 Yes, good morning everybody and this is Friday morning January 29th and it's a committee, Senate Committee on Agriculture's meeting. So today we're gonna this morning to start with we're just gonna chat about yesterday's two hour meeting and and how that how you think that went and and the ups and downs of it and and we have the law clerk from the council that works with Michael O'Grady Kelly McGill with us and she was attending the meeting and then we'll move on to Alan Keeler at 10 o'clock or so she can come and we're gonna get switch over to our our food issue and food security and all that. Brian has to leave us Senator Calamore at 9 30 for a meeting with Dr. Levine in regards to an issue in his county and Anthony right now is meeting with Dr. Levine on an issue in regards to COVID in Washington County and he'll be returning when that meeting is over. So with that I I thought yesterday's meeting went pretty smooth for having such a large crowd. I thought Michael Pishak and and DFR did a good job. You know they drilled down pretty good I thought for a for an outfit that doesn't normally deal with with dairy and and all that. I thought they drilled down pretty pretty well and presented a lot of good info. So I I don't know what you guys got away from it. Brian sit Brian Calamore. Yeah thank you Bobby I agree and I think it was refreshing because they were new eyes on the topic. Just as you point out Mr. Chair they don't normally deal with agricultural or certainly with dairy issues. So it was good to see that from a fresh perspective many of the same issues came up. Unfortunately because the issue was so big and so large and so weighty they didn't come up with any you know really quick solutions either. But that makes up makes me feel better to say hey at least we didn't miss something that was really obvious as a way out of this. You know as long as the federal milk market orders in place there's relatively little wiggle room for a state like Vermont which is landlocked on all sides and that was a big issue with respect to the difference between us and Maine. I mean there are some things we could probably do but it isn't as easy as just flipping a switch and saying okay well we fixed that problem now next. So I thought it was very good. I thought Linda did a great job keeping track of the next person coming on to testify and yeah I thought it was a great meeting. Chris do you want to weigh in? Well I guess I was wanting to ask everybody else if you heard real proposals that we should work on because I heard them coming to a lot of dead-end conclusions which is reflects our you know I mean there's there's hundreds of people in Vermont that want to help but how to do it is another question and so I did not pick up on you know here's one or two things you might try and I'm curious if I just missed it I haven't had time to digest the full report closely but can you guys hear me my internet's pretty bad I can hear you but the video is not working. You look better with a little round guy there. I appreciate it. I think you know I agree with Senator Pearson that you know there might not have been one or two solutions but there is a common theme I've been hearing especially when it comes to dairy farmers and it's what do we need to do to help provide resources to help them run their farm like a business how to help them with bookkeeping and then even managing you know kind of helping them with managing some of their risks and you know the ups and downs so you know I think we've got it I don't know what the solution is but you know kind of figure out what we can do around creating a program or investing some more money into you know education systems maybe it's only work the state colleges with do they have a program that we could help fund as they're looking for ways to create new revenues that would help out our dairy farmers you know as they look to improve their business practices. Plus you know we did earlier we've heard from the ag agency about when we asked the question how come or why didn't a hundred percent of our farmers sign up for our programs and it came back that some of them didn't qualify because they didn't have good bookkeeping records so so that kind of verified you know the two agencies totally separate from each other kind of verified the fact that some some bookkeeping practices on some farms could be improved and in what we have done as a committee over the years as first thing we did many years well maybe 10-12 years ago was create that farm viability program that Gus runs and you know that that came right out of our ag committee and it's helped you know a tremendous number but we we still are getting people that need more training Chris. Thanks for the reminder Mr. Chair because I wanted to ask you that this week we heard one of the gentlemen say he wanted to retire he needed help planning for that and it made me think of yeah ag viability we've heard people need technical support around bookkeeping so all of those are actually handled through the the the ag viability program but but it was as though folks hadn't even heard of it so you know and and Ella and she's transitioning out but there's a scale issue I guess right if she's helping three dozen farms a year that doesn't that doesn't I mean it makes a dent but it's not really addressing the challenge and so I guess my question for you Bobby because you know more about than just about anybody is is it as simple as a beefing up funding and amplifying that program or their gaps that we're hearing about because as I was listening I was thinking they're not gaps there's probably just an access challenge. Well yeah because if if Gus is I mean they're do they do this on a voluntary sort of basis and what happens is if if somebody goes to you know a bank or a lending agency and they say well you haven't you haven't got a good plan worked out a business plan worked out you know you you've got to come back with that or you go in to extend your loan and they say well you haven't got very good records what these lending institutions suggest to that farmer that they should you know contact VHCB and have firm viability come and so it it isn't like we're requiring anybody to go there and I think they do or they were doing about 50 50 farms a year and you know maybe maybe somehow we could switch that system a little bit so that more and it doesn't cost the farmers hardly anything to have those folks go and work work up a business plan and and set them up on on a good bookkeeping system so you know we'll have we can have Gus back in sometime and and move forward with that. Is that part of you know there's a lot of advocates and activists will say fully fund VHCB fully funding VHCB and every year we not withstand the structure but but VHCB is is funded by the property transfer tax correct some part of it yes some portion of it the property transfer tax this year is booming because our real state's taken off did my question is do you know is the farm viability piece out of that funding or is that something in a separate column. No it's out of it's out of their total a lot and this particular year that's the governor's recommended that that be fully funded with the transfer tax plus you know we gave we gave them quite a lot of money through the CARES Act too this past year and you know over the and Gus usually doubles and triples that money through grants and federal money matching money those dollars go go a long long way in helping the they talk some and some of the farmers talk some about a a management program in in managing the supply of milk I think that was mentioned or I think even P Shack maybe mentioned that about some type of a supply control or supply management plan that could be put but he thought that either had to be on a regional or national basis did you pick up on any of that Kelly did you did you pick up on whether I I thought Jill talked about that or Michael P Shack Commissioner talked about having a man management tool. Yes thank you center star Jill Rickard with DFR did speak about supply management and it's detailed in a section of the report that gives several examples of that type of program. Yeah and so yeah that that kind of floated to the top did you did you pick up on other suggestions Kelly as you listened to the proceedings. Sure so Jill Rickard went through the the different types of options that DFR considered and those include risk management state pricing orders regional compacts and increased focus on organic production and as has already been discussed this morning increased support for innovation and farm management and those are all detailed in in separate sections of DFR's report. Yeah so you know that there's three or four and a half or five different options that that was mentioned and it really see it in our bill that we passed last year there's a provision where we we deal with what we've done and and then we move it on to a to a tax force to be appointed by the president or the committee on committees rather and the speaker to dig and drill down deeper in in the future. Corey. You know the the other thing I was thinking so we can't control the price they get for milk but I have a feeling we we increase the costs it you know what it costs them to make you know a hundred hundred pounds of milk so is there things we could do to look at what you know what are we costing dairy farmers in Vermont and are there ways that we can reduce those costs on them you know on top of buying support because you know we're not going to be able to help them out in the top end but my guess is it'd be interesting to see what how much milk we produce plus what we cost and what what our impact is on on the price of producing milk and I bet there's a healthy amount. Well the input so you're talking about the input costs yeah well I we didn't hear we did hear a little bit about the input costs yesterday but you know they talked about regulations and you know a few of those things but you know most of our farm community is pretty well exempted out of about everything and anything that I've been able to dream up over the the years you know they don't they don't need to register any of their farm vehicles their farm trucks you know they have to keep lights and and those things you know keep them safe but they don't have to go over to a motor vehicle and lay out a bunch of money for their manure trucks or their feed trucks or their dump trucks you know we that the one issue I think we could talk to aunts and about and work on as the large farm fee or I think Walt Gladstone brought up something about about fees that he brought up on on one issue I'd have to look back in my notes but well we know state policy makes their electric bill cost x percentage more you know with efficiency Vermont we know they pay the large farm and medium farm stuff yeah but I also you know we'd have to get a cost analysis because they're running you know the lights and about every barn in Vermont have been all changed to LED the milk bulk tanks have been switched over to cooler plates that run a lot cheaper you know the motors on their silage unloaders are they've been changed you know they paid in some but they've also gotten back some and maybe we should get a cost analysis on on what they paid in versus what they've gotten out and and we could get that I think Chris well I think that has been done and the problem of thinking about it of terms of what have I paid on my bill versus what have I got on my in my business is that that overlooks the reality that the whole system has the demand on our electric and the whole system is kept down is is not grown since 2000 because of these investments and that saved everybody money so so you know it's but it has been quantified and and clearly their farms are big users and so they