale private entrepreneurs looking to market their syrup, but they're going to need support and I think that's something to be aware of. We can't really clarify or quantify the investment there. I think that's going to be a great partnership and task force that will happen in the near future. But I think what is important is to recognize that with the growth of the industry, things like retail inspections, quality standards, things of that nature that are really branding at its purest by maintaining a high quality product that need to be invested in and probably expanded in investment. I think there's great dialogue right now between the Agency of Agriculture, Vermont Maple Sugar Makers, and UBM Extension about where these will be verification programs versus educational programs and you can see in the brief that it's clearly called out. And staying on the topic of grading and quality I think it's important to recognize the Vermont Sugarhouse Certification Program. We do stand as a leader in production and there's an opportunity right now in the national space to lead the way in food safety from maple production. The consumers are wanting it, the market place is wanting it, and there's an opportunity for Vermont to stand forward and say we're going to create the prescriptions and protocols for safe sugar houses and that we think is going to be a huge consumer attribute that will help again move that, sir, about to consumers. I will just mention briefly workforce development, which is already mentioned, and continued research, climate change, and changes in market factors, certainly on our minds. Great. Good morning everyone. Good morning. My name is Will Stevens. My wife and Judy and I own and operate Golden Russet Farm certified organic vegetable farm in Representative Morris' hometown of Shoreham. I'm glad to be here and glad to be on this side of the table. Full disclosure, I'm also chair of Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, but I'm here today in my capacity as a grower, as a vegetable grower who worked with Vern on The Breathe. Vern couldn't be here today, so I'm binge hitting, give it the best I can give for you. I thought I'd start with a few little fun facts from my perspective. There are more vegetable farms in Vermont right now than there are in areas. And I suspect based on what I heard last year, there might be more acreage planted to him than there were to vegetables. The farms, vegetable farms are, in my opinion, community, not commodity oriented. They're fairly diverse. Most of the vegetable farmers have diverse income streams. It's not strictly vegetables. In The Breathe, some of them are carpenters. Some of them are lieutenant governors. You know, it's all over the place. Their business model often incorporates more than transactional economic capital. It also includes social, personal and community capital. In that regard it reminds me of the farms of the 30s and 40s in this state which is something that if we were born here we'd appreciate if we moved here. Some of us kind of want to perpetuate to some extent. But the big difference between the farms of then and the farms today are the marketing opportunities that exist today. And in my opinion it's both a blessing and a curse. And what I mean by that it's a blessing in the farmers play active roles in their communities that tend to support rural institutions that keep our rural communities strong. They're independent owners. They're price they have some control over their market and ability to market. And these relationally based businesses are quite common in Vermont, culturally. We're used to this type of a business model and that in turn supports the success of things like farmer's markets, CSAs, farmer's school programs, cleaning efforts, things like that. The curse aspect of it are low population and economic demographics limit opportunities. Market cannibalization is more likely now than it was when we got started. And I guess I should back up a little bit and say that my wife and I got started in 1981. Thank you. You weren't born then yet Senator. It's been a long time. How do you want, Will? So but cannibalization what I mean by that is that there are interesting markets there are folks that are kind of waiting for folks like me to get out of the way so they can take that market over or through price competition they will take the market that we have as opposed to developing new markets. There's a lot of work that goes into developing and maintaining these markets and I can tell you all about that including what a lot of folks are doing and Vern mentioned looking at a state for markets. And then independence can also sometimes work against collaborative efforts to float all boats but in large part thanks to I think Ellen's efforts with Farm to Play networks have formed and there is a culture of collaboration now that works to the benefit of all. So what keeps me up at night as a grower, producer one who's in the process of transitioning our farm to our daughter the future of our modern agriculture and it's relevant to our rural communities. Two dozen growers roughly account for as much as a third maybe more of the total vegetable farm revenues and there are boomers baby boomers and this is where we can all say okay boomer their active involvement will be over in the next 10 or 20 years so what is that going to look like? The businesses they run today look very different than the ones that they started in the 70s and 80s and I can tell you more about that if you want to hear about it and significantly the conditions for today's next generation are very different than when we got started back in the early 80s there's no guarantee that there's going to be a clean, smooth, successful transition of these farm operations to the next generation our farm is actively involved through the farm viability program working with a consultant to ensure that that will happen we're lucky not everyone has that although everybody could but there's no culture of that in the vegetable farm community the way there is in the dairy community there are very few vegetable farmers that are second generation farmers much less third, fourth, fifth, or eighth second thing, a lot of us do this out of a sense of passion not economics when we got into it, it was more philosophically based it wasn't because we had this amazing business plan it was going to guarantee profits that wasn't a part at all and that to some extent is true today although I got to say some of the newers that are getting into it today are amazing but that's something that isn't something that should be ignored or minimized but respected and audited it's a positive personal characteristic since vegetable farms are diverse operations farmers presumably have a variety of career options so in some ways it's just that one more thing that could cause them to say I'll go how nails for living or run for governor who knows so passion and commitment can only cure it so far it's reasonable to assume that someday we should also be able to realize a return on our investment it's nice to be driven by all these morally righteous things but we need to make a profit at the end of the day so I bring that up because there are potential mines barriers to the path of fulfillment that can discourage folks and some of these include policies that are unfriendly to farm and food security regulations that focus more on compliance than best practices lack of profitability or lack of a perceived pathway to profits lack of adequate, affordable and skilled labor access to reliable markets and support systems and services that mean farmers where they are because they recognize and are equipped to meet their needs, wrap it up okay so I'll skip right to two comments on the recommendations the second recommendation to hire a highly skilled farm transfer service provider I kind of see that, I'd like to expand that a little more to say let's create an accountable care approach to this and build a team of support around farms that need this next step whether it's business development, product development whether it's transition success or whatever it might be we're working with a consultant to farm by the building, that's great it's possible that there are economists and soil scientists and others who could do that work as well to ensure a successful transition and the second to last recommendation again I implore you to listen to the growers needs and enlist all think integratively, enlist all of the service providers because they all have something to offer it's unique and helpful thank you very much so we have till 10.45 for questions so I guess any questions? I have two questions that are related I know there's efforts to bring Vermont produce into boss other metropolitan areas and I'm just wondering whether you see that as something we should focus on relative to the focus on local markets they're both important do you see one better than the other, one more potential than the other thank you Senator Polina I think they're both important I think it's an and, not an either situation because in some ways we need to look to export product we I would never say we're