 Thank you, everybody, for coming and use my welcome honor. Anyway, thank you for, thank you for coming. We didn't start a few minutes earlier, so we would have some more time for the question and answers for the board or get out of here or enjoy the nice weather. So we really appreciate it. Thank you for coming and welcome to the Mountain's co-op's dinner and discussion. This is the second, third year that we're doing this. My name is Scott Hess, I'm the co-op president this year. And it's become an annual event and we really appreciate you all coming out. And we've got a great panel here for some discussion and learning about our food world. This year, the co-op's been focusing on local foods, core value for a co-op because as you may have heard, we've been promoting and extremely proud of 40% of the products that your co-op sells is local from Vermont. And that's one of the highest in the country. So we're really proud of that and we sure, it's because of you, it's the products that you are on purchase. I'd just like to thank Jana Clark for providing us with this space for the second or third year in a row. It's been great working with her. You probably know what the exit is. Emergency exit there. The bathrooms, when you first come in, that's where they are. So you can exit from each side and I won't give you the less nation way you came in. And one of the things, the kitchen. Doug and his crew obviously do a wonderful job each year and on a regular basis, on a daily basis. There's five days. We've got a bunch of council members here today. I think everyone's here except for two. Ashley Hill wasn't available to come and we missed Jessica Knapp. She had a serious fall and she's doing fine but she's had some major mobility problems which I just heard from Robin that she's on her way to recovery. She's the staff rep. So we want to welcome her. And Katie Michaels is here and if you guys just want to stand up, Steve Farnham, Eric Jacobson, they're all kind of grouped over here. Eva Sheppness, Eva's around, there's Eva. Who else? Mark Semikowski, Pat Sergei is here and Shannon Leslie is right here. So you'll have an opportunity to ask any or all of us some individual questions or group questions were. Oh, I'm sorry, Katie Michaels. I forgot Katie, can you know the first on the list? Oh, did I miss anybody? Okay. I said, I mentioned Shannon, she's put up. This is awesome, let's do it. Call up the council, did I miss anybody? Thank you. Anyway, thanks so much. And at this point I'd like to turn it over to our wonderful facilitators tonight. Jean Hamilton, she's a sustainable food system specialist who helps businesses develop and developing effective communications, strategic planning network facilitation and innovation. And she's worked for Black River Produce and NOFA Vermont and contributes to the state's farm, to plate network. And she's also a fellow board president of Plainfield. So thank you so much for facilitating tonight and welcome. Thanks here to make sure these guys all stay in line. It's gonna be better for me if I stand over here. I think we're gonna start with some introductions. We've got three really great panelists who all are critical to our local food system here in Vermont. And I'm gonna let them introduce themselves. So if you guys could just start with your name and who you're representing, what organization you're with, the role you play there, and your favorite Vermont food. Mine is Butterworks Jersey Milk Yogurt. Oh, good choice. Hello, I'm Jason Elverson, owner of Subur Mesa, fermented foods. We're in our fifth year in business selling at a number of farmers markets, specifically Burlington and make kinchees and sauerkrauts and all sorts of probiotic goodies. And we're based out of Marshfield, just down the road. I might have to be biased and say my favorite Vermont food is our wonderful line of kimchi products. But also, I think it's really just the prevalence of really fresh, really amazing organic produce, which we use in our home kitchen table and in all of our products. So we really value all the hard work that the organic Vermont farmers are doing. I think they really just make the best food that other people then can turn into. Is there somewhere they can taste your products? Yes, we have our tables right here. We have three different kinds of kimchi and kraut. Please come up and try some. Ask me any and all the questions you have about ferments and we can chat. But they are available here for tasting. And I shall also mention they are on sale for just the rest of the month at the co-op. I work for Hunger Mountain Co-op as the lead grocery buyer. So I do a lot of work with planning promotions and selecting new items, some of the category reviews and things like that. And I work really closely with a lot of local vendors in the departments that I work with planning those promotions and, you know, Sobri Mesa was a really wonderful brand that we got to bring on this year and that's some of my favorite work to do. So, and then my favorite Vermont food would probably have to be Fat Toad Farm Caramel Sauce. They're on a Brookfield Vermont and they're a wonderful goat dairy farm who partners with other goat dairy farms in Vermont and makes an incredible traditional caramel that I think is really great on brownies. So. All right, so I'm Jay Clarow. I work at the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund as the farm to plate director. So what farm to plate is is Vermont is pretty unique in that we have a legislatively enabled food system plan. So I have the pleasure of helping to coordinate the farm to plate network, which is a group of over, we estimate 300 plus organizations from nonprofits to business, farm and food businesses that are implementing that plan. And we also, we have a kind of evaluation roll as well as part of the, so we annually report to the legislature on progress towards our plans, goals. And so yeah, my and my favorite Vermont food, so I felt like there was kind of two categories. So I love any pasture based meat product. I think it's something to be proud about and is always delicious. And cream top milk is something that I think is, as I thought about it, I was like, it's so fundamental and foundational. And so yeah, that was my two. Some time at the end to ask your own questions, but I just wanted to know if any of you wanted to share one of your favorite Vermont foods. Or actually, does anybody here like eating local food from Vermont? Or do they like show hands, is that something you're into? That is a surprisingly small number of you. But yeah, why don't you just shout out like a couple of things you are excited about in our food system here. Great. Organic beans from the old world. Oh. See, apples. Oh yeah, that's a good one. And I like sweet potatoes. Thank you. Well, I'm not from here, I'm from DC, but it has been such an extreme pleasure. And one of the really primary reasons that I've made Vermont my home is this incredible agricultural landscape and the food we have access to. And I've had the pleasure of working with a lot of farms and food producers and our state government and nonprofits to try to build this food system. And I know how inspiring it is and I also know how challenging it is. So I'm hoping