 Ellen, you're here. We're a little bit early, but if you're ready to go, we're ready for you. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity. And I have to say, I am so excited about what the governor said in his budget address for Working Lands Enterprise Fund. I mean, if we can hold it, that's going to be awesome. I know. I know. Actually, I was in a conversation with Anson Tevitz just before the governor went on, and he was giving me a heads up that that was going to happen. And there's also a council for ag innovation or something that he didn't include in his budget speech, but that's part of the plan. And so, you know, it's really exciting. Yes. Madam chair, I think there's a couple of new members who don't know me. What would you like us to do? Oh, OK. Is this the first time you've been here? I can't even remember. Yeah. Yeah. All right. What I would like to do then, Ellen, is we'll introduce ourselves to you, featuring in particular the new folks, because you know most of us. So I'll go around the little tiles here, starting with Tom. Hi, Ellen, Tom Bach, I represent the towns of Chester Andover, Baltimore and North Springfield. All right, John. Hi, Ellen. I guess we're going to see you tomorrow, too. I'm John O'Brien. I represent Royalton and my hometown of Tunbridge. Great, Vicki. Hi, Ellen. Good to see you. Representative Vicki Strung from Albany, and I represent seven towns in Orleans, Caledonia, one. All right. Now, one of our new members, Heather. Hi, Ellen. I'm Heather Superna and I represent Barnard, Pomfret, Quiche and West Hartford. And I'm going to go to our next new member, and that's Henry Perle. Henry, go ahead. Hey, Ellen, Henry Perle here. And I represent Danville, Peachamon, Cabot. And I think we work together a little bit on the VTC project there. So good to see you again. You too. Great, Rodney, go ahead. Rodney Graham, I represent Wampstown, Washington, Orange, Corinth, Hirsch, here in Chelsea. Thanks, Rodney. Terry. Terry Norris, I represent Benson, Orwell, Shoram and Whiting. And you know me. I represent Athens, Brookline, Grafton, part of Northwest Mr. Olive Rockingham in my hometown of Wyndham. I know my committee members are so sick of hearing me say that. All right, Ellen, tell us about what you've been up to. Sure. So thank you, Representative Partridge. And just so you all know, in case you don't yet have it on your calendars, but hopefully you do, we will be having a press conference that you'll all be invited to on February 8th to release the new Vermont Agriculture and Food Systems Strategic Plan 2021 to 2030, a new 10 year plan that came out of the Vermont Farm to Plate process. Doing that very collaboratively with the Agency of Agriculture and a whole host of subject matter experts in the field across the state. We're very excited to be releasing that. This is the one only printed copy that currently exists on the planet. The rest are being printed as we speak. So you will be getting this mailed to you. So when it comes, guard it with your life. Yes, that's for sure. We're very excited to be done with it. It was 18 months in the making. So we'll be doing a press release, a press conference to release it on February 8th. And then on the 11th, we'll be in for three hours to talk with you and walk through it. So I wasn't originally planning to meet with all of you until then, but something has arisen that we wanted to put in front of you for consideration sooner than that. And so what I'm going to do is share my screen. I over the fall was talking with Representative Portridge about this project that I've been involved with now for about seven years, which is a regional effort with our counterparts in the other five New England states. So the work that we're doing with Vermont Farm to Plate, there are aspects of it that are happening in the other five New England states. And out of COVID and even before COVID hit, we were really thinking about how do we work together to really increase our overall regional food supply? And so this project idea of New England feeding New England was born. And what I'm going to do is just walk through a couple of slides here. And then there's some language that we're offering up to you all for consideration to put into some legislative language related to emergency planning and preparedness. So I will I will get there in a second. And Linda has put all of the documents up on your web page so you can have a look. So what this I want to sort of the why we're why we're doing this. This is a map that shows the flow of food in the United States based on the US Agency of Transportation has a data set called the commodity flow survey that they do every five years. And what this shows is literally the movement of food on rail, on roads, over bridges in the air, all the ways in which it travels. And what's interesting, what I wanted to focus on is really look, take a look at New England, take a look at the concentration of the lines along the I-95 corridor. That's where the bulk of the food in and out of the region follows these paths. So think about now the potential for climate related events. Think about COVID-19 in terms of where, for instance, in the Midwest, you have so much concentration in the Midwest of of meat processing plants or California with its fires this summer, being in the Central Valley, so much food coming from there. It all flows, a lot of it flows east and it flows to us. But when you think about climate events, you think about pandemics and then you think