in a surplus vegetable situation but access to markets and the way people shop and convenience are a lot of factors that prevent Vermonters from getting Vermont produce and so we can put a lot of energy into that and moving the dial a little bit more and easier path might be to export product through again relationally based models like Farmers View and these CSA things so we talk about these out of state markets does that ever give do you see that providing a temptation to go more towards a monoculture of sorts, not exactly monoculture but you grow a variety of things now but if you knew that Boston just wanted apples or that's not a good example but broccoli, cauliflower would you be tempted to then become less diversified, is that a problem becoming less diversified in my experience as a grower has created problems in terms of disease and pest issues yeah I don't know but the thing is one way I'll interpret your question is if the vegetable farmers move more towards a commodity model of agriculture which very few are right now would that be a detriment I don't know that that's likely to happen frankly a lot of us are mercenaries we'll grow for a market if a market is there we'll see if we can provide it but I think right now the cultures I understand in Vermont knowing a number of growers personally and so forth they're aware of the trap of monoculture or moving towards less diverse crop mix and so forth because if nothing else you're just putting yourself at risk through one hail storm it's nice to have a mix of crops so I'm not too worried about that personally and on that same line do we have you take fresh vegetables but what about if you wanted to do the winter months and do we have processing and cooling and quick freeze and all that available to our farmers that want to go there are some there's some of that years ago the state had the quick freeze trailer that's now in private hands not being used very much a lot of that again is determined by the market which isn't strong for it and I know some folks down our way used it for a while to try to create a market for frozen corn and different things like that but it was pretty expensive to do the price point in the store was too high yeah so questions all the way here you know John I had a big picture question thinking about Roger all the way about Vermont it seems like Vermont's always been dominated by one big agricultural product and it was maybe start out with sheep and then maybe hops and for a long time it's been dairy so I wanted to know you know if as authors and co-authors in the next 25 years do you see it continue to be dominated by dairy or dominated by maybe maple or something else or oxymoronica maybe will be dominated by diversity just what is the big dominant agriculture in the next 25 years I think the ideal is to be moving towards more of a blended portfolio I think we're all recognizing the risk of being dairy dominant not that it hasn't been good but it puts us at risk so I think the intention is to move towards a more diversified portfolio of agricultural products and maple is on that fringe of forest products so I think also embracing you know perpetual forest cover and timber and non-timber species in our woodlands might be a way to diversify that portfolio so we don't explicitly think of open field agriculture maple is an example I mean the industry has doubled in 10 years it's slated to double in 10 more so 30 million to 60 million 120 million sooner or later that's going to be 15 to 20 percent of the portfolio I wouldn't discredit the presence of the dairy industry I think it's been a great source of cash flow and regular cash flow through rural communities but we know the number of participants in the dairy industry will continue to decline the businesses will evolve and change but the actual business owner numbers will drop down and so I think I think what we've all been waiting for to fall in front of the plate honestly is for these other niche or budding or nascent industries to say we can move past proof of concept to scale and the concept of exporting our product to other states isn't just sort of a maybe a sell out to mechanization and monoculture but to say we can put high quality products out efficiently to be cost competitive with other players in different states so I think the there's an opportunity for that but I think we're still waiting to figure out what's the targeted investment and the private side push to see these new ideas go from just niches and kind of tourist stops to you know anchors in the marketplace and I don't think we have the clear answer yet you mentioned have I mean I think we're all trying to learn how to develop new industries and bring them up to a better to diversified and I would add to that that in 10 or 15 years the dairy landscape is going to look different right now it's generally pitched as being negative but I think there's real opportunity in that there is going to be transitions between older farm owners to younger generations in the family to brand new farmers next generation from out of state that move here to be dairy farmers and how we address the challenges today will determine how much of a factor dairy is in the future I think it's always going to be there whether or not it's the largest source of the agricultural economy as it has been for years and years you never know because dairy pricing is so based on international market trends that we have no control over so if the number of farms decrease and the price of milk decreases and that just decreases net farm returns which can impact its standing in the overall ranking so I think there's the way that you just like any statistic the way that you look at the number can have the impact on it but I think dairy is here to stay and it's going to look different and that's okay the big issue with dairy is the pricing I mean we know how to do it, our people know how to do it they enjoy doing it but to a plan of pricing that was put together back in the 1930s in the 2020 ages is not working and it's not acceptable but it's a federal pricing thing that just isn't working would you like to head up the crew to have sugar houses licensed or on a list? Mark first I'm not current I know you are well in my role I wouldn't be best fit to head up the certification regulatory and audit process whether it's volunteer sugar makers have been an attempt to start a program and they're excited to maintain that role it could be a great actual way for them as an association to maintain value to the community members the demographic of the sugar makers associations are changing you might see this with different industries younger generations coming in they're not necessarily joining organizations and going to banquets like some of the current generations of owners do and so the sugar makers association is looking for ways to maintain relevance and I think they've demonstrated actually with the sugar added labeling campaigns if you've been familiar with that with the US Food and Drug Administration huge lobbying effort and coordinating effort from the sugar makers association to represent the body of producers and to have an impact on legislation I think there's an opportunity there for the certification program as well but the capacity honestly is is limited and so more capacity is needed to maintain a program like that see we tried that maybe eight ten years ago trying to get the sugar houses you know registered so we knew where they were at least and it wasn't very pleasant trying to pass that well I think I'll be honest with you I've just done a survey of northeast maple producers and we found that maybe 70 to 80% of the crop is actually produced by 8 to 10% of the producers not very different than maybe dairy consolidation so you'll have a lot of grumbling about people wanting to be off the record and maybe not pay taxes and maybe they'll volunteer to not take support programs publicly as well but I think the producers the producers they're in it from a business perspective they're recognizing the need they're recognizing the benefits of participating in a marketplace that's accountable, transparent and verifiable and I think like Will said they'll produce for a market and if the market shows it's important they'll get on board are there questions? so I have two questions sorry Will I don't have a question for you but I will say that Will has some of the best vegetables in Addison County they're awesome in the world, yeah well the world is pretty small my world is small but how many growers but I have a question about maple and dairy and the maple question is obviously climate change is a big conversation and a big focus of ours in this building I hope and I know a lot about climate change you alluded to it but didn't go in depth about the impact of climate change on the maple industry I had the pleasure of serving on a task force about forest carbon sequestration and it occurred to me that we didn't talk too much about maple in that and I'm wondering what impact you've seen there has been a loss of acreage and forested land in Vermont even though the vast majority of our land is forested in the state and