you all can each take a little moment to tell us something that you feel is going really well for you right now. And then also something that you see is particularly challenging in this movement or this marketplace. Should we start with Jake? Sure. Mix it up. Oh boy. It's hard for me to name just one, G. But also I'll start with, yeah, so for some things that are working well, we've been doing some more kind of focus, what we call like sub-sector development. So an example of that is recently we've worked with a number of grass-fed beef producers to improve their, not only their production practices, but their overall business management. So what we realized through some research was that really grass-fed beef production in Vermont is a pretty nascent industry. Certainly there's been people doing it, but sort of in a serious and financially sustainable way, it's, there's still a lot of progress to be made. And so we've done some market research, but then we were able to bring a program called Ranching for Profit, which the name might kind of not resonate. And that's partially because this is a program that is typically run out in the West. And also in Canada, and it's been run internationally as well, but so we were able to, in working with some grass-fed beef producers here, identify that as a program that was desired by those producers to come to Vermont. And the program has never been in the Northeast. It's always been out West or in Canada. So we were able to bring what is ultimately the school. So it's a week-long intensive school to the state of Vermont and opened it up actually to New England. We were able to have 10 Vermont farms participate in this program and graduate, really come out with a lot of insight as to how they can focus their energies on their business in a more profitable manner. And what we did was we supplemented that by, and mind you too, this is a school that costs $2,700 to attend. So these producers had a lot of investment in the game to go through the school. And then we supplemented that by providing some implementation grants to them afterwards. So we're surveying the process of providing that support to them for what has come to be a lot of, what's needed by a lot of our grass-fed beef producers is more kind of portable scales and animal handling equipment just based on, there's not a lot of contiguous land in Vermont for these producers, so they're moving around a lot and they don't always have the right type of infrastructure to do that effectively and efficiently. So that's one area where we've now put a lot of investment and we really feel like there's a strong culture shift that's happening in the grass with beef producing. I'm putting my hand on the power. So that's one area and in the past we've done some work with meat processing so we've had this kind of progressive work in strengthening the beef and meat supply chain, you could call it. We're also starting to get into some grain production, kind of thinking in a similar manner. What are the infrastructure needs to scale grain production in the state of Vermont and we're finding, we're starting to make some progress with that. If we've got King Arthur Flower that has some interest, there's a mill in Canada that's very interested in supplying more Vermont grown grains but there are some infrastructure pieces that Vermont lacks in order to access those markets. So we've really put a lot of attention to that and just another kind of area that we've been working in in terms of market development is actually independent grocery stores in the state of Vermont. So we've been providing through consultant direct store, in-store trainings, which might be sort of more business management but it could also be how do you better merchandise local food in your store. A lot of these independent grocers are not effectively marketing, merchandising local and they could be really making that a part of their store's identity and also they have trouble sometimes knowing what Vermont products are available in certain product categories. So our consultant is helping them identify those things and figuring out how can they source them into the store. So we're trying to increase access into retail markets through that program for our local producers and it turned hopefully putting some pressure on the larger retailers to also be supplying more local as that program finds success. So those are two areas I think where we've taken a focused approach and we found that we can identify these problems and issues with some research and investigation and then we can with a little investment and some resources we can actually start to solve some of those problems. And so we're just scratching the surface. There's so much more to do. And then problems I just see on the other side of the coin here is that so we all kind of have heard that there's a lot of struggles in the dairy industry and that's not insignificant. That has huge implications for land use patterns in the state of Vermont, our kind of our cultural heritage and identity. And the thing is it's not easy for those businesses to make a shift. There's a lot of things in the marketplace and market development that need to happen whether they're if they wanna go organic or they wanna diversify their operations or transition completely to a new form of production. So I think it's just that's a huge challenge and connected to that, the challenge of how do we access markets both I think we've done a great job here in Vermont but a lot of producers are saying, we need to get outside of the state but we don't know how or we don't have the distribution to do that. And that's not an easy problem to solve and there's also the paradox sometimes those markets aren't paying prices that are really supportive of what our producers need. So it's a tricky situation and it's gonna require a lot of creative, innovative work. So that's kind of what we're trying to think about for the next basically the next 10 years. So what I think is working well from my perspective as a buyer of the co-op with our work of local vendors is I think some of the work I do around pricing and promotion specifically for local vendors is a good system we have in place. It's certainly things like one of the major things we do for local vendors is provide discounted local margin which essentially means we charge less based on cost for local products and make less profit on those items in order to help them be competitive with some of the national brands because of the way they buy ingredients and the way they streamline production can have lower costs. So I think that's a really great system we have in place for our departments and it really does sort of give local products a step up when otherwise they might struggle to compete. And then one of the other systems I really enjoy working with is our member sales. So for our departments and probably you all know our member sales for our departments or my department specifically we do strictly local items for our member sales. So everything that appears in that flyer is a local item or a local brand and we do 16 different local brands every month on sale. Jason was mentioning Sobre Mesa is on sale right now that's one of them and that's a way that we can