about what you saw there on the map with the I-95 corridor. We're like at the end of the road, so to speak. We have lots of ends of roads here in Vermont, but we are as a region, the end of the United States when it comes to the movement of food. And so and then layer on top of that the fact that there has been this 30, 40 year consolidation within the food system that has happened, that has concentrated most of our production in the hands of a small, very small number of agribusiness multinational corporations. And what that leads to is some real probabilities for our region. And if you so if you take a look at the kind of food production that is that takes place over over New England, for instance, you can see here in that first column that that New England across the six states produces 7.5 billion pounds of food. And you can take a look at the way that that's broken down, obviously, mostly in dairy, but then also some amounts in vegetables and and other related products. If you take a look at in Vermont in the last column, you can see out of our Vermont produces 2.9 billion pounds of food, 2.7 billion pounds of which is dairy. And then you can see what happens in other ways. Maine has in the bulk of its production is in vegetables and in vegetables, it's primarily potatoes. So another way to look at this is like this pie chart here, which shows that the total pounds across New England, these different pie charts, the first one on the left, in terms of how each of the states, how much food is produced in each of the six New England states. And then of that food, what is the percentage of different products? And that's that pie chart on the right. Another way to look at it, the same data is like this. So the question becomes from a food vulnerability perspective or a food security perspective, I should say the ability to feed ourselves or at least a growing share of what we eat from within New England. We have a lot of work to do in terms of being able to strengthen a whole range of product categories with greater production. As as as Representative Pearl knows, and many of you, we Vermont is the is the is the the milk jug of the entire region. We ship Vermont milk all over the region and Vermont's milk supply basically is almost enough to to feed the region from dairy products perspective. But we can't survive on dairy alone. And so there's a lot of additional products that Vermonters eat on a regular basis that we could actually be producing in greater quantities here. So another way to think about this and this comes from that that food flows data that I showed you with a map at the start. New England produces seven point five billion pounds. We export sixty six. So we we we we we export sixty six billion pounds. We import seventy one billion pounds. So what that means is that this food is flowing in that region. So, for instance, whether that's Vermont's dairy, whether that's Maine's lobsters and other seafood, for instance, they they they harvest all of the seafood and then they ship it out to across the country and then they import a whole bunch of other types of seafood back into the region. So this is one of the fundamental things we're questioning is if we're we're producing seven point five billion pounds, but we're importing seventy one billion pounds. How might we rethink about our regional food system in a way that tries to get both circles a little bit more in balance? We're not saying here Vermont or New England can be an island. We can't we can't we can't produce oranges. We like our chocolate. We like our coffee. So we're not saying that at all. But we're saying is what would it look like if we actually increase the amount of food that was flowing with that was produced in the six state region that flowed within the six state region instead of just being exported and then also imported. And that export number, I should say, the reason I got tripped up I was trying to remember a lot of that is because there's there's food that comes in from Europe and from Canada that flows through us to other places. OK, that explains it, Ellen. That was that was confusing to me. If we're only producing seven point five billion, how can we be exporting sixty six? Yeah, sorry. That this is again, this is the flow. So it's like, where does it land and then where does it move to? Great. So the six states have a formal farm to plate and then we're collaborating with a regional group called Food Solutions New England, and we basically designed this project called New England Feeding New England and the three main thrusts are what would it look like to create some milestones in each of the six states that in total, we might be able to get to 35 percent regional food consumption at 35 percent by 2035. So right now in Vermont, we know that we're somewhere north of 15 percent of all food dollars is spent on Vermont, grown, raised, produced food, but what would happen? What would it look like? What would we need to do to get to 35 percent across the whole region with all six states contributing to that? And again, some of the states, obviously, like Vermont and Maine, are going to contribute more on the production side and the consumption side is going to happen more on the southern New England states, because that's where the population is. We want to, of course, do this with climate friendly production practices because one of the one of the challenges that we're going to be continuing to face is climate events. We don't if we're going to increase