I'm wondering is the loss of acreage impacting the industry is there a need to conserve forest land that's specific to maple how does it integrate into the forest economy at large and the other things that we do and need to do with our forests is that a specific enough question it's a pretty big question but just thinking about the health of our forests in general the forestry community is certainly aware of the implications of climate change but also not really ready to pass judgment there's been research that's come out from multiple institutions and a lot of people have had concerns about the research and thought that maybe it might be a little alarmist on the potential threats to maple forests from a time scale perspective I think a lot of people recognize that climate change needs to be considered but I think it's going to be a long process that's going to be drawn out to understand the true impact these are long term species these maple trees so we think they're resilient and it's going to take a while to see the symptoms or the impacts from a conservation standpoint I think that could be a judgment call on who maybe wants to support the working landscape or the forested landscape the estimate right now is that maybe 8 to 10 percent of the maple resource in Vermont is currently tapped for production so the idea is that that doesn't mean there's still 80 or 90 percent tapable because of accessibility issues but I think the general idea is there still is good maple woods out there that could support the growth I haven't heard a lot of concerns on a macro scale of loss of forest that land impacting maple but I do think it will be more competitive especially in specific regions and then back just to forest carbon sequestration I think that's just another one of those great attributes that the maple industry has perennial carbon wood cover for water quality soil retention and then you stack on carbon sequestration it could be an asset there that's just building up over time to maintain the woods I see Ellen saying we need to move on so I wanted to ask more about the small dairy farms that you brought up as a focus and maybe we can have a conversation in the community at any other time about that so we'll move on thanks to three of you very much this is a wrap up this is a that's so welcome folks I said to see you and welcome so I don't know which one wants to lead off but Elle you want to get started and introduce yourself and we'll go from there thank you I'm Ella Chapin Vermont Housing and Conservation Board we're on the Vermont Farm and Forest viability program nice to see you all today thanks for having us I'm going to hide myself and keep my eye on the you've heard a lot about how many challenges there are right now facing agriculture and how what a major transition our agricultural industry is in I'm not going to repeat that but it's something that I think about and talk about a lot in my work this is just simply a very difficult time to be an agricultural producer and not just in Vermont I want to say this while we're very much talking about Vermont today I just want to say that these issues are not only here in Vermont we're having regional partners and national partners about many of the same issues you're hearing about today I'm going to just run through some of the barriers that are more business oriented because I'm here to talk with you a little bit about land access succession and general business assistance that's needed to support our cultural sector in this transition we have barriers around business viability just the market challenges competition challenges that were alluded to earlier changing markets and economic pressures and one thing to just realize is that business owners generally small businesses in Vermont are family owned and operated and many business owners are involved in the day to day of their business so much that it's very hard to think about the business not just in the business and that is something that business coaches and business advisors can help and get business owners out of that day to day we see new markets and production models coming here to Vermont that can require a higher level of business acumen management skills to identify and communicate with customers new markets, manage different kinds of operations so we're seeing that need change as we see new markets our new production models we see a lot of barriers around land access for new farmers new business models often require less land or different infrastructure from the farms that are out there and available for rent or for purchase existing and old infrastructure as well as marginal land can be a huge barrier to successful farm transition to new owners and you'll see more details about that in the report and then also potential farm successors often don't have the skill set or the financial position to assume management or ownership of an existing farm operation so the way I will was describing the evolution of farm businesses over time and some of them are particularly larger or sophisticated operations with certain kinds of markets and it's not every new farmers or every interested beginning farmers ability to step into some of those land bases additionally we have issues where retiring farmers struggle to have sufficient retirement income housing options someone might want to leave their land and find a successor but they're not ready to leave their home and the challenges to land access and succession if that causes and then just from the business assistance side we have lots of great business advisors through the viability program and other and UVM extension and other networks but we don't have as many of them as we like they're not easy to hire for it's a very extensive skill set so we need to build out our business network at the same time and provide professional development training in that regard I want to say that Vermonters through state investments and otherwise have heavily invested in nationally found programs and institutions that provide really effective business technical and financial support and tools to our agricultural system I just want to get that on the record we, you collectively as a state through private contributions and state investment and with national support we have a lot of really great institutions and tools we have the viability network many viability partners and organizations that are part of that extension the Vermont land trust and their farmland access program Vita Vac we live farm first and ag mediation are two programs that you've contributed to particularly farm first and that set of and there's others that that set of support systems is really important and that's what some of the sections that I helped write in this plan are about and they both need to be continued to be supported they need to evolve and adapt as farm businesses evolve and adapt and we're talking a lot about that sort of increase in FTEs and we need more of a lot of that work to happen on the ground for example we expect about three times the number of farm successions to new owners in the next in the next 10 years that we've seen in the last 10 and that requires a tripling of resources to do so I want to just leave you with between sort of our innovative farm and food entrepreneurs that are out there the history of our strong Vermont brand and the excellent support systems that we have but we need to keep investing in we have the potential to see an amazing renaissance of the ag sector with new business models new models of land ownership that need to be invested in new marketing and distribution a lot of things to do today and so sure um good morning for the record my name is Janice Inonge and I run the flexible capital fund which is a private mission focused investment fund that offers an alternative equity investment in Vermont's food system forestry and clean energy market sectors so I'm here to talk about money we all need it businesses need it grow and it's one of those inputs along with the business advisory services that Ellen just talked about that's critical for our food system businesses in order to not only grow but stay here in Vermont I want to draw your attention to the iChart I believe you all have a copy of the financing inventory with the capital continuum this little iChart right here page 73 this is a capital continuum which is an effort to just show visually the variety of types of capital that are available here in Vermont and actually more broadly in New England to support food system businesses and the reason it's on a continuum is it's really from low risk type of capital like bank debt all the way up to high risk type of capital like equity investment from angel investors and venture capital firms that are based here in Vermont when we first started the farm to plate initiative back 10 years ago this iChart was a little bit was a lot emptier since over the last 10 years a lot has evolved in terms of new players coming into the market which I think has been a very positive thing for food system businesses and farmland businesses different structures of capital and different players also folks coming from outside of Vermont