really highlight those brands. So many of our sales are predetermined by NCG and so this is a way for us to stand out both as a store, as a co-op in the state and to push local product is great and super important. And it seems to go well. I would say the flip side to that is sort of our biggest challenge as a buyer with local products is the time and resources it takes to do that work. National brands have brokers. They have people who sell their product for them who plan their deals for them who work with distributors for them. Local products don't have that same advantage. So that's certainly a struggle and it's a lot of time investment on buyer's parts of the co-op. So that's, I would say that's our biggest challenge we're facing or the biggest challenge I'm seeing for the co-op and our relationship with local items. So one of the things that's been working really well for us is something that was a challenge when we started out and that was how well-known fermented foods were in general. We were doing a lot of early education and explaining what fermented foods were and how they were made or why they were good for you or how to eat them. And now I have customers sharing recipes with me and telling me exciting things who are hearing more and more from people. My doctor recommended this or my doctor said I need to be eating more probiotic rich foods. So that has turned into what is now going well for us. We don't have to work, we don't have to work so as hard at marketing as we used to because it's becoming much more not only accepted but people are being more excited and excitable about fermented foods and it's becoming experiencing this resurgence and popularity, you know? Because salting your food to preserve it has been around pretty much forever but only recently has it become more and more popular and we see new companies popping up handful every year. So then that leads me into well, but as our challenge as a business in its fifth year is probably that it's just my wife and me and now we have a young one year old and so our challenge is working to meet this demand that exists here and Boston and probably a large part of New England. So we're working towards making that inventory that we need to meet those demands probably with employees for the first time and also working with distributors or hiring someone to distribute for us if that's driving things down to Brattleboro for example. We work with one organization called Farmers to You. They have like an 800 plus member CSA based out of Boston. We sell down a whole bunch of cases every few weeks. So as we grow we're just bringing on people to help us make more and move more because the demand's there and we're working to meet it. Thanks guys. I have a little housekeeping announcement which is that there's lots of extra food and please if you leave early the instruction from Scott was to take food with you. So there are plates there and you can be creative about how to bundle that food up and take it home. Those were great answers and really resonated with a lot of what I think about now in kind of building this movement and this marketplace. In so many ways I think for a lot of us we look out at the landscape and feel like wow we've arrived. Local food is here. It's doing really well. It's so vibrant you can get it at the co-op at Farmers2U, at Walmart, at Costco which is something that from the movement side like we've really been pushing to get local food into all those outlets and so a lot to celebrate there. And then at the same time as that marketplace matures we're seeing a lot of the kind of increasing complexity of the challenges that grow with that. I think price pressure is one thing we really hear that suddenly Jasper Hill cheese is at Costco and at Hunger Mountain and of course the economics at Costco is really different and the price back to the producer is really different at Costco than it is at Hunger Mountain. The relationships are really different at Costco or Walmart than at Hunger Mountain or the Farmers market that all these channels offer kind of different opportunities and different ways to value our experience and our food and it's getting harder and harder it feels to me to understand like are we winning or losing I can't quite tell. It feels like a really challenging moment that in some ways it feels like we're stronger than ever and in some ways it feels like this movement and our agricultural economy and culture is like more fragile than ever. And so I really hope you all will think about that a little bit and reflect in your own lives you know what you feel is valuable about local agriculture and we all have that experience I have the experience of looking at a similar product in two different stores and feeling like oh I clearly want the cheaper one because cheaper is better that's like how my brain has been trained but then remembering this whole work that I do in the food movement has really helped me think about what happens when something is cheaper and what we're externalizing with that or what values we're losing. So anyway that's kind of a rant but what I was hoping to launch is just a question to you all about what you know as a state and as a community what we should be, what kind of we should be prioritizing to strengthen Vermont's local agricultural economy and culture and how we can strengthen our local food system if there's policies or statewide movements or efforts that we should be contributing to and then particularly how individuals like those of us in this room and organizations like Hunter Mountain can really speak to those priorities and those campaigns. Olivia can I start with you? So I won't pretend to know that much about policies or state policies because I don't but I think one of the top priorities for our state right now in really supporting these smaller local vendors is resources. I think so much of the burden falls on these small vendors as far as getting everything right every time, all the time with packaging, with distribution, with the right temperature of their product when it gets delivered to a store. They are expected to have this knowledge and to know it all the time and it's definitely a huge burden and a large amount of work that they have to do. And so I really believe that one of the things the state can do is provide better resources in that way, provide classes on basic marketing, how to get your name out there, how to use Facebook, how to use Instagram, how to really market yourself in some basic ways and also how to package your product, what needs to be on your packaging because we see a lot of the time product come in without correct weights or without correct addresses or those sort of issues that pop up and the state then comes through and audits us and lets us know when things are wrong. So I think that's a place where maybe the state could be doing more positive work instead of more audits or sort of slapping on the rest, which is what I see happening now. And that's sort of a barrier for these businesses instead of promoting them or instead of helping them. And then the other piece of that I think is also just helping them understand the marketplace, what's out there, what isn't there, what do we have too much of in Vermont, what are we missing in the marketplace, what isn't a local producer making right now that a co-op or shawls or anyone could be really excited about bringing in. So those trends and insights that are so much more accessible to people who are connected or who have those that technology or their fingertips that a small local business might not have, I think those are some of the things that we could be doing. And then, Gina, were you talking also about what these individuals can do? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So what I think the individual can do, certainly, you know, basics, shop at Hunger Mountain Co-op. But I think beyond that, it's when you shop there, really think about, you know, am I picking local or am I picking a national brand? And can you pick local? Is that an option for you? And if it is, you know, seek it out and help us sell more local product. That's a big thing that I think everyone can try to do or look at doing, you know, every time they shop. And whether you're at Hunger Mountain Co-op or at shawls or at Costco, picking local, I think is always important. So if it comes down to Synergy Ko-Boo-Jee or Kiss Ko-Boo-Jee, maybe think Kiss Ko-Boo-Jee that time. And then, what can the co-op do? I think things like this panel is really meaningful. I think starting the discussion is a place that we can come from naturally. Initiating the discussion, bringing in people from outside of the co-op to help us understand better maybe what we're not doing, maybe what we could do better. So I think that's a piece that we're starting to do that we can do more of, that we can really focus on. But I think also, you know, I talked a lot about the state providing resources for local vendors. I think the co-op can also be a major resource for local vendors. We have tools at our disposal that are major industry insights that we can say, you know, for mental foods is a huge growing category right now. And we know that we can see it across the country in different stores. What's going well, what's not, what's missing. And I think we can do that. We can also really help them become retail ready. So what's missing from their packaging? What's not gonna work on a shelf? What's, you know, if their label isn't visible, you know, standing on a shelf, that's something that we as a co-op maybe have more insight into than someone who's just starting out or just packaging their product for the first time. So I'd like to say that we've received a lot of support and help from the state in pursuing this business of ours. You know, value-added food producer. Things like UVM extension helped us out a lot whether it's different types of professional guidance or help with even if we had someone come out and teach us how to use Excel. Not Excel, QuickBooks. Anyways, the UVM extension in Vermont as a whole is extremely friendly and supportive of young food-related business entrepreneurs. That was one of the things that attracted us to this state years ago when we decided we wanted to set up our own food business. And I think the state also does a good job with its crop cash, it's like food stamp program. We see that a lot at farmer's markets. I wish that those were eligible for purchasing more than just strictly raw fruits and vegetables. For example, they cannot buy a jar of sauerkraut with their crop cash or they can't buy a jar of jam, for example. So that would be something that could be expanded. If we're speaking ideals, I would like to see the state fund or these partially found farmer's markets. I think it's a huge part of our identity as a state. I think a little bit of that would go a long way, even just the gesture and the loan kind of bringing in together the state and local governments a little bit more in regards to farmer's markets. I think Humber Mountain Co-op does a phenomenal job supporting its vendors and I can really, mostly only speak of my personal experience and a handful of people that I've talked to about this, but just what they're doing seems so great being very eager and excited to have us come on board which was wonderful, but all the open slots and encouragement of demoing and really just making it work as easily as possible, whether that's being flexible on pricing or flavors even and things like that. So they seem to have a real genuine interest in our success as a business and they're not just, if we don't mean to certain expectations, they're not ready to move on to the next thing in a way maybe a lot of grocery stores might, if they can get something two cents cheaper, those other guys might do it and not really care about anything else and there seems to be a lot of ethics involved with all the decision making that Humber Mountain does and that leads me into a little bit about what the individual can do to help support our local food community and I think one of the biggest ones is just having maybe a slight shift or a high value of what local food is, why it's important and why it's different and maybe why it might cost a little more and not be available year round and understanding those different variables and how they become a part of that end product and all the different things that make it what it is and maybe being okay with not buying certain types of food year round and at least in our household we really look forward to the first time during the first tomato season, especially when we're at the farmers markets every single week and we get to see things come on, that's how we value local food in a way in our home as we only asparagus a few weeks out of the year and then it's that much more special when it comes around again. Obviously that type doesn't work for every household but it's just a nice model for us. We do try and eat local year round and that means our diet changes seasonally quite a bit but we're also very passionate about food preservation. One of the things that brought us into the fermented foods and we do a lot of freezing and drying and a tiny bit of canning and really we have a lot of joy in our household preserving the food to sustain us through the winter months and then we try and buy direct from the producer or farmer as much as possible to the extent that we like to be able to refer to the food on our table on a first name basis, that's Beth's beef or John's carrots or Kyle's mushrooms and if we can do that to everything on the plate we have the first name, that feels good to us and we really like that and I could probably talk in depth in a long time what and how I value local food is but you can chat with me more here and I think I've covered it broadly enough. I don't feel like I have anything to add. So I was sort of starting at the individual level I think the first thing is if you're buying local keep buying local, it does make a difference Jean was kind of saying I feel like this too sometimes of are we winning or are we losing? What's happening? But the one thing that I do know is that every dollar counts and doing what you're doing does make a difference. I think along those lines is once a month try something new, what's something local that you haven't tried and you don't have to kind of extend yourself too far once a month. Not asking a lot but just try it and maybe that thing becomes a new staple for