production, we don't want to be increasing the greenhouse gas emissions and and and things that then contribute to even more climate change. So that's another piece of the puzzle. And then thirdly, the third circle, and this is what I really want to talk about and what the legislation could include is around more emergency preparedness, emergency management, planning for food security. And I want to just define what we're talking about in terms of food security because the official definition of food insecurity is when a household, for instance, or a person does not have enough food available to eat or does not have the resources needed to acquire food in order to have the level of caloric intake that they need, right? So there's a food insecurity, basically hunger. Food security, so so we want to be contributing to solving the hunger crisis in our in our region, in our state. But at the same time, we're using this language of food security to address issues of supply chain vulnerabilities of trying to get so that more of our production is happening within the region and staying within the region to shorten those supply chains, to strengthen supply chains so that we can be a little bit more balanced in that food flows in and out of the region. So the goal of this project, expand, fortify the region's food supply and distribution system to ensure the availability of adequate, affordable, socially and culturally appropriate products under a variety of rapidly changing climate, environmental and public health conditions. So this project is currently being funded by this. It's very early stage. We're in a planning phase, but we've gotten some funding from the John Merck Fund and from a grant from the USDA from USDA. And so as I mentioned, there's three objectives here, which is to really look at what's and this direct this one directly relates to you all and what we're talking about today. What are the policy conversations and best practices for conducting emergency feeding operations in each state, as well as responses to COVID-19 induced supply chain disruptions? And then how do we connect these practices to existing climate action, resiliency or emergency preparedness plans in each of the states and the region and codify those approaches for the future so that when there's another pandemic or when there's another climate event, we're more prepared than what we started COVID-19 with, if having plans in place to mobilize really quickly from an emergency perspective. But then how do we also just ensure that we don't have so many emergencies because we're planning to increase production. So we're, again, meeting more of our food needs from within the region. So and that speaks to this component of it, which is, as I mentioned, getting to 35 percent by 2035. And part of that will include setting some milestones state by state for what is going to be needed for production purposes. And then obviously you increase production. You got to have the infrastructure for that, whether that's food processing facilities, whether that's meat processing facilities, storage, distribution routes, more distribution companies and the financing to support all that. So it's not just like, oh, let's just, you know, put on another million acres worth of diversified vegetable and livestock. And we're good to go. There's all of the things that come along with that. And then, as I mentioned, the third part of of this work is around greenhouse gas emissions and making sure that we're not contributing to the problem of climate change as we're addressing it. So here's the opportunity is to contemplate putting together some legislative language in whatever bill you feel is the right one, but the essence of it would be to instruct the agency of agriculture to expand what's included already in the Vermont emergency management plan, the agency. And specifically to call for supporting agricultural and process food production expansion in the state in order to mitigate the impacts of food supply chain disruptions in the future and to create plans which will include instructions for making food price available to residents as well as instruction for increasing food production within the state. So this gets up to just overall growing the sector and then developing collaboration to do that work in collaboration with all the other appropriate state agencies and departments as well as the nonprofit community, specifically the emergency feeding organizations, the charitable food organizations, and then and note that it may mean that there's other parts of the state's emergency management plan that also need to get tweaked in order to have everything really all in alignment. And then, secondarily, to instruct the agency of ag to work with partners to collect information about all the emergency feeding operations that were coordinated and in essence stood up like the Vermont Everyone Eats program during COVID-19 and capture those lessons learned at best practices so that we're even more prepared for emergency events in the future. So in essence, it's taking what has has arisen because of COVID-19, capturing the lessons learned, developing plans so that we're ready for the next time when it happens and then really making a concerted effort to create plans and then follow with investment dollars to strengthen Vermont's food system in service to an even broader regional food system. So we're feeding more Vermonters with Vermont food and we're also feeding more New Englanders with Vermont food. And the