see a big efficiency bill but they you know that is looked at by the PUC every few years as they come back that the analysis is there I'm sure we could uncover it and have folks walk us through it but it's just really hard to say to an individual who is saying you know yeah I got something but that was five years ago and I keep having to pay this and it's very unsatisfying and probably hard to believe that the system overall the benefit to the entire system benefits each individual repair and that's really hard argument to make but it doesn't change the fact that it's true so I just want to caution that we should be careful of diving into loudly and deeply on that point because you know it sort of perpetuates a I think an unfair impression that people have about efficiency. Yeah and Brian. Thanks Bobby. I do know that and I've heard this from farmers directly that administrative costs in terms of permits and all that not always but they can be prohibitive. There are examples where that kind of really held up a farmer from from doing certain things. Efficiency Vermont also has an opt-out program I think if you can find a company that can run its own efficiency program I think there's there's an allowance for for getting out. Yeah I had to do that once with one of my smaller businesses you have to prove that that you're doing super good with all these modifications and you can opt out but you spend a lot to get to that point. So I do have to leave in a couple of minutes to go to this Department of Health I don't know whether Chris and Corey would brought up to speed but we got an email overnight from the Department of Health that there was a virus outbreak in the Rutland area and Anthony got one that said the same was true in the Northfield or in the Washington County area which I think is Norwich University I think it's at Northfield I think I heard over 70 cases so they've asked the delegations from each of those areas to meet with Dr. Levine to get more information so just in case you guys didn't know I gotta step away but Anthony should be coming back from his meeting with him. Yeah so are there other issues on the input side that that we could you know recommend or talk about that any of you picked up on yesterday or in the past Chris? It's not directly to inputs but we heard oh I think it was last year maybe it was a year and a half ago of hello Anthony of the folks it was it was the land trust I think how they were got some grants and this had to do with land transition so it's not inputs but it is a big issue for dairy in particular people are ready to retire and the risk of consolidating further where we still have new farmers who are saying I wish I had I could get land you know it's it's a real catch 22 so to me it's not about necessarily a boost for current farmers it's about helping people transition out and getting new businesses in onto the land and so at some point I love us to hear an update there and it's you know it's it's the inputs for the brand new businesses but it doesn't it admittedly wouldn't help somebody that's in the middle of trying to improve their business. Yeah I don't know if it was yesterday or when the day we had Walt and Lloyd Stone all those folks on that a young farmer was saying that they had really severe problems buying just I think it was only like four acres or five acres of of ground to grow you know their veggies on them but if you think about that that whole deal there that would certainly make a difference for the guy that like you said wants to retire and then get the new person on that land I think it was Kay Hart yesterday said was tying about his two neighbor farms that sold out and he said that he didn't ever expect to see another cow on either of those two farms he said something to that degree and you know if there was some way there where you could convert that even I don't know if land trust divides property up so that instead of having one person on 200 acres you could divide that so they'd be for 50 acre parcels or or something we'd have to you know because what we're trying to do is keep blocks of land together and so I don't know how that that would go you know doing a subdivision of larger parcels into smaller because that isn't good for the ag community when you do that because of transporting and picking up products and I mean as all kind tractors on the road and equipment there's all kinds of issues that crop up when you subdivide land but I think somehow we got to figure out a system to allow these these new people in that's for sure yeah morning Anthony how y'all doing uh well we've got it pretty well figured out how good of this problem good I appreciate that yeah I wish the hell heck we did have a way I know well it's only been 40 years we're still working on it the um so did you get any takeaways from that meeting yesterday that that would be helpful or that where we could uh ask uh this task force to move toward well I'm not sure I mean it's just remains really complicated and you know they talk about the possibility of doing some state price setting but then I run you know I think I don't know how you do that without getting through Washington without getting some kind of approval from the Congress or getting not getting blocked by the Congress so I'm really not sure I got any particular new takeaways to be perfectly honest unfortunately yeah one I don't know if you guys were had picked up it all on but I got the thinking and wondering if if you can only send 85 percent of your product to the whoever's buying it but yeah they'll still accept the other 15 percent or part of that 15 percent but it's and they are told well we'll still take that 10 15 percent but you know we're only going to pay you what we get paid for and and I'm wondering if there's a smooth way of checking out well where did that other percentage go did it go to the powder plant did it go to some fluid plant did it go to you know a cheese plant or did it go in somebody's manure kept and so I I don't know if there's a way of if that all goes through the federal order that extra or not I don't know if you guys thought anything I sort of picked that drift up yesterday and then the day we talked with that other group of watershed people that were farmers no no comment well I mean did they also talk about like in Maine they can do it because the milk is sort of staying in Maine or you can you can set the price for milk that stays in your state something along those lines did I am I making that up or did I did we hear that no you heard you heard it right uh there's a canada on the north and the ocean on the east and and they you know they've only got a I don't know a couple hundred firms so you know they can control it pretty close the but you know I know the guy from agramar yesterday he mentioned that they they do get a milk premium I but I he didn't tell us of course how much and it really isn't any of our business to know but I'm wondering you know I haven't heard of I didn't hear any BFA farmers say they were getting any any premiums on any of their their milk so it uh you know I don't know what what goes on there I know we did hear we did hear about milk uh milk uh districts we're in the northeast council or the northeast district and if we raised our price too high then the midwest district could bring milk in um but that you know and that's only they have to be able to prove that that we can't supply that product in our own district I believe but um you know and and I don't think we're really I don't think we're really getting the premiums uh from our value added products getting back to the farmers uh you know in all cases what did you have anything Anthony no I think that's true you know we talk about how valuable and important our value added products are but farmers don't seem to be making any more money because of it you know it's just the processors and the sellers get to make more money off cheese and ice cream and whatnot but doesn't necessarily get back to farmers it also makes me think again about you know dreaming the impossible dream kind of thing about how people can get premiums if they market their milk as from you know as local or from Vermont that kind of thing and I don't know you know that's we've talked about that and it seems so hard to do but um you know if we can market milk as Vermont milk and run it through a processing plant that is controlled by Vermont in some way I think then you could pay higher premiums for that milk and pass it on to the consumers because consumers would be willing to pay more for a Vermont product they often think they are paying more for a Vermont product even though it's not a Vermont product or even though even though they're paying more doesn't mean that the farmers are getting more I think people think when they buy cabbage cheese or something that farmers are getting a benefit from that you know I think it's not necessarily true but consumers are willing to put out more for those products because they presume that it's benefiting Vermont farmers and yeah and there is a reason why people buy cabbage cheese and that it isn't just because the name uh you know they know it comes or pretty sure it comes from Vermont it if you go you know I don't travel a great deal but I've traveled a little and you buy cheese in down south or out west it it doesn't taste like our cheese you know it it uh it isn't the same and I I'm a strong believer that it's because the way you know our grasses grow and the way our cows are fed and uh the care that they get and you know I I've had testimony uh over the years uh past that you get 11 pounds of cheese out of 100 pounds of milk here in Vermont and elsewhere they do good if they get 10 pounds uh of cheese for out of 100 pounds of milk and uh it our cheese is um you know so if they taste better and different well what about the yogurt that comes out of here and and you know Ben and Jerry's may be here may be here because of both Ben and Jerry starting the company but you know those sales wouldn't keep up to you know four or five dollars a point on ice cream if there wasn't something in that ice cream that tasted better and I'd be lucky to find a pint for five dollars pardon I think you'd be lucky to find a pint for five dollars or is is it more than that now yeah uh so I don't tell their seconds anymore no although I in St. Albin's I'll put a plug in for them because they're hiring if you work for them they send you home with three pints a shift well that's pretty good well why don't you bring some down for us get a night job there I might have to um yeah it uh you know it's too badly we don't tap into that value added stuff somehow to generate uh you know it wouldn't take a a lot to generate quite a bit of money um yeah years and years years and years ago and many years ago before Cabot was taken over by Agarmark um Ben and Jerry considered buying Cabot and bringing it under their wing as a part of their company but they obviously chose not to do that but that would be the ideal situation would be that Ben and Jerry sort of not have them build a build a milk bottling plant you know and take over the milk market instead of just using their cream the the lady though that was on a couple of days ago from up up above St. Albin's in your district Cory boy I I couldn't believe that it cost a dollar job to buy them damn jugs and in a nickel a cap for the caps and I don't know how much the labels were but you know you lose I was gonna say she she actually got the final calculation to me for Senator Plena too I'll bring up now they've got $200,000 total invested into that operation so you got to sell a lot of gallons of milk at making three bucks after your other costs to make up that 200,000 well and I was struck she said people don't come for milk right they