you. Likewise I think what's one item that you could substitute that could be local that you're not currently buying? So what's that one item that you could be buying every time you're at the grocery store that you're currently not? Again kind of starting simple, starting small not trying to be heroic in terms of what you're purchasing but do something that feels manageable to you. I think again what you're buying and what you could be buying in addition to that every dollar does make a big difference. And then I think to the extent that you can and I think the co-op is probably a place that's receptive to this is how are you expressing your demand? If you're thinking is there a local this or that? Ask someone at the co-op, ask someone at the store that you're shopping at because that does make a difference. Buyers don't know what consumers want until they express some sort of explicit demand for it. So I think sometimes that's another just vehicle of being very direct about what you want and perhaps what the co-op or other stores could be providing. I think similarly what could the co-op be doing? The co-op is doing a lot. I mean the co-op is unique, it's different. It is values oriented which is not the norm in retail at all. So I say the co-op doubles down on that and continues to build out what it's created and that likewise as members is something that as a member of the co-op I'm all in on that and I'm sure the membership would be as well because if we can't win there then we're not gonna win nationally or regionally. So it's really, we have to be supportive of that mission and hold decision makers and management and staff accountable to that mission as much as we can. So I don't know. So I really think that we should, there we go. All right. This could be interesting. So we should be supportive of what the co-op stands for and double down because it matters more than it ever has in a world where there's right now not a lot to be, it's hard to be hopeful about things and I think the co-op is one of those things that we can be hopeful about. I think in terms of policy, I think the dynamic here is that Vermont does have a lot of strong programs in place that support producers and provide services to them but not necessarily, they're not always resource at the levels that they could be or that they should be. Agriculture in being such a huge part of what the state is and how we identify with it is surprisingly a small part of the overall budget in state policy. So I think, as citizens with representatives, anytime something related to agriculture comes up or there's a program that you've heard about, ask them about it, ask them where they stand in terms of increasing funding. I think there's things like Working Lands Enterprise Initiative that provides grants to farm and food businesses, to make infrastructure investments, to improve their business, to scale up, to grow and be successful. That's funded, that's been funded at good levels but I think it could be funded more than it is and that's something that, having some awareness of that program exists and maybe I can talk to my legislator about it is that makes a difference too because we are a state where you can have a cup of coffee with your legislator, they'll make the time to do that same thing with farm to school. There's produce infrastructure support that is available to producers but again, all these things are sort of, it's finding small pots of money for what is a huge demand for those resources. There's the Farm and Forest Viability Program which provides business assistance which UVM Extension is a part of, sort of a partner in that. Those are the programs that make a huge difference but they're in my mind under-resourced and I think that's one of the keys. Another thing that I want to throw out here is from a policy perspective and there's conversations happening about this but we need to kind of change the paradigm around environmental stewardship. We need to move towards outcome and incentive based policies that rewards the farms that are doing the right things that are going above and beyond and actually providing positive benefits to the public in terms of environmental stewardship. A lot of conversation around environmental stewardship right now is in a very negative light around water quality but if you really think about it, 10 acres of farmland provides a lot of flood mitigation. It provides a lot of wildlife habitat. It provides scenic views that attract tourism to our state and those are all positive public benefits that don't necessarily get compensated so I think we need to kind of rethink the way we do regulatory policy around and our environmental stewardship and that in turn is, those are, it's really hard for producers to get paid of a fair price for the food product that they're providing and so that's another means of revenue for the stewardship that they're actually providing to us. To the public and so I just encourage people to pay attention to that and kind of pay attention to the tone of the conversation around water quality that exists right now and maybe how can we shift that to be a little more reflective of what farms are providing to the landscape in terms of those benefits. So yeah, I'll stop on that. Thanks guys, that was super thoughtful. I think we can turn it over to you all now and I love, Jake, what you said it made me reflect on this report I read recently about shifting our languaging away from food consumers to food citizens and really recognizing that if we think of ourselves as citizens instead of consumers we will feel much more empowered to engage with the whole complexity of this system and recognize that we have more opportunities to engage and build this than just our shopping decisions although our shopping decisions are also important. And so I'd love to send it out to you to hear about how you all value local agriculture and local food and if you see yourself as a food citizen and what kinds of actions you are hoping to take or are taking, are you thinking about the dairy crisis and how that might spill out over to the viability of our whole working landscape and are there other questions or thoughts you'd like to share? Should I walk around with this, is that helpful? Thank you all for being here. I had, I come from, maybe I'm bringing a slightly different perspective but I think it's Jake. Yeah, like a couple questions. So one you talked about bringing more grain in. Is that grain for animals or grain for people? The one is the split because right now about I think around 80% of grain goes to feeding cattle rather than factory farms. Rather than feeding people and we have hungry people. Yeah, I was referring to grain for human consumption. So and very much sort of heritage varieties that have historically been grown in Vermont and providing sort of actual market opportunities for the sale of those grains to bakeries, mills, whether it's flour production, bread, et cetera. And the other question now is about the food quality issue. I mean, sorry, the water quality issue. So you were talking about the benefits of farms when you talk about water quality and what about all the runoff from factory farms that the manure that gets into our water and soils it