exciting thing here as representative Partridge knows is that where my counterparts in the other five states are also trying to get language just like this adopted by their legislatures and getting their emergency management entities to do the same thing so that we would actually have something very similar from an architecture standpoint in place in all six states. So we would love for Vermont to to do this and work with you on doing this. I can say that I talked, I spoke with already with the folks at the agency, with Abby and Deputy Secretary Eastman and Secretary Tellitz and Diane Boffville. And they're all in agreement that this is doable, like they don't see this as like anything that they wouldn't be supportive of. It would be this is just normally part of what they do. Anyways, whenever there's an emergency, they update their emergency management plans as part of what we do that gets done as a state when there are emergencies, those plans get updated. And so if you what I am on your web page, I included the last annex, which was passed last February, it was updated last February. And you will notice in there that it really reflects sort of water quality, high water type events, like think Tropical Storm Irene. You know, it's really about like what happens when a whole bunch of of fields that have vegetables and it flood with water that's that may not be suitable, you know, that might be safe for then human consumption. Like what do you do with that? Or there's an avian flu outbreak. What do you do with that? So and these emergency management plans really sort of provide a checklist of action steps that agency personnel then are mobilized and do. And so what we're saying is let's take a look at could we add to that plan? A component around this notion of food security and planning for greater food resilience and shortening of supply chains and strengthening our overall ag production. So that's the essence of what we ask is there's some language. There's a on your web page. There is a one pager that I put together for your consideration and it includes the language that's like this quote is directly from the current annex so that you can see how it fits, how the agency annex fits within the larger emergency management plan and then some some language just conceptually and then indicating that we want to capture what what has happened amazingly since COVID-19 started and then some links to those plans and such. So that's all there for your consideration. I'm happy to take questions about the concept. I'm not sure, you know, like, is this a standalone bill? Does this go into your general on the best ag bill that you do every year? Like all of that is obviously your call. But I just wanted to offer this up and ask that maybe this gets included in your work. Well, Alan, thanks so much. This is really exciting and helpful to see this on paper. And I know that over the last couple of years, we've asked the Agency of Agriculture to do a heck of a lot and including you. And we're going to be hearing more about this in February, one of your big projects, but also the grant making and what have you. And I'm glad to hear that the ag folks think that they could do this. My inclination because we are all well, those of us who have been around a while know what happens to the housekeeping bill and how it's fraught with intrigue and and excitement, especially around the end of the year. And, you know, we'll have a discussion as a committee, but it seems to me that probably it makes sense for us to do this as a separate bill and potentially get it through the process a little bit faster. I for for new folks, do you want to just describe very briefly what an annex is, maybe even for some of us older folks too, but what is an annex? That's a good question. I'm not an expert on this by any stretch. All of this is new lingo, right? It's a whole other vocabulary, but I think of it as sort of like an addendum or part of an appendix. Each agency has their own set of plans for the things that they are primarily jurisdictionally responsible for, right? So in the Department of Health has their whole bunch of things that they have to do. So this is, in essence, what the agency of agriculture has jurisdictional leadership with, so to speak, within this larger state emergency management plan. And I would really highly recommend you reach out to Diane Vothfeld because my understanding is she's the person on point at the agency that could really describe this way better than I can. And and so it lists in there, for instance, the other agencies and departments that they collaborate with, but the exciting thing about these annexes from one of them, one of the many exciting things is that you may know that when that state agency personnel, they do exercises. So like tabletop exercises, like what happens if there is another big tropical storm, like tropical storm, I mean, they come in, they like will do a two day exercise to like practice how this, how they would, what they would do, the chain of command, the information flows, all of those kinds of things, what would it look like if there was a state of emergency and they got mobilized? That that's the kind of this. Working on something like this around food security would elevate the whole concept of of preparing for increased food production in the state to a level we've never gone to before. You know, it's it would be it's as if these worlds were completely separate. And we're saying is like, no, there's actually some connection