come for some beef and then they get some milk uh or some maple syrup you know that that's also I think very important for us to notice that it's not a driver of behavior but but it's an ancillary you know so it's not viable for everybody that doesn't have that diversified option yeah yeah that um yeah that was amazing that they come to buy other products and the uh but boy on a five dollar how to help how does um yeah how does uh agrimat um you know sell milk for three dollars and 89 cents and and here's she's the lady was trying to get five dollars and basically hardly breaking even uh you know five jugs for ten cents a jug not a dollar a jug and their labels are probably multiple per penny yeah um well Kelly if you got any words of wisdom to tell us yeah Kelly draft the bill draft us a bill to fix this okay I'm not sure that I'm able to at this point but I can um the um no it it's uh you know it's hard to figure out um you know the ins and outs of a wall of this I think it's it's gonna take um you know bits and pieces and then you put it all together and it ends up to you know amount to some savings and in a little bit a little bit of extra income and and uh the uh we had one one witness that said they could live on what 17 dollar and a half uh milk uh but we didn't have we didn't have too many jump on that bandwagon real quick uh you know after it was said um pardon um I think while we continue to come up with strategies and look for solutions to help dairy we also owe it to the rural communities in our ag economy to make sure we're you know we're moving barriers for other farmers I mean we've seen we've seen meat producers you know really exploding we're seeing um a drive for local foods um you know our folks who remember that woman down in Addison County who put up a farm stand she could no longer get a truck she put up a farm stand and and was selling out you know I mean we're coming back to the old you know get vegetables at the side of the road and make money and and I just want us obviously we dairy is incredibly important but um you know in 10 15 20 years I think the state will be better off if we're slightly more imbalanced where uh you know all all eyes are not on dairy and and we need to I think broaden what it means to to have successful farms in Vermont um while we continue to do figure out strategies for dairy so uh I just just put that out there because um we could spend all session hoping we come up with something meaningful for dairy and uh in a way we we risk perpetuating um what I what I think is clear to a lot of people that were perhaps um top heavy in the ag sector with dairy you know I kind of wish that wasn't the case and but but it doesn't change the reality that I think the future is is in a broader more diversified uh sector um to keep our economy humming in the rural parts of the state for sure especially yeah I think you're right I think it's you know there's no reason to believe that the loss of dairy farms is not going to continue um it's just it's just the way the reality you get the best minds together to try to figure out what to do about it I don't mean our minds I mean the broader group that we talk to um you know nobody has a nobody has a workable solution I guess I'd call it I mean there's just it doesn't seem to be one out there it's like we're drifting along like letting the industry call the shots and the industry wants bigger and bigger you know it makes it easier for them so I do think it's a wake up call would be to make sure that we do everything we can to make sure that agriculture is strong in the state realizing that dairy is we're not our ability to strengthen dairy is quite limited if not possible so we should be better off making sure that we balance it out with the more diversified farm economy which is difficult in itself but um you know just I don't know what else there is to do but you don't want to forget you know in this process that if you have four acres of strawberries uh raspberries you can you can make quite a lot of money uh and you can't you know you can't expect to keep our open spaces and our fields green and and our brush away from our fields if you don't have some some major agricultural production going on on quite a lot of this land um you know I I I think there's room for there's room for both and and right now we're we're trying to I mean I I think our committee is trying to advance these small types of agricultural production whether it's berries or sheep or goats or whatever but at the same time maintaining the the larger part of our dairy or our land base to keep that active and actively farmed and and looking good to you know while this all this transaction is is happening uh Cory yeah uh there's a saying that's always stuck with me was that the dairy cows paid the taxes long before the maple trees did um and also that you know when you look at how important dairy is not just on the farm my whole manufacturing infrastructure in Franklin County and ultimately northwestern Vermont is dairy-based you know it's Ben and Jerry's it's berry-calibo chocolate it's cheese at you know up in Enosburg so we still need to figure out ways to make you know milk come in those doors um that being said uh I do think you know we I would be really interested in spending time on what we can do to increase um you know whether it's it's it hits a couple pieces both helping out dairy farmers um diversify but also food security we really had to figure out this meat processing shortage and seeing what we can do to invest or adjust regulations to make a little easier I was talking to a processor or a farmer yesterday who said I can take a cow down to the local butcher to have him cut it for me and to cut it for like a half but he can't cut it for us you know for me to sell so he goes there's some capacity in the system but because of regulation like I just can't have him do it for those purposes so you know anything we can do I think and I don't know how much of it's federal versus state but so much anything we can do I think we need to try to address this year even if it's a temporary adjustment while we kind of work through this shortage yeah I agree I think the meat stuff that I remember back in I don't know Chris you might or I think it was back in 2000 or earlier when we were talking about the fact that Vermont had lost half its milk meat processing plants over in the wild Howard Dean was governor I think is what that's what we were talking about but like Michael Bobby said as well I mean we need you know I'm not implying that we don't need the dairy economy you know I just and I think that they'll always be always meaning foreseeable future we will have the milk to go into those plants to do the Ben and Jerry's and the cheese plants and all that because they'll always be a direct way to meet those the needs of those plants I think that'll that we won't that will not go away um but I also think that what we need is some kind of larger larger farms that are livestock based which is different than milking cows you know I'm not and again I'm not against milking cows but I think that what we what we need to do is to plan for other kinds of livestock based agriculture to keep the land base open because you're right you know planting berries is not going to keep the land base open but but meat you know livestock farming you know whether it's sheep or or meat you know beef whatever it might be well can go a long way to sort of make to maintain that open land base which then other farmers need in terms of the nor and the land access to the land and whatnot but I really agree with the milk the meat processing stuff just seems incredible that we can't find a way to like make that work knowing that there's an ability to produce good quality meat and what and then there's a market for it and like can't get anything not being able to get a process just seems like sinful to be able to find ourselves in that situation it just seems unfathomable that we can't fix that somehow and there is Corey a lot of federal you know limits I guess right we last year or two years ago we expanded on farm butchering that you're referencing where we made it we we permitted folks to quarter animals I think so to make it a little bit easier than just getting having to say do you want half a cow or zero so we've been tiptoeing but even there you know is even that we were kind of having to be very cautious about federal overlap but what I don't understand is is the demand is there how come there's no entrepreneur stepping up I mean is it maybe it's just a huge up front cost but maybe that's where we could push some of this one-time money I mean working lands I hope we will talk to them about that because we really ought to have a vision for what is the capacity and then you know what is the capacity for processing meat and then you know where's the biggest hole right now regionally you know folks are talking about bringing bringing animals to Pennsylvania to get slaughter that's ridiculous yeah yeah that's kind of crazy to truck truck the animals to Pennsylvania and then truck the meat back we may as well do that here and and ship it finish to wherever it's going I know you know last last fall when we were dishing out the COVID money we talked to the agency in some regards about pushing some of that money toward the slaughter facilities well it all happened too late they they had to do they did do an inventory of what slaughterhouses felt that they could use if they needed to expand to to do more if they wanted to expand so they have all that information in regards to expanding the slaughter and packing facilities so we could have Abby I believe either she did that or she had one of her people do that and they have a report that they could certainly share with us to see if we do get more COVID money and money that can help that would certainly help a lot on the beef industry and help people with with a few animals to be able to get in yeah I think we should really make a pitch for seeing if COVID funds could be used to do this to invest in some kind of manufacturing plant in terms of helping the overall rural economy come back from COVID I mean I even remember when you know we live in Middlesex and we used to like raise lamb and raise sheep and years ago we had to stop doing it because we used to bring our lambs our sheep to our lamb to Hyde Park and they shut down and then we had to take it to St. Johnsbury and for even you know for the dozen lambs that we were going to do in a year like driving them to St. Johnsbury to be slaughtered just didn't make sense so we stopped doing it it's just really small-scale kind of thing but it just shows you how like you know it's just ridiculous to go to the other side of St. all on the side of St. Johnsbury to get them slaughtered from not for the Montpelier area didn't make any sense so I would really hope that we would find a way to challenge the state to come up with some COVID funds to help solve this problem and I think Chris keep in mind it's not a very attractive industry you know I mean there's a lot of people who don't want to be slaughtering animals I mean that's a reality I mean because one of the things we found over the years was it was hard to find a workforce that wanted to do this kind of work I mean it's obviously maybe it's coming back as an attractive thing to do but not a lot of people want to spend their day slaughtering animals quite honestly it's just it's just a reality yeah that's fair well we have the workforce you know across the board is challenging but yeah that's fair you know it strikes me as a working lands question but it's probably the money is a big piece of scale is out of scale with typically what they do but it'd be be worth exploring with them yeah the you know we've got