poisons it? Yeah, I think so I don't want to diminish the need for a baseline of regulations that penalizes and discourages egregiously bad behavior and practices. I don't think I can sit here and say that isn't happening. But I think it's gotten to a point where we've forgotten that there are farms that aren't doing those things and actually are doing a lot of really beneficial practices that don't get compensated and do provide lots of public benefit. So it's more of I'd like to just find a balance in that conversation to say, yes, we do need regulations that are able to protect our waterways and penalize those who are violating and basically making the public pay for their bad behavior. So I think that's absolutely critical as a baseline. But I think also oftentimes what's missing in these conversations is that there's a lot of people who are doing really great things for us and they're doing it basically at a cost to themselves. And the marketplace does not compensate them for the products that they're providing. And so it's sort of rethinking. I mean, it's really rethinking a lot of the structure of our economy in many ways. And the other thing, too, is that I'll stop here. Jake, I think the ecosystem services is such an exciting and kind of complicated idea. And I wonder if there is a resource you could point people to who are interested in learning more about it? My master's thesis, no. Well, so there's two reports right now. There's a future of ag report that came out recently. If you go to fromoffarmtoplay.com, you can find this. And then there's also a group of Dairywater Quality Collaborative who've also put out a report that's outlining sort of the basic framework of how this would work. But if you search Payment Breaker Systems Services, you can find a number of resources on this. And the other thing I would say, too, is that I see this, too, in an era of a changing climate where we are going to see more flood events, where biodiversity loss is a huge issue. This is also a climate and a climate resilience strategy is to really invest in our farmland as, in some ways, as natural infrastructure for an age of climate change. There's some interesting studies that were done around the Middlebury area where the natural landscape actually mitigated real flood damage in Middlebury. And I think the farm landscape is very much an important piece of natural infrastructure to mitigate a lot of what could be real harm that we experience not every 100 years, but every 10 years. Thanks for being here. This has been very interesting. I have a question. It might be through Olivia. Regarding the dilemma of pumpkin seeds not being available either at the co-op or practically anywhere I travel. And the pumpkin seeds that are available at the co-op are from China, which I will not eat. And I'm wondering, considering the proliferation of pumpkins in this state and everywhere else, why we can't get local pumpkin seeds, I did purchase wonderful pumpkin seeds a month ago in Portland or at a particular co-op. They do not have pumpkin seeds at other stores in Portland either. And I was told by somebody that their Portland is one of the states that grows a lot of pumpkins as well and has pumpkin seeds, but why aren't they available? Sorry, I'm very good. Yeah, I'm very passionate about pumpkin seeds. While I'm walking the mic over, I could just. OK, I am also. I was going to mention that pumpkin seeds are from China. OK, hold your China question. I will just say that the pumpkin seeds that we buy, the pepitas that are green, are not the same variety that come inside your average pumpkin. So you have to grow a special kind of pumpkin. And I do know about a source in New York that I could tell you about. Great. So I will start off not passing the buck too much, but unfortunately, I don't actually buy for our bulk department. So I can't specifically answer the logistics behind our bulk buyer's choice of pumpkin seeds, unfortunately, or where they're at right now. I will say in maybe a little bit more general terms that we can hopefully apply to pumpkin seeds. I mean, this is information that's really helpful for us to know that we can then pass along to some of our growers or our buyers or producers that we work with to say, if consumers come to us and say, or our members come to us and say, I would love to see a local pumpkin seed. I would pay more for a local pumpkin seed. But our bulk buyer is going to be excited to do that, and it's going to look for that. That doesn't mean necessarily that there is someone in the state of Vermont currently toasting pumpkin seeds or selling raw pumpkin seeds. But it's something that we can know and pass along to the producers who are maybe doing our beans or our corn or something else. There's another opportunity, another option for them, something else that they can grow, that we would be on board to buy. So that's a more general question, as far as a more general answer. I would say, as far as some of the out of stocks we see at the co-op, I think this goes back to some of the climate change stuff we were talking about. I think this is going to be a really, I think we're just seeing the beginning of some really dramatic product losses in this country, especially locally produced, or not locally, but US made products. I think we just found out that pretty much the entire crop of organic peas that were grown in this country, for canning, for three of the top organic canned brands are not available. So we will not see organic canned peas this year. And these are things that we're finding more and more. There's a significant struggle for organic oats. There's a really significant struggle for organic grains. Both the demand has grown, so there's just not enough. But also there are more crop failures. There are more reasons for crop failure. The parts of our country that are producing these crops, especially these organic crops, are really suffering from weather-related issues. So that's, I think, unfortunately, going to be the new normal. But I also think it positions us to buy local, really, more to rely on local farms and not rely on California or Wisconsin or some of these other production states that we've so heavily relied on in the past and that most stores know I am. Because I think they're going to become less and less reliable. Yeah, that kind of makes me think about what Jason was saying about eating seasonally and knowing your farmers. I know I felt very similarly that it provides me with a lot of safety and security to feel like I know a number of different people I can get my food directly from. And after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, I read a study that said that the small landholders were back up in producing food so much more quickly than the commodity agriculture, which kind of makes intuitive sense when you have a diverse garden with different kinds of trees and shrubs and small plants. It's kind of easier to bounce back than a big field that is planted in a monoculture. So I find a lot of hope and security in thinking about the resiliency we gain from a diversified agricultural landscape. Are there, I think we have time for probably two other quick questions. I don't know who is first. We'll do all three of you. I'll