points here that we want to plan for. Thanks, Ellen. I'm wondering if we have some questions from the committee for Ellen Vicki. Ellen, we can't help but be excited because you're excited. And to see how thick that is, I know the amount of work. I don't know the amount of work really. But when you were talking and I did think back as we all think back to those early covid weeks and toilet paper suddenly became a shortage. I mean, you must have had all these things in mind, potential shortages. And when you showed that map of all those lines, I mean, I wouldn't know where toilet paper comes from, but in the bigger picture, when you're mentioning food, our food systems, it can include paper products. And we've been talking about shortages for animals with hay and grain. So as you're thinking about the bigger picture, I'm sure those things are coming into play. Could you just elaborate a little bit on how we even know sometimes what would be a shortage? We don't sometimes. So how do you how does that play into everything? Yeah, it's a good it's a great question, you know. And and, you know, I think the most relevant example is really around when covid-19 outbreaks happened in the meat processing plants out in the Midwest before the President President Trump's order that they all go and work no matter what, even if they were ill, you know, there were a couple of weeks there where a lot of animals had to get slaughtered because there was no way that they were actually going to ever make it to market because there was not enough processing capacity across the countries, but in the Midwest in particular, the really big meat packing houses. And so, you know, like many of us had this understanding in our head, but we've never lived through it before. We've never actually seen it really, truly happen. And I remember hearing from Secretary Tevitz that he was getting contacted by legislators in Massachusetts saying, hey, can Vermont ship more Vermont beef to Massachusetts? Because we, you know, our shelves are empty. And so like all it just I think what we're at a moment in time where there is an opening to have this conversation that didn't exist before. And we've seen firsthand what this means. And you're absolutely right. There's some of this stuff we can't totally predict what's going to happen. But if we could increase our proposition is if we could increase the amount of regionally produced food that is circulating within the region, we would be less prone to these shocks that happen in the system when nationally something big happens, you know, like think about all the vegetables that come from the Central Valley of California and think about the fires that happened this summer, like, you know, how do we how do we mitigate? How do we plan for and reduce the risks? It doesn't solve the problems, but it reduces the risk. Does that answer your question? Great. Thanks, Vicki. Great question. John, go ahead. Ellen, this whole conversation makes me think of beer in that, you know, I know for farm to plate that's been an important contributor as far as consuming local agricultural products. And I think that would be an interesting model to study as far as, you know, in the last 20 years, how sort of intensely local beer has become. So if you look at New England, it would be interesting to know what percentage now New England drinks of New England beer and not just being neutral on whether it's even a good thing, but it's it's interesting as far as it's made in New England, a lot of it, a lot more of it. If you look at the shelves in the Hannahford's or Shaw's, it's it's amazing how much it's New England based now. And and also just that that, you know, all those blue lines are incredibly shortened by by something like this. And I would say most New Englanders are paying more for local local beer, which if we could if we could clone that with all the you know, the various foods you have in mind, that would be a great model. Yeah, great point. And and, you know, part of this is, you know, to go without saying really, it's all of them, the economic impacts that this would have, right? Because it's most food production happens in our rural communities and our and our rural economy and that and the more that those dollars are circulated within the Vermont economy or within the regional economy, the more that that continues to build the economic base of our region. And, you know, obviously, there's an awful lot of homeowners that can't afford a four pack of Heddy Topper. But as and so we have to address that as well. But again, if we're increasing production and and able to increase the profitability of Vermont food, regional food, that that should inform wages that that food workers and farmers and such are are able to get from the process. So I know it's a little bit more challenging in the in the milk industry. Representative Poro, because you don't control the price prices that are paid for the milk that is produced. But I think I think there's there's just a greater opportunity to strengthen the overall rural economy, the more that we're able to have greater control over our own food production. Are there any other questions for Ellen? Comments, Vicki, you go ahead and I'm just going to duck. I got to let the dogs out, so I'll be right back. Go ahead. Thank you. Just a kind of thought, Ellen, when it when it comes to this whole big picture you're dealing with, how much of it would be consumer education in terms of even as Vermonters, I don't anticipate these