interested in Vermont food system businesses so those are all very positive things I also wanted to mention this idea and we talked a little bit about it in the brief the businesses in the food system need all kinds of capital and oftentimes they need more than one kind of capital this integrative capital approach where they may need debt to finance a piece of equipment they may need equity or someone investing in the business for an ownership stake in order to grow the business their cash flow is tight and they need a structure where they don't have to repay for a period of time grants are a really important type of capital that is very rare as we all know in this state and I can't emphasize enough the importance of the Working Lands Enterprise Fund and the type of money that that program offers to food system businesses if you had to say well where are the gaps then I would say we have a good supply of low cost debt great providers out there providing debt to finance businesses that have assets that have equipment in real estate the gaps really seem to be around patients what I'll call patient equity alternative structures like investing ownership in a business that is going to take some time to then either have an exit strategy or someone will buy that equity back as well as land financing I think we all know that alternative and creative land financing models are few and far between although there have been some that have evolved and we're also hearing about the Vermont Land Trust and the work they're doing in providing financing for land and that's a very important piece on the supply side I want to talk briefly that there's supply and demand so the demand for capital is from our food system businesses but supply side impacts the type of money that they can get as well we have a very homogenous investment community here in Vermont and my hope is that over the next five to seven years we'll see that change from the standpoint of bringing diversity into the picture beyond white men investing and bringing more young generational millennials coming into play to invest in our food system businesses more women we started out women's investors network so those types of activities need to increase in order to bring diversity into different innovative models of financing here in Vermont and I guess the last thing I will say is it's not just about the money Ella talked about the business advisory capacity money is an important fuel to grow companies but they need social and human capital as well and that human capital in terms of advisory capacity as well social capital and the networks that they can access outside of Vermont to help them grow I will leave you with the two recommendations that this brief does talk about including continuing to invest at least a million and a half annually into the working lands enterprise fund again grant funds are so unique and so tremendously valuable and help those companies leverage other types of capital and then really thinking through this idea that there might be an opportunity to create a low-loss reserve fund for those types of companies that don't have collateral but do and are do need debt to finance their growth so having some kind of study to talk to figure out if that might be an option my name is Betsy Rosalith I'm the project director Vermont feed partnership Shelburne Farms in Nova Vermont and coordinator at the Vermont Farm to School Network and I'm here to highlight a few items on the school food curmin' brief that was made author by Abby Nelson at NOFA who's since retired but we're excited that Helen Warfett who's here has taken her place at NOFA and obviously these briefs are all very related and active and I just want to highlight the importance of raising the next generation of consumers who are loyal to Vermont products understand what real maple syrup tastes like or a Vermont tomato and the potential careers in food and agriculture can we just find out page 47 so schools spend $15.5 million each year buying food about a third of our schools self-identified purchasing over 20% from local producers about 49% in a survey done by the Department of Health stated they intend to increase that amount and we want a greater share of that $15.5 million to stay in the Vermont economy and with Vermont producers if we reach the goal that was set last year by your committees of 20% local purchasing by schools that would mean about $3 million annually going to Vermont producers or almost $5 million contributed to Vermont's economy so school purchasing alone isn't going to save Vermont farms but it's really a stable market consistent market and a vital part of the whole mix this survey by the Department of Health also shows in 2016 also showed that the top concerns to schools for purchasing local food were cost reliable supply and delivery and storage considerations so the buying and serving of local food can require more storage equipment, training of staff and schools generally don't prioritize that investment school meals as you probably know are expected to raise all the money they need and the meal reimbursements have not really kept pace with the cost of meals and school procurement has complicated federal rules which prompts many schools to go with a large distributor over local suppliers and the resistance to managing purchasing relationships with multiple farm partners it takes additional work so opportunities I think there's a theme we're hearing this morning that we've had some strong training and technical assistance programs that have assisted farmers with bidding on school contracts or working with school procurement criteria programs that have assisted school nutrition programs with everything from bidding to forward contracting with producers to just finding local sources to training staff to pay for the scratch and things like that but we're also working with producer associations on increasing purchasing a particular product changing a strategy to go with maple in every school and working with the sugar makers association or beef to school program working with the beef producers and the evidence shows that expanding school meal participation overall is translating into increasing local purchasing and we also have a network of food hubs who are providing a transparent supply chain of local product we will say that some of the results of consolidation in school districts have meant that there's an increase in volume because we're aggregating purchasing from multiple schools and that means they've become more interesting customers to some local farmers so that's been a positive in some districts last I just want to highlight four recommendations the first was to increase local purchasing with a per meal incentive to schools for buying Vermont products above a set threshold so there was a bill introduced last week as 273 we want to thank Senators Hardy, Pearson Starr and Polina for sponsoring that legislation and what we found in other states that have that that there's been a significant increase in local purchasing so we're very excited about that second is to increase education and matchmaker events for buyers and producers and third to fully fund the Vermont Farm to School Grants program with base funding at $500,000 to meet the demand for farm to school in every school last support the expansion of universal meals which increases participation in school meals which again has translated more local purchasing as there's less administrative burden and school nutrition programs have used that time and money to pursue purchasing Hunger Free Vermont found 64% of Vermont schools providing universal school meals reporting that it allowed them to increase their local purchasing so there's a connection there thank you questions questions from I have a quick question about the table here on 49 so it says fruit is purchased there's 49% next does that mean that just under half our schools are buying local fruit or does that mean our schools are buying just under half of their fruit see what I mean you guys put that together do you remember so that came from the farm school data harvest that's in here that is the percent of schools that are purchasing local fruit that's the harvest yes other questions that's going good thank you thank you very much you guys are awesome I just have a question about the universal school meals it's a big conversation it's something we do need to think about but in some of your information on 48 under the bottlenecks and gaps where it says the food costs are increasing faster than the federal and state meal reimbursement rates how would having a universal school lunch program help in regards to that aspect and we can get you far more detailed information but in general what we've seen in the schools that have moved to universal school meals that there's been an increase in participation which improves the finances it lessens the labor and cost of administering the program so they've been able to use that time some of that labor and funding then to put towards other opportunities so there's like a whole drill down that we could get into and we'd be happy to do that with you with Hunger Free