come to you first. I don't need the microphone. Okay. Jake, you mentioned before I think that farmers should be compensated for the efforts. Exactly what would the source of compensation be? Where would it come from? How would you do it? Yeah. We could talk a long time about that. I mean, there's different ways of approaching that. So the way it's worked up in areas where this is happening, generally a municipality or state government will act as basically the payee or the payer through tax collections. There are some examples though, however, of say downstream water users who pay, individually pay upstream farms on a per-unit basis. So you can do it in a very kind of private market system or you can do it in a publicly regulated payment scheme with some form of verification that happens that you're getting paid for the delivery of some verifiable ecosystem service, is what it would be called. And there's continued to be a lot of work as to what system is most efficient and effective. There's a lot of transaction costs that can occur in a private market system that kind of centralized government public system can be more effective in addressing. But yeah, there's different ways to kind of look at it and structure it. Jake, are there some examples of this, like the federal out there, some USDA programs with? Yeah, but there's also an example very close to us in the Hudson River Valley. So New York City, a number of years ago, had the option of paying billions of dollars to create a, you know, within the city limits wastewater treatment facility. Or they decided that they would pay farms in the Hudson River Valley to implement a certain set of practices and deliver the levels of water quality that they were seeking through the wastewater treatment facility. And so they've invested in those farms to do those things rather than make the investment in a not only upfront billion-dollar investment in the wastewater facility, but accruing yearly millions of dollars operational fees that would come with that. So there's also kind of ways in which you can look at it as sort of the opportunity cost of doing one thing over another, and it becomes much cheaper to pay landowners to do certain things rather than do it through built infrastructure. So that, yeah, that's one example that's close to home. I recently read somewhere, I don't remember the exact number, but it was some really high number of gallons of water, like maybe a thousand gallons of water it takes for every pound of beef. And I've also read about how much grain and other resources going into the production of beef. And several, what I would ordinarily consider to be good environmental organizations seem to be steering people towards vegetarian diets in a way for meat, because meat is supposedly so resource intensive. Yet it seems to me that if you put some fence around some kind of poor land that's not very good cropland and let some animals graze it here and then they have access to a stream so they can drink for a couple of summers and then slaughter them in the fall, that's a really good way to accrue some protein to the animal's body, doesn't require any grain, it's good healthy food, and I fail to see that that's as bad for the environment as some of these organizations like to make us stink. So in the vein of rooting for local products I was wondering if you can shed some light on that. Does anybody have any numbers or any facts about how much resource it takes to grow animals in the pasture versus in the feed lots and what's the environmental impact and some of that? And can you answer that this afternoon? Thank you. I would just say I don't have, you know, sort of the studies and hard numbers but this was one reason I mentioned pasture raised meats is one of my favorite things. I'm glad you've been asked that question because, you know, yes, there have been a lot of reports that come out around, you know, climate friendly diets and oftentimes meat gets sort of looked at as, you know, something to cut back on and eat less of. Generally, I absolutely agree with that. The analysis is usually based on, say, growing beef in a feed lot in Arizona that needs to irrigate or, you know, the crops that they're growing require irrigation and intensive energy inputs that are coming externally in order to grow that protein. I think the Northeast is different in that way. It's ecologically appropriate to be growing pasture raised animals. It's good in an integrated system as they're providing additional inputs that are important for, you know, vegetable production. So that's why I feel really good about knowing, you know, that I'm eating a chicken or a beef or a meat, you know, raised here in the Northeast rather than I stay away from anything else. So, yeah. And I think there is, I think there are studies to back that up and I just think there are good ecological reasons why livestock is actually good for our environment here in the Northeast whereas it may be less appropriate in other places. So that's sort of how I think about it. So I'm really interested in how we protect our pollinators. I know there's lots of research out there. A lot of people doing this work all over the world. And I know we have a lot of successful B-raisers in this state too. So I'm just wondering what are we doing? How are we sharing information and making sure we don't have to take paintbrushes out and pollinate everything? Who's answering? I could speak to that a little bit. I would say one of the easiest things I think we could do as a community is build these pollinator houses which are essentially just pieces of Japanese knotweed or any kind of semi-hollow branches tucked into a birdhouse type thing. If our schools and churches were making these as like their craft projects and they wound up in people's backyards, think about how many thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pollinators that would support. So just one small, relatively simple idea. We have bees at our farm we haven't been successful in overwintering them. Well, we just got them last year. Anyways, I sort of feel as someone who runs a homestead almost obligated because of the crisis that the bees are experiencing. So I would encourage people who have the means and the abilities to have bees even if they don't harvest the honey just for the sake of the bees. Okay, one of our council people has asked for one last question. And as we go there, I'll just say that I'm sorry I didn't totally hear your question because I was talking to her, but one of the most important things we can do to support pollinators is to not use neonicdenoid pesticides on our gardens. And this is a great place where you can make a choice as a consumer but also to really talk to our state legislators and tell them that we think they should be banned from our state and not allowed in any of our horticultural stores or our hardware stores. So the word is neonicdenoid. It's kind of complicated. You can say neonics and people will know what you're talking about, but they are really, really, really killing our pollinators and it's time for them to be gone from our state. Thank you. So my question is about food insecurity. So I understand because I was listening to NPR on Sunday afternoon there was a