things. So I shop a week at a time a lot of times and really is as a person who should be more thoughtful about thinking forward, I should have more than a week's worth of groceries in the house. And there's just so many things when it comes to how we consume products as well as how we buy them and have them available. I'm just thinking about the bigger picture of education to all of us about food availability and how we shop or local places to have it even with our emergency suppliers of Red Cross. You know, all these different aspects that work together. Yeah, no, it's a great point. And you're absolutely right. There needs to be more work done to educate consumers about the opportunity of buying more local, what that can look like in all the different ways. You may recall we've been in talking about our rooted in Vermont consumer campaign, which is really about celebrating all the different ways that Vermonters consume local, whether that's through foraging or hunting or fishing or backyard gardening, there's there's all a whole range. It's not just about going to the grocery store, but you're absolutely right, like having some greater awareness about how to how to shop, how to prepare food. Although I will say, boy, there's been, again, a huge opportunity that has been capitalized during covid. I mean, more of us are cooking at home, thinking about these things, practicing or improving our cooking skills because of out of necessity. Right. And and I think what we've also seen is a lot of consumers during the pandemic have really turned to their local producers. Farmers down the road increases in sales at farm stands, for instance, and bundling of multi farms coming together to bundle their products into box packages because people are wanting a greater variety than what one farm can produce. All of those things that we've seen happen over the last 10 months, I think has has come out of the fact that out of necessity and people not feeling in this particular case, not feeling is safe to go to a grocery store. So they feel safer knowing exactly where their food comes from. You know, they read the articles about the meat processing plants and there was and because of all the attention paid to it, there were a lot more photographs taken of what the inside of a meat processing plant in the Midwest looks like the really big ones. And I think that must have informed some people's like local meat has has gone through the roof in terms of people buying. So all of that is is part of this mix of the kind of conversations that we need to be happening alongside the actual production side of things. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Heather, go ahead. I think this is such a systemic and intersectional issue when you're talking about it, and I think that when you're talking about how there was such an increase in folks wanting to purchase from local producers, that is absolutely true. As a small vegetable farmer myself, we noticed those increases. But I think you're so right to note who was able to purchase that. And I'm just also knowing that one in three Vermonters was food insecure during the pandemic. And I'm wondering how we can continue to balance that conversation and recognition of farmers who need to be paid a livable wage, but equally noticing that those who are in rural communities are disproportionately marginalized when it comes to access to nutrient dense food. And I think that economic portion is such a hard part to acknowledge when we are talking about food security. And I know it's a conversation that will need to be continued. But if you had any thoughts on that, you are you really raise it's such an important point. Thank you for for doing that. And that's part of what, you know, was so unbelievable from an outcomes perspective with Vermont, everyone eats. I mean, here you have this, you know, perfect program of all these Vermonters, more Vermonters needing food. And you have restaurants who needed to be keeping their employees employed. And you had farmers who had lost their institutional and restaurant sales coming together around in their communities to basically produce these amazing meals that got distributed to way more people than normally would have access, say, their food shelf or or food from the product that came from the Vermont Food Bank. So I don't and I have been part of that, the statewide task force that's been part of that program. So I don't think that it's necessarily a long term solution. You know, we were just talking yesterday on our on our weekly call about the fact that we've got funding in place now to get through the end of June with the program, which is terrific, as long as the emergency declaration is still in place. But we all recognize that's not a sustainable model. But there's there's lessons to be learned there. There's aspects that we were playing around like, well, well, how could you keep this piece going, you know, which is really about that community connection? You know, you have all these like little food pantries that are popping up outside of churches, for instance, for people to just, you know, no stigma attached. You just if you need something, just go pick it up, you know, and people dropping stuff off to be to to to leave in these little pantries. Again, that doesn't get at the systemic issues that you're raising. But in terms of a meeting emergency needs of helping people who are hungry to get the food that they need now, I think we've there's just a really a much greater