a we've got some work ahead of us with with this whole you know this whole issue our and of course our focus is pretty much on food security and and how to bring that along I don't I don't expect us to spend a lot of time on this but I think you know for all the work that DRF put into this and and that we we put into it I think we you know we've got to try to do something positive and to hand off to the uh task force uh I think we have a there we have a limit on I think we have to do something like within 45 days or so so um you know we we can't spend a lot of time at this but we've got us we've got to be able to move uh we want to be I want to be able to move forward uh with it and so um that's why we are with that uh the so what'd you find out Brian? Well I don't know whether because we're on YouTube I don't want to put a put any information out there that well anyway uh there's five people that work in one of the departments at the hospital that have tested positive so now they're trying to go back and trace who they got you know what patients they interacted with if they got if they got discharged from the hospital where those people went so it's kind of like that domino effect but to me it wasn't it wasn't as serious as I thought when I hear a buy a virus outbreak I think of you know 100 people um it was five people and I think we were all a little bit less concerned by the end of the meeting I know did Senator Polina have got a chance to weigh in on this deal? No there's it's getting closer to 100 where I was yeah that's what I thought I'd heard part of it is that they're finding that for these younger people younger people used to get when I got I should say used to this if it's years ago but younger people were getting a couple of symptoms like one or two symptoms and getting better now they're getting a dozen symptoms at the same time so they're saying it's getting harder for them to come out of it they're getting a broader array of symptoms when they get this and they get the virus so they're sicker this time around than they were last time when they had the outbreak well they had them quarantining you're quarantined in your room with your roommate so it's like kind of duh you know I mean quarantine should imply that you're on your own not with a roommate up here that universities have a quarantine dorm or a host did they not maybe they just don't have the building space at norwich they have some but not enough they had quarantine housing but it's not enough you would you would think that at the hospital they were our hospital most of them were all vaccinated golly we can have two weeks ago and that was yeah that was brought up bobby of course you got to get two shots right so the the great majority of the workers did get the first one some have not had the second one yet the other piece of that is after you get the second one it's still a week or two before you're completely immunized and it all all it means is and it's not a hundred percent effective it's like 95 okay but then the other part of it is you are immunized for yourself but that doesn't mean that you don't still have it and can give it to somebody else so there's a whole bunch of different things going on and i don't know what the heck to do i think i'm just gonna stay in my room forever we'll be with you don't worry i know i know i'm getting damn sick of being cooped up and i was missus star feel about it you said that in all the years i probably spent more time at home since covid come and i did in all the previous years yeah uh well uh why don't we take a little break and we have ellen coming in at 10 i think 1015 is that right linda yeah yeah so uh why don't we um we'll stay right on just uh you close your your camera and zoom off kelly thanks a lot for being with us if you want to stay for ellen keeler you're more than welcome to uh we've got a hodgepodge of things to visit with her about so i don't know your time schedule but if you want to stay you're welcome and if you have other things to do um you know that you plan uh feel free to do either great thank you senator star yeah hi ellen good morning sir how are you good good a little chilly up north i don't know about down the banana belt well i'm in starksboro at 1200 feet so we've got night negative 19 winchill that's good yeah are we gonna um talk a little about talk a little about sustainable foods and all that or yeah i'm i'm gonna talk with you about uh the notion of food security in terms of some regional food supply and i have a suggestion for some legislative language that you might be interested in and um and uh just so you know that we have a good three hours plan for february 11th to go over the strategic plan uh does linda have that date and all that yep yeah good good yeah and then and then you're gonna be speaking at the press conference on february 8th so i'm gonna give you some talking points if you would like to have them for for that february 8th yeah for the press conference where we formally release the plan yeah at 11 o'clock um we'll be sending you i'll early next week i'm going to be sending you what you need for february 8th and uh next wednesday i'll be putting the plan in the mail to you so you will have it in your physical hands before the press conference yeah that sounds sounds good yeah um well we spent quite a lot of time talking with different groups and hearing from different groups and uh uh mr poisner uh from uvm from the gun institute he uh you know he wants to help out anyway ken and thought that your you know your plan um goes a long ways in helping to um you know to alleviate some of these problems so um yes the um that's our hope yeah well um linda are we back alive we are yeah and ellen i just made ellen host so probably so she can show her document yeah very good uh and uh cori will be along with us uh moment here there he is he is back so uh ellen we we've got about an hour or so that we can spend with you and we don't want waste any of your time or hours so why don't you uh i think do you know all the members do you know cori parent we haven't had really the privilege of of meeting and having real discussion we sort of know each other in the hallway kind of thing right yep absolutely looking forward to working with you yeah you too so why don't uh why don't you uh tell us what we should know all right well thank you very much for the record ellen kaylor vermos seemed a little job fun so i appreciate that opportunity to chat this morning um because i understand that you all are are contemplating how to help uh get vermont on a an accelerated path to increasing the availability of vermont and uh regional food uh from a food security angle so getting more of vermont products uh into places where people normally shop i know senator pierce this is a um a great interest to you thinking about how do we get more vermont products just in the grocery stores how do we get more uh vermont meat uh on on the shelves which of course requires more uh infrastructure um so uh what i'm hoping to do today is to share a little bit about um some work that that i have been doing uh for many years now with my counterparts in the other five new england states and where we're talking about how to develop more of a regional food system that would provide greater amount of products from the region for the region and and and would address some of the challenges that we saw during co vid with the supply chains breaking where we saw the meat processing plants in the midwest go down for a while because of co vid um and was we're thinking about the potential shocks to our food system and our food supply chain because of climate change type events you know natural disasters uh future pandemics how can we build in some greater resiliency and ability to meet our needs closer in so what i'd like to do is to share with you a little bit about some work that we've got going and then there's a specific ask that i have of you all to consider if you're putting together a food security type bill which speaks to some planning for emergencies that i think would be uh that uh we're trying to get all six states their legislatures to pass similar language that would instruct their emergency management operations uh teams to put into the emergency management plan uh efforts to strengthen and increase the availability of locally or regionally sourced food as a means of of increasing um access but also decreasing the vulnerability of our supply chains does that sound okay it's what you signed up for that sound sounds good is is that gonna can we just do that with legislation in each state or do we have to make that into a compact of some type no i think we can do it in each state because each state has a emergency management plan and in this case in vermont we have the emergency management plan there's a there's an agency of ag annex uh and and on your web page i provided the linda put up for you the latest version of that and so after i go through these slides we can focus and spend some more time on that and how i think the passing very simple legislation agency is on board with um you can um we can get this sort of codified and get the process rolling uh in this way yeah good okay all right so let me just um share then a few slides uh because i think you'll be interested i hope you'll be interested in um some of what uh we might be able to start moving towards both as a state and as a region and we're calling this project new england feeding new england cultivating a reliable food supply um and we my counterparts and i've secured some funding for the next two years to be able to do the planning stages of this work but we're really seeing this as a 15-year effort so i'm not sure if you all saw this but this is a really this really jarred me when i first saw this it came out uh reference in the new york times last summer and it's a study that was done out of the university of illinois that looked at the actual flow of food using the u.s trans uh agency of transportations what they call the commodity flow survey data and what this does is the agency of transportation wants to know how how are products being moved across roads bridges rail and air from a transportation planning perspective so what's really interesting about this is this really shows where is product coming into the country in the case of you take a look at california the concentration there almost the vast majority of food coming into this country comes through the port of los angeles so you might say wow that's really efficient right we got all this food moving through there well if something happens to the port of los angeles we're screwed right so the same thing concentration in the midwest you think about over the summer over uh april and may when those meat processing plants went down you can see where there's this concentration of activity of food flowing back and forth out of the in and out of the midwest then you take a look at the northeast and what do you see you see a concentration along i-95 corridor well if you think about what are some of our biggest challenges in this region from a client perspective it's hurricanes coming up the east coast it is other kinds of natural disasters that might happen or infringe upon that northeast corridor there which could create a sense of vulnerability potentially that we think is important to address so if you think this is this was also from this past fall uh some analysis done to take a look at where what's expected from a climate change perspective so the green area is here along the northeast it's you know we're at greater risk for hurricanes and high water events which could impact roads for instance roads and bridges or rail lines as we've seen in the past in the midwest they're they're going to be impacted by extreme heat but