Vermont yes did you have any other questions thank you thank you thank you very much would you like to introduce yourself and I think Nataka you're supposed to start off thank you thank you my name is Nataka White thank you for having me here it's good to see many of you again the lead author in the hemp brief to some issues raised in that I also want to thank my contributing writers this is the brief on hemp the still and currently varieties of cannabis in Vermont I've worn many hats over the last 26 years in the US hemp industry 24 of those have been here in Vermont as an entrepreneur, consultant writer currently I'm the operations manager at Vermont refrigerated storage hemp storage project a brief historical perspective very brief Vermont hemp program was established in 2014 so we're starting our seventh year production three factors I would say have led to Vermont's early success in hemp production first according to UVM research it was well adapted to Vermont's climate and thrives in the range of soil types that we have here second for over two decades the Vermont legislature has been very forward thinking and progressive in its approach to hemp and those of us in the hemp industry are very grateful for that and third the agency of agriculture has been exemplary in their administration of Vermont's hemp program and I'll add a fourth and that is that Vermont growers, processors and consumers of hemp are very passionate fast forward 2018 hemp sales have grown in the US to approximately 1.1 billion dollars and this is led by Kenna Video All CBD as many of you know this mostly comes from the hemp flowers following in Kenna Video All's footsteps other hemp products that are selling well on US and global markets personal care products from the oil which is from the seed nutritional food products from the seed and the oil and industrial products from stock, fiber they're using building materials, textiles biocomposites and more the name of the game in Vermont is cannabinoid production there are over 100 cannabinoids minified so far in the cannabis plant most of them are psychoactive or non intoxicating and it's the careful cultivation and largely organic production of hemp plants in Vermont and the care with which these compounds make it to market that is one of the advantages of what we're doing compared to some of the large western states hemp derived CBD is projected to be 2.6 billion dollar industry within two years it's a significant market that we're reaching into 90% of Vermont hemp growers are growing for these cannabinoids that still leaves about 100 other growers growing for fiber, seed feed and other other end uses from 2016 to 2018 so commercial production research began in 2014 commercial production state began in 2016 and in the consecutive two years the first Vermont farms and businesses that jumped in were richly afforded forgetting it early we saw CBD biomass that was to be extracted selling for between 100 and 150 dollars per pound that could bring in net 80 to 130 thousand dollars per acre these were real prices seen in 2018 this led to the hemp boom that we saw in 2019 and now there's an oversupply of high CBD hemp prices are falling nationally globally mass and now we're seeing 25 to 50 dollars per pound I will say that even at 20 dollars a pound under current under current production methods and given very low yields that could still be bringing in a net of 5000 dollars an acre so what we're lacking I would say is high quality and consistent supply of hemp seed for the northeast hemp genetics are very regionally adaptive and there are numerous issues both in compliance and in the bigger of the crop that would be addressed by a hemp seed certification program which could be led by the agency of agriculture in conjunction with UVM extension agricultural experience in hemp is lacking as is industry knowledge access to markets to support informed business decisions so drawing on a few recommendations at the end of the brief I would say investment in both private and state state sectors particularly in research for new and innovative products that could come from not just the cannabinoids but also fiber food and animal feed but also more education feasibility studies and product innovation programs are all essential we do need additional technical staff 900 growers are out there most of them looking for help most of them inexperienced in growing hemp I should say many of them is probably more fair we recommend two full time UVM extension positions to help support this educational effort that's needed there's quite a lot of room for equipment development best practices innovation and improvements that will lower the operating costs for bringing in these crops a statewide hemp trade association full disclosure I am helping to bring that into fruition it is in its formative stages the intent is to serve as an information policy and education hub clearing house for hemp market data access to national and global markets and take the lead in promoting Vermont hemp products we are we'll be seeking state appropriation to help leverage private funds to jumpstart the association until it reaches a while it's reaching for operational self-sufficiency as prices come down to earth Vermont's hemp sector cannot look bad the boom years are over but there's still long term opportunity for farming for cannabinoids farmers need to adjust their business model to where prices are headed improve their production practices which have touched on reduced waste lower cost and be proactive in the off season pursue alliance and alliances in and outside of the state and pursue new market opportunities we'll get questions after those three presenters yep and alright, let's go good morning thank you for having me here today I'm Anna Langer and the president of Vermont Creamery we are company, specialty cheese company located in western Vermont and have been in business for 35 years today I'm going to talk about goats, the goat industry and it's specifically about dairy goats and also meat goats earlier in this conversation we spoke about the evolution of the dairy economy and the importance of dairy for our agriculture landscape here in Vermont and if we reflect of this hundreds of years of tradition that we have in our state dairy farmers came together with milk and trying to come together to create value-added products to transform their milk and then bring this form of milk through water, through cheese to consumers and now we still have a lot of pressure in the cow dairy sector with commodity pricing with also impact at the global level on how dairy farmers are going to operate throughout the rest of the years the frame that the goat dairy industry is the opposite we started as a cheese maker with a product that people didn't know they were going to love or want to convince them to even try a little spoon of it and really over the past three decades built demand for goat cheese nationally and it's through great brands in Vermont but also other brands in the Midwest and on the West Coast and after 30 years of success in the market place and having finally consumer wanting to look at and try products like goat cheese now we have to go back and look at the supply chain and how do we leverage this market opportunity to premium product and take advantage of that demand to enhance the dairy landscape in Vermont additionally we also see an opportunity for goat meats one factor for you to know is 52% of the goat's meat consumed in the US right now is imported from either New Zealand or Australia so as we look at the goat industry as a whole we see opportunity now to enhance the goat's milk production in Vermont but also take a really vertical approach into the supply chain and also put the goat meats back from Vermont so couple of opportunity that we see with the goat farming model is we see dairy producer transitioning transitioning out of dairy farming as a whole also we came to transition some of their assets to either their children or bring on diversification on their farm or as with assets with barns that now are empty we are looking to convince them to bring on goats and bring on goats that will bring a premium price into their operation to give you an example goat's milk price within the state is paid at $50 per hundred rates compared to cow dairy price so there is a significant premium for the milk because we are able to pass this on to consumers through great branding and outstanding quality products the bottleneck that we have is the goat industry is a very young industry three decades old so there is a lack of expertise to goat dairy farming support think of vets, think of nutrition and I'm still the biggest bottleneck right now is access to capital with cow dairy producers that are looking to diversify they do not have extra cash they are already in debt to perhaps invest in a making parlor invest in new pens and buy a herd of goats anymore so what we are recommending is in that order a financial support mechanism for dairy producer who wants to diversify add on goats or transition meaning switch from cow to goats to buy a making parlor to buy animals and also to transition