awareness about what it really takes to do that. We are hearing from evaluations that are being done for what everyone eats about how restaurants had didn't have any idea about the whole emergency feeding program and how now they're so much more aware of that and want to continue in some way to support their community members that that need help. But, you know, the bottom line is we have systemically with Vermonters and and and workers across this country have had stagnant wages for 20, 30 years and so and as a result can't afford the food and what it actually costs to produce. And as you say, farmers oftentimes themselves are food insecure or have really really struggle because of what they're paid for for what they produce and the cost of production in this region. So not saying anything you don't already know, it's just simply to say it is complex, there is lots of moving parts and pieces. And in the plans that's coming to you, we've tried to address all of that. So there's a chapter on labor and workforce. There's a chapter on consumer education and consumer case through 12, as well as as adult consumer education. There's a chapter on food security. There's there's all sorts of product related briefs there. There's we're getting it. We actually brought in, for instance, the impact of the lack of affordable childcare for farm families is a huge barrier for a huge challenge or the lack of adequate rural transportation or alternative means of transportation for food workers, like restaurants, for instance, you have someone that works at a restaurant and they don't have a car and their shift ends at midnight. There's no way for them to catch a bus to get home. You know, like there's all of these pieces of the puzzle that are just inadequately addressed at this point that are real problems and sticking points. So we have to take a systemic systems level approach to solving these problems because it's not like, you know, one or two things are going to take care of it. So so, yes, we have to find a way to balance the sort of hunger, emergency feeding, charitable food system needs and the fact that we need to be paying people more, including farmers, for what is produced so that everybody is benefiting from this increased demand and interest in local local food. So, yes. Yes and yes. Thank you, Ellen. Other questions or comments for Ellen? This is, of course, also why we need to have the Vermont Tech's Ag and Food program. Yes, we energize and we re-visioned as Representative Pearl has weighed in on a lot on the dairy subgroup conversations about what does the dairy component need to still look like at Vermont Tech, you know, that's the place in Vermont. And we'd like to say the region for the next generation of farmers and food entrepreneurs to get trained up and launch. Yeah, John has his hand up. John, go ahead. Oh, just quickly, sort of a chicken or egg question, Ellen. I mean, when I think of New England feeding New England, it's such a good idea, you know, economically and culturally. And then I think is the emergency part of this all about what about my dog? You know, is that the glue that's going to get six New England states actually to work together because it's happened? I mean, that's that's one of our our our thoughts. You know, it's like we've all known that we need to go in this direction. I recall, for instance, we released the first farm to plate plan back in 2011. Then Secretary of Ag, Chuck Ross was talking about like, well, all this stuff about local, we need to be able to get into regional markets. And at the time, most of our producers, other than the dairy industry and a few larger vegetable growers really didn't have the ability to get into the regional markets at the at, you know, to really ramp up and increase because of volume, because of packaging, because of distribution challenges, a whole number of reasons. And so but what shifted over the last ten years is there's a greater readiness of remote producers to enter the regional market. There's a greater knowledge of how to do it. We have more infrastructure in place in terms of additional distributors that are selling into the region. There's just, you know, we're more ready now. And so like we've been progressing to this point, I think. And and as you say, it's like so then it's like, well, what's what's stopping it, right? And there's a whole reasons of what's, you know, or what could I rephrase it? What could accelerate the rate? And one of our ideas was, well, what if we come at this from this emergency management perspective? Because that's what's on top of mind for everybody right now. And that's a whole community of people that we've never engaged with. Could that be some of the impetus to actually accelerate the production? Which includes bringing many, many, many, many more hundreds of thousands, if not millions of acres into production. Like it's not like this is going to happen overnight. And it's going to like, we've got all the farmers ready to go. That doesn't that's not there yet, right? But how do we start planning for this going forward? And that's why we set a 15 year time horizon. Because we're like, like even that's going to be a stretch. Vermont's at, you know, 15, 16, 17 percent local consumption. We'll know by June what that number is. Because we're just starting to collect that data now. We know that, you know, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, they're probably at 5 percent. You know, maybe 10 percent across the whole region. We don't