as we saw a couple years ago they also had extreme flooding events that happened and then of course the wildfires in the in california put pressure on the central valley and water supplies out in the west where a lot of our food comes from so even these potentials um there's some real need i think for some future oriented planning to to try to reduce the risks that we have here in the northeast because of the fact that we have this infrastructure the the transportation flows are the way they are so the other reason for doing this quite frankly gets to what has been happening and you all know this over the last 50 years there's been a massive consolidation across the food system in processing and production and retail and distribution where fewer and fewer large companies control the vast majority of the the infrastructure of the of the actual businesses in the system and while again from an efficiency standpoint you could be like well bigger is better it's more efficient and all that it also creates greater vulnerabilities right we don't have then competition we you know like we we are at risk so for all those reasons we think that it's time to think about this now i'm going to shift into a couple of slides that get at this question that i think senator pierce and others talk think about a lot which is estimating food production so we took a look at the latest ag census and the nas data and if you take a look across new england we produce 7.5 billion pounds of food across the six states of new england that first column there and you can see here on this slide what the breakdown is of different product types okay now take a look over at the far right there under the vermont column so in vermont we produce 2.9 billion pounds but 2.7 billion pounds of that is in dairy so in essence what you can see here is we're we're providing and you all know this we're providing the bulk of the dairy products for the whole of new england and we're also selling beyond new england but we we we produce a good chunk of what new england consumes from dairy you take a look at main their largest crops are down in vegetables potatoes melons it's actually potatoes so from the standpoint of like what what do vermonters what do new englanders actually need to eat want to eat you know like to put food on the table the basics we are out of balance here in terms of what how much we're producing of what products and for whom so this is this provides a really good sense of like wow what could vermont be doing more of we could be doing more of hogs and pigs we could be doing more in vegetables we only have 21 million pounds of vegetables whereas main has 1.5 billion pounds now potatoes are heavier than lettuce of course but the point being there's a lot more that we could be doing if we're thinking from the standpoint of feeding vermonters and feeding new england so we're lagging in seafood I notice we are yes yeah we got to work on that well you know rising sea levels you know you never know how far up the ocean might come to our border but if you go to like eggs on that chart you just had poultry and eggs you know it looks like there's a lot of room for expansion there we also do well in maple exactly exactly yeah yes we do yes we do yeah exactly so again the point here is you know in classic capitalism you know there's like we um people in different states and different regions have have areas where they can excel and they trade their surplus and all of that can you go ahead center person so so talk to me about the per capita availability what does that mean so if you if you think about the number of people in new england there are about 15 million people across the six new england states you divide 15 million into 7.5 billion and that just gives you a rough sense of we produce 505 pounds of food per person in new england from what we produce in new england right but that's nowhere near what we actually need and i'm sorry i don't have that number off to have my head but in terms of the number of pounds of food that each person eats in the course of the of the year is much greater than that and what we can produce across all of these product categories in new england is five and a half pounds or five five hundred pounds so um i'm sorry but i mean we could i think spend the whole day on this chart it's really interesting so so on eggs 0.88 percent is what new england so is that trying to say that new england produces less than one percent of the eggs it consumes correct okay and so of the eggs that are produced in new england we're making 12 that's where i don't understand how can 12 plus 0.78 equal see what i'm saying well because those numbers are relative to vermont okay okay so across all of new england so across new england it's 0.88 but just in vermont we're producing 12 percent for what we consume here in vermont what we're producing in vermont could meet our availability sorry it's the availability so we are producing 7.7 million pounds of eggs which represents uh that that uh per capita in vermont vermont could vermonters could consume 12 could consume 12 pounds of eggs that's what's available if they chose to buy vermont eggs that doesn't mean that they are doing that it just means that it's available it's what we're producing all right thank you yeah so any other questions on this i i'm gonna keep going on this but just show it in a couple different formats so that it might be helpful to see magnitudes here so this is another way to think about it this is in a pie chart format that same chart so main produces 2.6 billion pounds of food vermont 2.9 billion pounds and then you can see the other states and then but then again where's the concentration the concentration is in dairy at 4.3 billion pounds 1.8 billion pounds in vegetables which is primarily potatoes and then everything else is 1.3 billion pounds or just 17 percent so there's a lot of room for diversification right is what it's saying if the intention is to be doing more of feeding ourselves which has not been the intention of our egg policy nationally in the past right so another way to look at it is this this is in some ways even a starker way to look at it right look at look at along those bottom there we we we can do be we we can we we can do more eggs we can do more poultry we can do more lamb we can do more vegetables if we had the land and production and and farmers and food producers you know really expanding what we're actually doing now one question ellen that i'm sure we will get are those numbers those low numbers are they can we do it in a competitive way price wise to make a living if we bump those numbers all up to compete against where they're coming from at the present or if they're coming from you know the tariffs need to be changed or or what that's an excellent question and we you can't not look at this without thinking about the consumer demand side and the price point side you're absolutely right and right now today we know that our cost of production is higher in the northeast and in new england in particular and even vermont in particular to that because of our winters our growing season cost of importing feed like all of these reasons right that we know about means that the cost of production is higher than in other parts of the country so then that does bring into question federal policy about what are we subsidizing with our tax dollars how much you know so how do we think about shifting some of the the subsidies that have been going to corn wheat and soy in the midwest and think about diversifying those those available tax dollars to be supporting more regional food production for regional consumption that would then put more into say what's called the specialty crop uh areas that the usda funds right but you take a look at the i think we get like $150,000 a year or something like that for specialty crop black grant grant money like that that should be just completely blown up into millions of dollars if we're really talking about doing more r&d on on the kind of products that could be grown here and that could then increase quantities with the intention that have also continued to to try to keep the price point where people can afford it but as you know then you have to think about wages and people's earnings and i mean all of that stuff ends up coming into this so there's no like you know magic bullet here that's gonna fix this but you're right thinking about tariff policy thinking about subsidy policy thinking about the farm bill all of that needs to play into this yep so to me this is the biggest like uh moment for me recently and looking at this step we produce 7.5 billion pounds of food in new england and we import 71 billion pounds right so our best guess estimate we don't know this this is just like literally our best guess is that across new england regional food consumption is probably around 10 right that's what our guess is in vermont we we we know it's north of 15 percent for vermont consumed food across the region we're thinking maybe about 10 so what we're we're planning for in this project is putting out there the potential target of what would it look like what would it take to get to 35 percent regional food consumption by 2035 could we set a target of 15 years from now where we change the the the size of these circles so we're not talking about making new england an island we're just saying can we shrink the the the amount of food being imported and grow the the circle the the the amount that's actually being produced in new england and that stays in new england for regional consumption so we're if if we could new england's totals 71 billion pounds that that we use we imported yep and we're only producing 10 of that basically yeah 7.5 yep yep and if you if you had the map of of the states up there i i bet if you showed the available landmass to grow or produce these crops you know we're probably in the best shape uh or in in pretty good shape to have the the extra land or the land available to grow and harvest these crops that's my sense too and the other the other place is probably arista county in northern Maine in terms of having good land that's available large tracks of it but as we know there's going to be continued pressure on the availability of farmland and that's going to get exacerbated by climate induced migration right we want people to come to Vermont because we're because of our demographic issues so we're in we're doing remote worker uh uh support we're trying to get some new energy new blood new people coming in but we are also if we don't manage our land use policies properly at risk of losing prime ag soils that we're going to need to grow food on so that we can have a better chance of feeding more of ourselves so these things have to get have to get understood together and that's part of what we're going to be delivering to you on the on the 11th with the when the plan gets rolled out is is that we've got this level of complexity you know laid out so we can help think about this senator this is very exciting thank you and thank you for you're doing a good job of how you're visually capturing it I I think a lot about climate and I think a lot about resiliency and for many years have argued that some of our population challenges the green revolution we used to call it you know um I guess I guess what I want to say is seems to me that the food revolution actually a regenerative ag uh you know a swing back to regenerative ag and delicious local food really is there any reason to think that could work that that will draw people in we've heard from uh Mateo you know bringing people in from from all across the world actually to hardwick and and the impact on the local economy do you have a slide that tells us that this is or any data to suggest that yeah this is actually