their infrastructure number two is create a position perhaps a GVM extension to start telling the story to cow dairy producer and I know there is a long long history of cow not only in the state but also in the country and so it's about telling the story not only of how to operate a goat dairy farm but also how to build sustainable profitable business model usually goat dairy producer are able to cash flow within 12 to 18 months so it's a much faster model number three we see the opportunity to really put Vermont on the map as the center of excellence for dairy goats right now the California UC Davis University has built a lot of expertise in goat genetics, nutrition we are talking with Vermont technical college to see if there is an opportunity to add on goat technical expertise into their program and last but not least as we develop this industry we need to think of the goat meat components of it and how do we help educate consumer and chef on Vermont goats so we can also enhance this part of the supply chain and inspire people to try and build meat thank you good morning my name is Jennifer Colby I'm the UVM Extension for Sustainable Agriculture my work is with grazing and livestock farms I work with farmers all over the state from dairy to poultry and we offer grass-fed beef and grass-fed beef represents this tremendous opportunity nationally and locally if you look at the top line forecast nationally we've grown in a four year period from a $17 million industry to a $272 million industry in sales, not Vermont nationally but it represents the trajectory that grass-fed beef is seeing in terms of demand grass-fed is a little bit tricky that is 100% grass finished all the way to graze for a large portion of this life and grain finished and this brief is an attempt to address both yes the combination of all of those things some of the recommendations so Vermont is really well positioned to address this growing demand we get water at different times of the year we have more water than many of the other beef producing areas of the country we grow grass really really well we have a long history of agriculture and beef farming here lots of dairy farmers have always kept a few beef calves as well and we're starting to see that in Vermont as well we've grown 37-ish percent in between the 2012 and the 2017 Ag Census years it's starting to connect with each other however with this greater demand it becomes a greater amount of competition international competition is a tremendous challenge outside of Vermont competition for Vermont and the northeast is also an incredible challenge too another piece is if you look at the graphics on page 31 not only are we seeing a decline in terms of acres of grazeable acreage but we also see that 80% of the farms raising beef are not doing so and making a profit doing that so we have this tremendous opportunity and yet what's going to really encourage farmers to want to get into this industry if it doesn't look like they're going to make any money doing that I think there's been some really excellent points brought up by the predecessors just saying if it's not profitable we don't want to do it so a complication also in beef or anything that's in livestock agriculture is going to include genetics it's going to include safety is going to include processing and in the context of beef processing we're highly seasonable that's one of the big challenges for us as well not only in grazing but also producing feed in the growing season through the non-growing seasons and the folks who are really good at that are the folks who are able to be more profitable we make money when we graze when we have to feed a stored feed it's very expensive to do that so the longer we can graze and the better we can graze the more profitable we're likely to be so I've talked about some of the bottlenecks and gaps one of the challenges is we do need better grazing management practices we do need more acreage so we can make so much more beef and grass on the acreage that we have often when we go to do technical assistance with a farm we can double and sometimes more than double the amount of feed that they produce on their land just by doing what they do differently than they've traditionally done it Vermont has a very long history it's one of our bottlenecks as well and I love it too but we have a very long history of presuming culturally that we have to do everything we have to go from birth to death we have to do the whole cycle we have to market we have to do everything we need to figure out places where we can fit differently so our recommendations have included a multi-year benchmarking program tracking program to understand better about our profitability to encourage shared learning cohorts of farmers I reported to you last year that we were sending folks to do a branching for profit shared school we've got some really great information back from them what the shared learning cohort really did for them there's a whole lot of opportunity around genetics and there's a really amazing opportunity we've got recommendations around partnering between beef and dairy farmers in a number of different ways both to share infrastructure to cross breed dairy and beef cows and to potentially work together on marketing opportunities as well so those are some of our recommendations thanks Jim thank you now we'll open that up for questions Brian so I have a question for Mr. White we've been looking at a seed certification bill the senate ag committee and taking testimony from a couple folks and I noticed one of your recommendations is for a three to five year rollout kind of a time period I think there's some consensus on the community that we would like to try to get something done this year so I'm just wondering where that three to five year time frame came from is there anything we could do this year yes start the process so seed and genetic development I'm not a seedsman but basically in order to reach stability so that the seeds I'm selling you and their parents and what you are expecting to get in your field leads up to its name is going to take several years it's just the nature of the genetics so you start by identifying those growers that ideally have some experience and certainly some interest and passion in developing genetics of regional value and over the next they could potentially put they'll put seed out into the field the first year but they won't be commercially at scale for three years probably okay I see someone there Tom, thank you senator I have a brass bed question I read recently that there's a certain nutritional benefits to brass bed B do you want to comment on that and are you using that in your marketing strategies technically no because I'm not marketing on behalf of the farmers but I can answer the question I'm also a diversified livestock farmer but not a beef producer yes there is data that shows that there's a suite of conjugated linoleic fatty acids which do tend to be higher from fresh forages particularly vasinic acid is one there's data to support this that it is so I should back up also regardless beef is a nutritionally dense food regardless of the production method itself the protein does not radically change the mineral content does not radically change depending upon the way that the meat itself is produced it's still a high value product we've seen more beneficial fatty acids in an animal that was finished on highly vegetated lush forages we've got some Vermont data on that we're actually starting to we have some funding to start collecting fatty acid samples from a variety of beef production systems we haven't started that yet but that's something that we're actually looking to do as well so I hope I answered your question yes you did Rose? I have a question about goats and also just to say that goats are super cute and if you don't have them in your Instagram feed you really should if you're scrolling through and you see goats it's just like always so fun so it's a great marketing opportunity a lot of goat producers have great Instagram feed but my question is about goat meat it's kind of crazy because they're cute but then we also want to eat them maybe and that is are there production facilities in Vermont that process goats and is that an issue or is there sufficient supply of those facilities? yeah so there is there is slaughtering houses that are taking goats and there is Vermont Shabang is developing a brand and doing byproduct right now their primary market is selling half car cast to restaurants in Boston and New York and they just launched a new product in partnership with Vermont Salumi which is a goat salumi so there is a beginning of processing but also marketing of this new product are there sufficient processing facilities at this point? at this point but as we scale something I missed to mention is by 2024 we are looking at to be at 25 million pounds of goat meat from a demand perspective I think Jasper Hale is also looking at another 5 million so when you look at 30 million pounds over the next couple years all that supply chain support system is to be scale so although right now it is sufficient it is not going to be one