actually know, but probably that that's more of the ballpark that we're talking about, so to get to 35 percent would be huge. Could we get to but and so that's why we want to break this down by different product categories, because we may have enough for almost enough dairy, but what about livestock? What about vegetables? What about fruit like apples? What about, you know, sweet corn? What about processed foods? You know, all those kinds of things we need to really try to get our head around. Like what are we really talking about in terms of what's going to be needed? Because, you know, as just as a, for instance, we had a focus group with a bunch of beef producers as part of the new plan development this fall. And they're at something like 17 million in sales. And we said to them, OK, well, think out 10 years, given what you know about the trajectory of consumer demand, what you're selling, what you're seeing in the marketplace, where do you think you could get to in 10 years? And they said, well, we probably almost double. We could probably get to, you know, 26, 27, 28 million dollars worth of sales. And then they said immediately, but we don't have enough processing capacity right now to handle that. So this is where like, OK, you can increase production, but then you need the processing, you need the storage and distribution, you need the outlets to be able to get into. And that's why we have to take this this total systemic approach to this. And Ellen, I think I'm hopeful that some of that working lands three million dollars is, you know, is dedicated to the processing end of our slaughter. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Any other questions or comments for Ellen? Ellen, thank you so much. Well, we're going to see you again tomorrow, I think. Yes, working lands. Yes. I'll have my other hat on tomorrow. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Thanks so much. This is so exciting for me. I think I know when I'm going to write my weekly article on this week. Excellent. And so let me know then how I can be helpful as you start to think about language and all of that if you want to go that route, what that might look like, let me know how it can be helpful. Yeah, hopefully we'll we'll be contacting our ledge council. Hopefully Michael Grady will be back soon. We miss him so much, but well, maybe we'll forward this to Kelly, his Kelly McGill, who is his his replay, not a replacement, but his, you know, right hand woman. Rodney has his hand up. Rodney, go ahead. Well, I just wanted to have to listen to all this. I just want to let Ellen know I'm on board. I'm switching from a dairy farm to beef production. Well done. I know that was a big difficult decision for you to make last year. I remember you going through that, but, you know, and that's not to say that beef production is easy, but I think there's definitely an increased opportunity there. So good for you for moving in that direction. And you don't have to get up at two thirty in the morning to milk. Exactly. Exactly. And you know, there's a lot of great technical and business assistance to help folks that want to make that that shift. So I'm still contemplating whether to convert my milk and center into a slaughterhouse, but. Oh, interesting. You know, I had almost all my milk equipment sold in the pandemic pandemic and everybody backed out. So that is a bummer. Yeah. Oh, this year. Yeah, we'll see. Cutting some inquiries. We'll probably be needing more dairy too, eventually, if this all gets, you know, we all pull this all out by 2035. Gosh, I hope I'll be around still. Will you be having the folks from around everyone eats in or have they already been in? You know, I I don't we haven't had them in, but that would be a that's a great idea. So maybe you can send some some of the names to Linda. Happy to. Great. Excellent. It's a very good news story. And, you know, we had put in the legislation to have 10 percent local sourcing and it's I don't know what the final number is, but it's it's at least 15 percent if not getting close to 20, which is really excellent. Yeah, you know, I always feel weird about receiving meals made by other people because we have some I have freezers full of food that we put there. But I have to say, after my knee replacement, some of my neighbors started bringing me everyone eats meals. And it was just delightful. They were delivered on Wednesdays and I didn't have to cook. It was great. And they were they were good. You know, I knew those carrots and summer squash and would have came from around here, no doubt. So yeah, there was a lot of a lot of folks who were recently unemployed that, you know, normally you're not getting stamp benefits and and and also just like the stigma of still that's out there of of getting charitable food who because it was like, no, just just come and get it. Yeah, really helped a lot of people who really needed it to be able to get food on the table that otherwise really would have gone even more hungry. Yeah. And, you know, I was convinced because they said, you know, I felt bad. I said, give it to people who really need it. And they said, no, the restaurants, you know, are struggling. They get ten dollars a meal for producing these. And so I said, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks, Ellen, so much. We really appreciate your time always. I'm always always excited and inspired when you come. So thank you. Thank you very much and have a good rest of your afternoon, everybody. Good day.