potentially how we grow our population in addition to all these other benefits you know I don't have a slide for you senator I'm sorry but I do think anecdotally we are seeing that when you take a look at the ag census data for instance on the number of new farmers and what their profile is they tend to be young women and they don't come from farm families and a lot of you you take a look at the entrepreneurs a lot of the individuals that are at the head of our craft uh brewing and distilling industries they didn't grow up here you know they they came to vermont um because of our our our foodiness and it is an attractor and I think that's why you're seeing the agency of ag or the agency of commerce you take a look at the new improved think vermont.com uh website that's coming along they're doing even more to accentuate the food scene and the beer scene as an attractor to attracting people to want to move here so anecdotally it's I think it's there I don't have we don't have hard data on it yet though um so I'm not going to go over all of this here the slides are up on your webpage so you can spend some more time with it but just this just gives you a sense of the fluidity of food coming in and out of vermont that is produced here some of this data is coming is uh food that is originates in Canada for instance because it comes through our our over our border and it's headed it just passes through us but again because this data is from the Department of Transportation and it's about measuring the pounds of food moving across our roads our bridges and rail this gives you an interesting snapshot of the amount of food that is just flowing through our state some of but the majority of it is produced here and then it flows out okay so again I'm happy to spend more time on it but I let me just uh go this this view of it I think is also uh is instructive because what this is showing the food flows into vermont by region so where so of the food that comes in that we import where is it actually coming from and this largest block is what's called self loops so this is where for instance let's say you're a maple sugaring operation and you're you're just you're getting into 50 gallon barrels it then might go to say butternut mountain farm for further processing and get sent out so that's where there's a self loop and again because this data is about the movement of food products and not necessarily who's consuming it this this just gives you a sense of how many pounds of food are literally moving over our roads and bridges and the cross rail that is contained within vermont this is the self loop part and then where the imports and the exports are so we import 945 million pounds from other new england states we import 913 million pounds from the northeast right and then the next try it over then food flows out of vermont we're exporting 2.3 billion pounds to the northeast and again primarily dairy right uh we're we're exporting 944 million pounds across the six new england states so this just gives you a sense of like who are our core trading partners in terms of the movement of food again it does not say who's actually consuming it we there is a correlation there but it's not giving you sales data it's giving you pounds of movement okay so here's right that the the six northeast states are the top source and destination for most food categories for each other the greatest amount of movement of food is within new england and then it moves to the northeast particularly new york um and then uh less so for the southwest inland west and new england's smallest uh are those of the smallest regional trading partners and so this food flow in new england of 71.1 billion pounds that flows out there's also this what i didn't show you was that there's if you add it all up there's 66 billion pounds that's flowing um into the region so again some of this is um in the case of like in maine and rhod island and and massachusetts there's ports where there's products coming from europe and so they they enter the united states and then they move don't necessarily get consumed in the united states right they they move to other parts of the us but their point part port of entry uh is in new england so that's where these um you can see these bigger swings of total movement of food but i think the most important point here is that this just this is another data set that i think confirms what we generally know which is that our biggest trading partners are in new england and new york so when we think about market expansion and sales and marketing and where are we targeting which which markets are we trying to open up for vermont producers new england is a big marketplace that we have not fully penetrated that we have opportunities in um i'm going to leave this for now because you can spend more time with it but it basically is just another way some more iteration on on what i just showed you um and same with these again just other visual ways of being able to see where um vermont this is food flows into vermont so we're we're bringing in six million pounds of food from elsewhere uh which you know and then we're we're we're exporting uh 2.9 billion pounds out so this just gives you a sense of of the regions that we send that that food is flowing into vermont from that into vermont from these regions and then in particular where there's a little icon of a farm barn that shows you the the state that within that region the where the majority is coming from the top originator so in the of the of the things we get from i from the from the midwest iowa sends us the most is all that saying so in new england in terms of food coming into us it's coming from massachusetts okay so this is this then from the outflows so if we're sending what would you what would what product is that coming out of mass um let's see blueberries or sandwich it's flows into vermont we're getting six million pounds of live of live animals we're getting some cereal grains we're getting sort of general ag products would probably be vegetables and uh sort of a whole range that animal feed meat and poultry grains and baked products so it's you know it we haven't fully mined this this data set um uh and actually this data is from 2012 and there is it there is new data in 20 set of 2017 that the these researchers just haven't updated this but their intention is to so we'll see what it looks like when it gets updated so it's about 10 years old this data um but you know again the point here is is to just get a sense of the magnitude of what's happening and then to ask the question well how what what could be different so i've been working for the last seven eight years of my counterparts the farm to play counterparts in the other states and these are the groups uh that exist and they all too have some form of a statewide food system strategic plan that they are working to implement in different ways nobody is as advanced as we are here in vermont in terms of having the staff capacity the funding support working lands enterprise fund all of those kinds of things that we tools that we've developed over the years to support this sector as the envy of the rest of the region um main actually interestingly is is actively trying to see if they can get a working lands enterprise fund stood up in main right now um because they see what we've been able to do with it here in vermont so here's our goal so we came up with a project that we all could work on together as a full region and not just state by state by state and that's to expand and 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 that's what we're ultimately trying to affect so we have three areas that we're work that we're going to be working in over the next uh bunch of years so one is we really would like to set some production milestones uh state by state looking at food availability data looking at this food flows data looking at overall us census production data and then trying to see what could we could how what is each state's contribution towards the region getting to 35 percent regional food consumption by 2035 what would be required how many acres of land how many farms farmers how many animals how many acres under vegetable production and then think about it out along the supply chain what's the increased amount of processing capacity new distribution routes additional distributors that are needed additional storage capacity and warehouse infrastructure you start thinking about all of that what happens as as you increase the raw product production you need to then also be thinking about all the other parts of the supply chain and the kind of investments both private sector as well as public and philanthropic that are going to be needed in order for us to be able to achieve this all six states working together understanding that Maine and Vermont are going to be the biggest providers of food and Rhode Island and Connecticut and Massachusetts will be the biggest consumers of food New Hampshire will be somewhere in the we're not really sure exactly what New Hampshire will do in this mix they have some they they have a lot of eaters obviously in the the lower two thirds but they also have some production capacity ability in the in the northern one third of the state so it's trying to figure out like how many acres does Maine need to bring on how many acres does Vermont need to bring on where's the workforce going to come from all of those questions in that first circle and then because of course the reality of climate change we want to make sure that that whatever increases in production whether that's actual like raw production of products or food manufacturing for instance or storage and distribution that we're doing it in climate friendly ways so that we're not adding to greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and food production so we want to understand what that looks like set some baseline targets work with extension staff across the region to try to think about how do we get more of these climate friendly practices no understood known and in practice but one thirdly one thing you do have an offset there because by being able to show where all this food is coming into from and into new england there's a tremendous amount of truck transportation I would presume that's doing that and so you've got an offset of some of that you know green positive green things yep yes although interestingly there are there has been analysis done that for instance it's actually less of a carbon footprint to bring in lamb meat lamb to eat from new zealand than it is to truck it around new england interestingly because you can send because they're at such a scale that you could send it in full containers and that that is actually a less carbon intensive way to do it now we can debate that but it is an interesting part of the of the discussion and shows how much we still have to we need to understand about all this that's unbelievable I know I I have a hard time living it too but once it comes in they still have to distribute it and around the new england yeah so then the third piece and this is what I want to you know spend the rest of our time talking about and is around this food security emergency preparedness plans so and and I want to just distinguish here that there's a couple of we're actually thinking about food security in from two different perspectives right we normally think about food security from the standpoint of hunger alleviation like physically getting enough food to people so that they're not food insecure so that's still true but we're thinking about it a little bit more broadly from the standpoint of food security from a decreasing the vulnerabilities of even having any food on the shelves for anybody across new england because of climate change because of pandemics