of these for years and just to add a point to that in the next round of briefs we are looking at the overall meat processing infrastructure in the state and we will have a brief specific to that and try to look at some of these projections where the industries, the different industries whether that is beef, whether that is sheep whether that is goat, where is that cons, where is that going and do we have a vision infrastructure we looked at this very extensively back in 2011 to 2014 and a bunch of infrastructure came online but we are getting the sense that we need to do another wave of that kind of infrastructure investment but we want to find what that looks like before we really jump in full that makes a lot of sense and I heard for goats in particular the new American market maybe a burgeoning market do sheep and goat processing is generally thought to be under capacity in the state of Vermont processors don't see that as profitable as say processing at scale as beef or pork so some people have lost I know some sheep producers have lost lots in processing facility because of that and goat processing right now is not at scale so capacity is meeting this current production production value yes I do Jen to what do you attribute the loss in grazed acres in the state of Vermont oh gosh I think it's coming from a lot of things I think it's it's been coming from dairy farmers aging and going out and I think it's also been pressure from housing development has been certainly part of it a lot of the farmers that reach out to us for grazing technical assistance have either purchased a farm that's grown up into scrub and trees it isn't considered any longer it could be that it was land that was played out it could be that it went out in the 80s you know I mean some of this has been trajectory for a really long time so the question we were just having a conversation about the grazing conferences last weekend about these numbers and where they come from so a conundrum here too is that young new farmers aren't necessarily in the USDA NAS agricultural statistics system and the folks who have been reporting may not be farming any longer so they may not be reporting so this may be under there we're not entirely sure and I realize these are the best numbers we have to work with it's not that I'm going to criticize them but there's are we declining in some ways because we're not counting what is actually happening so I hope that's true I hope that's actually true yeah me too well if we could get more goats on that land that's sort of turning back it would straighten that land right now I'm going to get some hemp I will say I'm a sheep producer I had to go small remnants I'm a sheep producer and I purchased an old farm that had just run down a few years ago how many more goat farms or goats could we could you handle in your production of goat milk without we don't want to cause that and use it as a commodity market absolutely not and I think that's why for months dairy industry exploits is to really differentiate it with the quality of the product that they have and you look at the cheeses that we have some of the best cheese in the world and it's really created those using those products to drill back value into the supply chain I think it's very important so we have to stay high quality premium price so then we can't be a premium price for goats to make we need ten more farms over the next five years with four hundred to five hundred goats each and do I have I read that you you had milk brought from Quebec or Canada now because there is not enough in the state of Vermont to support the growth of the consumer demand right now we are partnering goat farms in Quebec and Ontario and a question in regards to hemp we took some testimony just with yesterday maybe on a lot of hemp producers are putting black plastic down to help with the weed problem and black plastic is not very good to recycle we haven't figured out anybody that will take it and I'm wondering is there's something that could be made from hemp fiber that you could use to cover the plants that would you know be biodegradable so it would go into the soil rather than having additional plastics laying around and having trouble to get rid of it I think you bring up two things come to mind one is that's a research question and plenty of opportunities to look at how fiber can fit into existing systems blue production etc so I don't have an answer directly to that but it's something among other questions how can hemp be utilized how can hemp get grown in Vermont best utilized or probably not be an agricultural fabric producing state where there are thousands of acres being produced these are the kinds of farms that are going to be contributing the raw material kind of product the other point I'd make is from farms that I visited this year and worked on as well hemp farms there's more plastic being used than is necessary or to put it this way given on another year or two I think we are going to see less plastic being used because the equipment and the methodologies that would replace plastic are now being understood and utilized at a start this year many many people were late in getting crops in the ground and the go to was plastic and that was the default being only three years into commercial production of hemp that's what we're seeing but there is a huge opportunity to develop new methods that work I just have a quick goat question I think we heard last week there were what 36 or 37 goat aries in the state and I wonder how many of those have transitioned from being cow aries to goat aries not that many not that many and I think it's it has to do with you you got to prove to a farmer that you can make money out of whether it's a cow or a goat so we really needed to vet that financial model first gather reliable data what we found is 400 goats it's the benchmark to support the family and we want to make sure that as we start communicating and recruiting farmers that we present a business model that is viable and sustainable so right now we have a pretty important project going on with a farm a fifth generation cow dairy producers that came to us and said if we don't do anything different this is the last generation farming and so we I ran into an office and said how are we going to do this and so we could be potentially looking at our first food transition in May of this year from 300 cow to 1,000 goats I'm very excited about that one do they have robots that melt the goats too? Rotary robots they are pretty popular in Europe and in Canada but you have to have this gift so it exists there's robots for goats actually there's a follow up to this goat conversation and as somebody who used to milk goats we had a farmer 8 or 10 years ago in the state house who had heard about goats and he began to transition from cows to goats and actually for a while the goats were carrying the cows and ultimately went completely to goats he had some problems and it had to do with the nature of goats and how their PI counts could be high at certain times when they're in heat you have a real necessity potentially for two barns in order to keep them separate so I'm wondering how much technical assistance is available to people who are potentially considering transitioning so that they have a full understanding of what they're going to get into you raised a really important issue there is not and that's why we're looking to partner with Vermont Technical College to really build this body of knowledge because we bring a demand but we have to make sure that those producers who transition are successful financially and also with the right support exactly to that point Other questions? If not Thank you all very much for participating Thank you so much for having me in the presentation So in wrapping up I just want to thank you for your time here great questions and we hope that as we go forward in the session that you'll take advantage of these amazing lead authors and the contributors many of whom you've heard from today because they really care and they really are interested in being helpful to you all to advance these recommendations as I said earlier there was just a lot of excitement about the opportunity to participate and to develop this report and a real understanding that there's that we really are at this inflection point within Vermont Agriculture and so with that inflection point comes a lot of risk a lot of anxiety a lot of fear a lot of trepidation but also the flip side is a lot of opportunity to really explore and dig into and I think we have built as you heard from Ella Chapman we have really invested in and built an incredible support system around our front business we need more of it as we continue to grow the sector but we have a really strong foundation from which to build we are so far ahead of so many other states in that regard and a lot of other states are very envious of what we have going on here so do you want to cover the next steps? Yes, so those 119 recommendations that are included which is a lot and this is quite a document I actually felt it today for the first time and I was surprised at its breadth so there's a lot of