because of unforeseen natural disasters silver war whatever you want to come up with as the reason why something might happen right so we think that there's an opportunity to to utilize a an area of our state infrastructure apparatus that hasn't yet been focused on this question of food security which is our emergency management plans so here's what I'm I'm sort of putting now there for your consideration see what you think is to to instruct the agency of agriculture to expand what's included in the vermont emergency management plan what's called the agency of ag annex the separate document but it's a it's like an appendix to the state's emergency management plan in and what we be asking the agency to do is to create plans for supporting agricultural and process food production expansion in the state in order to mitigate the impacts of food supply change disruptions so that's like the focus of why we would do this and the plan should include instructions for making food products available to residents as well as instructions for increasing food production within the state and to develop these in collaboration with other appropriate agencies and nonprofits and we think that by starting this exercise of looking at this it might mean that there's other parts of the emergency management plan that also need to get tweaked a little bit to accommodate this addition of looking at planning for food security and the second part of of the request would be to instruct the agency to work with all the partners who to collect information about all the emergency feeding operations that were have been coordinated and stood up during the COVID-19 pandemic such as vermont everyone eats to capture those lessons learned and best practices and to and to get it on paper so that it can be used for a future emergency events so that's so the the intention here is and there's a one pager on the web page too that looks like this on your web page that just gives you a little bit more background on this annex because literally like like three months ago I had no idea this thing existed so you know all the agencies have this it's part of the state's app emergency management and emergency preparedness apparatus right each agency has certain areas that they have sort of they'll take the lead on or have jurisdiction when there's emergencies if you take a look at the plan which is also now on your web page the their annex it it is focused on understandably on things like what happens if we have floods like for instance tropical storm Irene right so after tropical storm Irene we learned a lot about could the food that got flooded still be eaten or not and how do you get food to people who are in areas that are cut off or for instance let's say there's an avian flu outbreak what are the what's the checklist for the activities that will happen when there's a sense that there might be an animal disease outbreak happening so these are basically this is like the playbook this is the instructions for how the agency will respond when an emergency arises and we're suggesting here that let's start thinking about a more robust planning effort anticipating that there will be more food supply chain disruptions coming because of climate change and because of future pandemics and other things that we might not be able to totally foresee what it would do is provide an opportunity to have conversation about what needs to get included and it potentially could also include uh agency staff doing some exercises some external practice events you know tabletop exercises so that if something were to happen okay here's we need to practice what we would do you know the department of health does this all the time with different scenarios for instance and I know that the agency bag has done them in the past as well so but but what's new here is to get everybody thinking about food security and this is one tool in the toolbox that would help provide additional justification for why we need to be putting more focus on local food production and investing in the infrastructure for food production it's not just because we all want it in our stores it's also because we need to because we're planning for these future uh shock and vulnerability events does that make well certainly it certainly sounds like a direction that that we have talked about going in uh you know serving new england with all different types of of food stuffs and and the dairy you know our dairy industry's been hit hard and and we need some alternative products to fill in uh you know on some farmers that have left their land and want to of course keep it in ag and keep it looking good and healthy and so I I think all this blends right into where where we are and you know the challenge that our boss has given us is to you know to come out of this session with a some type of a food security plan and so no I think it blends in well uh Ellen great Anthony yeah I think excuse me I think it's really good good info um and my question is or my hope I guess and you did mention this as a possibility that would not only give us the ability to develop a plan but hopefully give us a justification for asking for funding for infrastructure maybe through COVID funds as well you know planning for future emergencies one thing we need to do is invest in infrastructure make these things happen so you think that it's possible and you're you're thinking that it would give us a justification for asking for funding for funding yeah I mean think about it from the standpoint of like as a really easy example after Irene right what did we learn we learned that our culverts were too narrow or the diameter is too small right so we made intentional investments in changing out culverts to be larger diameters yeah right because we were anticipating that there would be future high water events that that having bigger culverts would help with right so that led to decisions about resource allocation so I think there's a corollary there is what we're suggesting is that you know just having this plan as part of the emergency plan it doesn't it doesn't in and of itself do much but it's what do we do with having that sense that oh this is the kind of planning we need to do how might that then influence um how we then direct additional resources in infrastructure development um in getting the private sector engaged with their their piece of all of this uh improving the the the way that distribution happens in the state making sure that we're able to reach all of the small producers because they have a role to play in all of this we need it all basically yeah chris um um you and and others involved in this work is there or is this a next step where we start to think about um not just the raw volume but okay we're gonna continue to import bananas but we could make a lot more eggs uh we could make a lot more broccoli and we're gonna have to both import and make more tomatoes you know that kind of analysis because it strikes me that that helps inform therefore the infrastructure direction so can you talk to me talk to us a little bit about that yeah so as part of that planning process of getting from you know the 35 percent by 2035 our current thinking is is that there would be a state by state analysis of what could get produced and how and how much could get produced in each of the states based on their land base their general like you know interest in producing more food who's already on the ground doing stuff they're the available funding those kinds of things but the land base comes first obviously we have to secure the land base so um and then it's an iterative process right because each state is not in itself an island if we're talking about the region we might have a sense of what we can stand up in Vermont over a 15-year period but then where does Maine come in where does Massachusetts come in and we might have to adjust those numbers but but your your general question is yes the intention would be to get at that both in Vermont but then as a region so I'll give you a quick example of of how we're thinking then once we have sort of the data sort of like the raw data like what might be possible what do people tend to buy there's a data set that looks at called the computer the consumer expenditure survey which breaks down by race and class what how much people spend on food for instance so getting a little bit more sense of what people want to buy and what they would want to be sourcing from the region for instance right obviously it's not going to be bananas but maybe more tomatoes maybe more eggs so once we have that then another critical piece is having being in communication with producer groups to test out like is this even possible like do you guys even want to do this right so I'll give you a quick example uh as we were preparing for the strategic plan we're going to be giving you in 10 days we did a bunch of focus groups with producer groups and we met with the beef producers and we said okay guys you currently do about 17 million in sales of beef products uh you know hamburger steaks the whole nine yards um what are you what's your sense of where you could get to in 10 years based on what you're seeing in the marketplace for consumer demand your own interest in terms of like do you are you doing this to be in business of freezing beef are you doing this as a hobby like just try to get a sense of their interest and after some discussions they were like you know we think we could probably almost double you know like maybe we get to 28 29 million in sales in 10 years that seems doable and then the next question was oh but not if we don't have more meat processing capacity right so this is the iterative process we can talk to the producers but then we have to go keep going along the supply chain to talk about the processing infrastructure distribution infrastructure or the storage infrastructure the warehousing infrastructure some of it needs to be focused in Vermont but some of it may be strategically located in in say massachusetts you know the food hub collaborative group right now is talking about like having some kind of potential for a uh a terminal market we're really interested in seeing about this a terminal market let's say in braddleboro that could literally be the point where all the Vermont food comes to and then goes out to other parts of new england and comes back in well if we could get rid of the connecticut river we could do part of mass and new hampshire and vermont build to have a tri owned building a tri-state owned building i mean that's there's nothing stopping that from happening honestly from an investment standpoint no it's it's we we must work with you know get our own act together but work with these other new england states it's critical because that's where the people are i don't want to underestimate how how this is not going to be easy like this is so complicated and and even complex because you got to have workforce for it you got to have which means you have to have the educational system for it i eat like for more vermont tech uh kids coming out of vermont tech you need to have the the capital available to invest in the infrastructure it's not all going to be done by state government funds let's hope not uh brian thank you mr chair so elon i'm just wondering have you spoken to the agency about this appendix and yes you have yeah before i came to you guys i wanted to make sure that they were going to be okay with it so yeah i talked with abby and alison and they talked with anson and diane and diane already has an idea of how they could go through it so again i don't i don't think this is i'm hoping this doesn't have anybody that's going to be upset about this like this is just makes eminent sense to me well anytime you change anything you always have problems you