information in here and you've heard just a subset of the the contributors and authors sharing what they know and went into creating the brief topics that they were a part of of those 119 recommendations there is a portion of those that are policy related not all some are about program development that can happen organically some of it is about the support structure for the industry or information gathering one of the issues that would necessarily be appropriate for policy development but there's probably a third of the recommendations in 2030 in here that are policy related and it's an opportunity for you to look at those over the coming session or years to see what opportunity might exist there within your conversations and that may be part of what additional looks like from these lead authors and others it's great that you can kind of flip through and see who the lead author was as well as the contributors to those specific briefs from the timeline as we mentioned in the beginning these 23 are just the beginning so there's another 30 some that will come over the next year that are equally as important and equally as complex you know 100 to 200 additional recommendations that will come out of those briefs we suspect so Ellen I think you can walk through the timeline for those 32 as it's designed if you flip to page 11 we have a little graphic there tell you how 2020 is shaping up so as Abby mentioned we have this additional 32 product market issue briefs that are currently under development I think they're first drafts that we have to do next week so we are well underway my team is like oh great we get to do this again after what we just went through but we're up for the challenge so what will happen is once those drafts work their way through first drafts second draft final and layout and such then over the summer months you'll see there we're planning a stakeholder engagement process we'll be reaching back out to all the different farm to plate network members trade associations, private sector folks that have been engaged in various stages to be able to then show the entire breath and say okay of all these recommendations of all these opportunities that we've identified and these gaps of bottlenecks what are the highest of the highest priorities yes so we want to try to build additional consensus around what is the vision for the next five to ten years what is the roadmap for the next five to ten years and of all the things we could do if we could only do some small subset what is the highest priority and what is the level of both financial and human capital need to be able to pull that off that will then go into an actual a more sort of classic you probably look for an actual plan that will become the farm to plate 2.0 plan and we will deliver that to you next January 15th with that additional refinement that process will also lead to the farm to plate network to be restructured so remember last week when we were in talking about the farm to plate plan in a report there's a diagram of all the different groups of organizations that come together around specific set of recommendations that will get reorganized and repopulated with organizations and private sector individuals and agency staff that want to then really tackle a number of these recommendations so those recommendations will then have a home of people to actually be moving them forward especially those ones that don't need a policy fix or something like that but a more market development more marketing oriented more product and they will have a home and a group of people to be working on them so that's what we've got on deck for the next 12 months Chris I just want to echo the thanks for everybody I look forward to digging through this very much I'm curious if we was talking a lot about farm to plate and I feel like the summary of today is more like farm to market and I can't help but wonder you know we still are importing the humongous portion of what we eat here in the state of what our institutions are serving etc and is that something you didn't focus on here intentionally or is there I mean the farm to school stuff was very clear but I just wonder if you could comment are we sort of shifting strategies or is that strategy considered well underway or I'd like to understand that because it hasn't been a big focus today yeah it's true we didn't there was only so much time we felt we could hold your attention this morning to run through these briefs and you've done well and I think the market briefs would actually be a really good if I were to suggest conversation to have in committee the four that were developed in this first round were selected intentionally because they represent where we have the greatest success and where we see the greatest opportunity retail markets is something that came up over and over again as a theme about real opportunity for growth in both the brief work as well as some of the recent market development work that's happened at the agency looking specifically at maple and specialty cheese sort of really looking at how do we build these retail market opportunities so I think there's some really robust conversations that could happen around the four that were included in this first round and then there's a four additional markets that will be in this second round that we'll start to get to look at and I would just also say that I don't think the play part is irrelevant at this point like we haven't shifted but there is a consumer demand briefing here that's actually really good and looks at the consumer trends because I think what we've really tried to grow here in our awareness of the entire food system that goes from farm all the way to plate is that every part of that supply chain is important to focus on to make sure that we're really hitting on all cylinders and what we have seen has been a lack of insufficient focus on how consumer trends are changing and then how do you get that information back to producers so that they can adapt to that changing marketplace knowing that they're going to have to go through the market channel in order to get that product to the consumer and so I think what you'll see over the coming year is a lot more conversation about how are we going to do those linkages better? How do we make sure that information gets to who needs it better and faster? Do we follow up? I just wanted to grab it Don't worry. Are we ever going to get to the point where someone goes to the store and just buys lettuce that happens to be made in Vermont as opposed to the notion that people will be demanding it that's where I there's obviously people at the leading edge who are we need them to be building this demand but it just strikes me that part of the reason I focus on schools and institutions is that sort of seems the strategy to build infrastructure that might get us to the point of I don't know where it's from I just went to the supermarket and it turns out the supermarket took care of it being local. Do you see what I mean? Absolutely. I assume that's part of the overall vision. Yes, although Vermont will never be able to produce all of what we want to eat in all market channels. We're just too small. We don't have the land base. We don't have the infrastructure. It's just not there. I'd settle for 50%. It's reasonable. There is a regional vision to get to 50% caloric intake by 2060 but that is going to require 6 million more acres to come under production and in the region all across the six states a lot of which would come from Maine and more acreage in Vermont and it would require a shift away from certain types of agriculture production and into more grass based oriented agriculture. So there are those visions out there. What's lacking is an actual drilling down what is Vermont's share of that and how would we actually do that? Plus we got to get away from and you have cheap food So what I found eye-opening Chris was and I don't know if it was presented to you as well but when Ellen and the Jake were in our committee last week there was sort of a side pamphlet and I don't think I got the heart the local foods wholesale market assessment which indicated I mean it's just eye-opening what the how complicated it is in a way to get into the wholesale market and the price point so that $4.89 pint of cherry tomatoes is worth about $1.38 ultimately to the farmer because of the distributor, the retailer and all the trade allowances that get added on. It's really challenging. So we're going to wrap this up and another little thing that you may want to look at we will have to is program new things new initiatives that might have to take two years to get done rather than one and sort that out so we don't get headed down a road that there's no end to. So with that I want to thank all you folks for coming I want to acknowledge Linda Lehman who didn't get introduced earlier and our staff attorney for both committees Michael O'Grady that sat through this and will be a great assistant in the future and Thank you for the opportunity to do this. It was difficult to meet the timeline but ultimately it was really a worthwhile project so thank you for the opportunity Thank you.