know maybe with the exception of a light bulb but then they'll argue over what type and how many watts it should be well the good news is though you know the silver lining of covet is many of us knew that this was we were vulnerable before the pandemic right and what became really super clear is just how vulnerable we are because of the pandemic and so i think we actually kind of have this once in a lifetime once in a generation opportunity to really call into question our food supply chain and what do we want it to look like 30 years from now or 15 years from now and really get behind that uh that effort and make it and see if we can make it happen because there's more and more people that have had experience with it they've had direct experience with it going to the supermarket and certain things that they expected to be there wasn't there have you uh presented this to the house committee i did on tuesday yes yeah and are they excited about it or yes yes i think it would be it'd be fabulous for you and uh chair partridge to to confer on how you if you're interested how you'd like to move this forward yeah well um it depends on how you know i mean we have the time to do it because we planned on doing this and but both of us are lacking our our legislative draft person right now but michael may be back this coming week so that you know we or have you have you put together a draft plan yet no the that that word document that i that's on your page is the closest i've got and that that is built off of language that's currently being considered in massachusetts uh we're we're uh a little bit farther behind in the other four states getting it introduced but it's it's making its way through like the steps that it needs to go to in those six days so what would be great is within the next two years if all six states had something similar on the books instructing their departments of ag to do this then we again we're starting to build that infrastructure of of awareness about um that we're all in this together we're all moving in the same direction to make this happen yeah antony did yeah i just wonder is this something we have to legislate it's a good question i mean technically speaking if you know we could probably just have a conversation with the agency and they would do it i for me the benefit of having it be something that you're requesting is then more of you guys actually know about it and then can ask about it and can study it and can it gives a little bit more um you know stamp of a practical so to speak and the importance of it i agree i mean i think it should be legislated in order to really move it along put some power behind it i mean it also reminds me of people are talking about um resolution saying that for instance racism is a public health problem those kinds of things making that kind of statement and this would be making it clear that you know food security is or lack of food security is a really a serious public health problem for the state of Vermont in the coming years and this is one way to fix it is to make sure that we have that we're planning for the future so i i think legislating it it's a good idea i didn't know if we had to as opposed to whether or not just asking them to do it because sometimes we ask them to do things they don't necessarily do them yeah i think it has big implications right because as i said securing the land base to be able to have enough acres of prime ag land that that is still in production means that we have to be thinking about what happens when that dairy farm down the road unfortunately goes out you know like what happens to that land and how do we think about you need more housing in the state where is that housing located you know and making sure that it's not going on prime ag land it means that as we're thinking about bringing in remote workers who have a lot more money potentially at their disposal that they're not buying a 250 acre farm with no intention of it ever being worked again because that land is finite once it goes out of production and out of the hands of somebody that wants to work it it's gone and that that that in and of itself is a is a major vulnerability for us given our size we had that discussion earlier this morning actually on from our meeting yesterday about farm farmers leaving the land and what you know what happened uh chris um do you have a question yeah well it just strikes me that this is that the the we're all heartbroken when we hear another farm is going out of business this is sort of the flip of that is hey there's another opportunity that just opened up down the road and and it's so sensitive you know it's terrible for that family and and so um you know i know my comments i try to be careful and people think oh you can't stand dairy no that that's you know dairy is vital to our community and to our economy and what you're discussing is sort of this opportunity so i i almost wonder if we need to have you know the land trust has has developed some programs that that can ease some of the urgency when a farm says oh my god we're bankrupt we gotta we gotta sell we gotta liquidate there's a it's often very quick is my understanding and the neighbor often the bigger farmer buys the land or leases the land and eases that problem but there to me what you're describing sparks the need for some way to say for some entities say okay we'll help you we'll get you out of debt right now we'll buy the farm or we'll put it into holding and then some some analysis that says you know hogs would make a lot of sense here there's a slaughter facility whatever i mean and i don't i don't know how to do that it's really dicey because it's private property and it's deeply emotional for people that have given generations of effort and so i don't i don't mean to make light of it how people aren't hearing that but but somehow this connection to to land ownership stewardship and opportunity we got to think that through and and it's going to take a lot of brains and and more than just the agency i suspect yeah that's a good point yeah what about yeah what about economic development people are have have they you've approached them or they need approaching or because we are going to need we are going to need money you know to build out build these slaughter facilities maybe a packing house eventually you know we're we're kind of all in this together and we have we have not spoken to them yet but they are definitely on the the list of rounds we need to make a lot of this is going to be you're going to see it in 10 days with the new ag strategic plan because we have a brief for instance on food security that calls for a food security plan to get developed and we have in additional market additional product briefs built on what we you know you saw last year at this time but additional products that look at things like swine and eggs and poultry meat and that about the opportunities but the recommendations focusing on what's the infrastructure needed or what's the legislative change that's needed to enable that we have a new brief coming on the metro metropolitan markets and what the opportunity is within the 250 mile radius of Vermont for instance we've got a marketing brief that really gets at what are the challenges that producers have of getting their products and talking about their products in the marketplace and what do they need to do so a lot of the parts and pieces will be coming to you in 10 days in the plan itself and then I think the work ahead is then figuring out okay what are the pieces we want to move first what's the stuff that the legislature needs to move on what's the stuff the agency of ag needs to move on what's the stuff that commerce needs to move on what's the stuff that extension needs to move on you know all of those things what's Vermont text role in all of this that's the work of the next you know year to two years is really getting that moving um to to be uh really implementing yeah um and so money well it's gonna you know you don't get anywhere's without money uh and and uh once once you get the idea put together so it makes sense you know most of our colleagues under you know once you can present it to them so they can understand it but we have to understand it first but you know we we've never had too many problems going to get money um you know so um I'm not worried about that as long as we've got it figured out in a way that we can explain it uh that um that really does the trick yeah well as a for instance you know with all the recommendations from the briefs we counted up what the folks that wrote the briefs the subject matter experts and uh there's about 32 33 million dollars worth of needed investment and some of it's one time and a lot of it is year over year uh programs that need to be supported if we're really going to build this out not saying that that all comes from the state but just like we tried as much as possible to quantify like if we were to move forward on this what would it really cost and the other big piece of this and we talked a little bit about this with you last january is the need for more boots on the ground we came up with there's 33 positions um that are needed just in technical and business assistance to work with producers uh to be able to have the supports they need for things like marketing and agronomic support and uh water quality improvements in the whole nine yards like we just have not invested in the people power we need that's that support ring of people that that helps the producers to do what they do best which is produce the food and move the food yep well any other questions people answering well just two things one it reminds me again of the need to have we need the food securities are to sort of administer all this stuff and make sure that it happens but I also do we have your slides can we just like to show this to you email to us or something they are on your webpage I had sent them to Linda okay sorry I didn't look yet I'll make make sure that Linda gets us to all of us those pages and so we can look them over yeah and what one of the things that's up on your webpage for today for my my my uh talk on the agenda is the annex itself so you can read through it and you can right that's what I'd like to do what's covered and then it'll be really clear what's not there right and and the kind of format that it's in that that will also I think give you a good sense of of like just the level of detail or not that's needed so uh just to know this is the plan and it is going to be put in the mail to you next Wednesday it will be sent to your home so that when we meet with you on the 11th you can have it in front of you because it's it's a big document but I think it's one of these documents you're going to want to you know earmark and and put tabs on and keep it because this is this is a 10-year plan so we wrote it with the attention that this is going to this is going to live a long time so encourage you to uh you know you won't need to read it all before Thursday the 11th it's really just so you have it as we're as we're talking about the highlights of it yeah um anything we have to be on the floor at 11 30 so anything else from any other committee if not uh thank you very much Ellen and um we'll um you know we'll be looking forward to working with you and others uh on hopefully promoting and pushing uh this along great so thank you so much for the opportunity great questions yeah yeah um okay so uh thanks guys and uh you got to get dressed i'm already dressed for the house but a couple of you've got some work to do um we'll see on the floor when uh linda um we'll send you next week schedule and if you've got something you want to add or delete from it uh you know feel free to let me know so with that bobby jim sent us the link yeah to that yeah