program about a woman that interviewed a bunch of different farmers who were food insecure. Either they didn't have the money or they didn't have the time or both to actually get the food that they needed to keep on running their farms. So that's on the one side and of course on the other side there's the rest of us that aren't farmers that may be food insecure and what can we do as a community to help farmers be more food secure and the community at large be more food secure. Sorry for... I'll start. We need to totalize food security more. I won't claim to have a lot of great answers to this but I will say I think as far as supporting our farmers who are food insecure what we've been talking about all night buying local, buying their food, buying their produce supporting them, giving them into stores recommending them to your store that you shop at the most so much of the work that Co-op does is based around what our members want and so if we see that something's selling we're going to buy more of it we're going to expand the line we're going to help those farmers in that way and so that's really I think that's how we can support farmers. It's the consumers supporting the farmers but there's been more conversation about other ways of like the city of New York paying the farmers to do different kinds of work that accurately do the same things so they're supporting the farmers and the municipality is supporting the farmers so how can we do that sort of thing that feeds the farmers any ideas about that? Yes I think it's one of those questions that brings in a lot of deep structural issues with our economy and so I think some of the things that I've been throwing out there tonight about payment for ecosystem services is how do we create additional revenue streams for farms and the services that they're providing that might not be in the food itself also I think about this a lot because so many farms provide food to the local food shelf or the food bank and they are in turn then food insecure and so I think a lot of times there's this expectation that when they have that surplus their duty is to give it away and we don't really have a solid means for compensating that contribution they can do some write-offs but often times they don't announce anything so that's one area I think there's some states that have done some interesting things where it's they do have programs in place to provide some compensation for those food donations and I think that's something that whether it's state or federal that is an area that more work could be done and more advocacy because I do think it's somewhat absurd and unfortunate when they can't get really paid for the product that they're producing a good price for what they're producing to begin with and then on the other side of the equation is that's where I think we're talking about the larger economic inequalities whether it's things like little wage and just general income distribution in our country there's something not right when so many people are in fact food insecure in a developed country like ours so that's where as the citizen not as the consumer it's sort of keep pushing for the policies that would make a difference for a structural place rather than a sort of more of a band-aid to those problems Thanks, Jake I feel like that's a great place to end on really engaging our citizenship and I know at the movement level we've been talking a lot about the agricultural crisis and specifically the dairy crisis that we're facing in the state right now dairy farmers are really looking at very, very hard times and so this is a great time to not only stand up as a citizen but also as a neighbor and a community member just the dairy farms in your community are probably having a really hard go of it right now and it's a great time to lean in and reach out it's for any of you who haven't farmed before it can be really isolating and it might be a nice time to go knock on your neighbor's doors and let them know that you see them and you appreciate their work and if there's anything that we can do as neighbors and community members to support them right now it's a great time to do that So thanks, panel you were great so people if you would like to talk to your council Scott, Matt Just for one second, I was from this before and I would sort of thank the three individuals in addition to Rob who did a fabulous job with coordinating this and bringing it all together Stephanie who's been doing double food here in the babysitting and pulling it all together and Robin in the back for helping us out so thank you for being here and once again as she said there's food if you want to kind of double bag of plate or whatever there's food here and I'll turn it back over to Jean we have a slide of just kind of the things that the council is working on and where Jean will kind of facilitate this these are a few of the things that are on the priority list that the council is working on in this current term and we're happy to answer any questions Karen, our general manager is here and any of us council members if we can or if you certainly have any comments about the co-op, about the food or the facility or anything like that please ask away that's what we're here for and thank you all for coming it's a pleasure to see you all and thank you for participating it was fascinating it was really really good, thank you for participating thank you so it seems the council is dispersed around the room and I guess the way this is going to work is I'll run around with the mic if you raise your hand and we'll just start you all seem like very well behaved people but I'll just say that there are a number of us here we have to leave here in 30 minutes so we have to share the floor time so just as some ground rules maybe let's try like speaking once before you speak twice so that everybody has a chance to speak and trying to limit your talking to as few words as possible so there's plenty of space for others and let's try not to interrupt anyone because we're here to listen and learn so say your piece and then we'll listen and rapidly with this mic so does anybody how many people know they want to speak right now raise your hand okay so council are you ready you have attention okay here we go Matt I just want to mention I joined the co-op largely to try to avoid plastic and it's not on that list so that's a major priority for me in interacting with the bar local food obviously super important to you but that's all hi everybody Cary Bradley general manager and that's probably the most frequent comment or request that I've heard this past 12 months that seems to be on everybody's mind it was about plastic it was basically the intention to reduce our reliance on plastic single use plastic so as you well know the co-op doesn't have the carry out plastic shopping bag and that's something that's sort of at the forefront not just in our part of the world but nationwide co-ops are getting this kind of request there's a lot more awareness about plastic use and in our business the carry out shopping bag is the most visible impact so we don't have that problem we have a lot of other uses for plastic and single use plastic and all I can say is that we're working on it we have a green team we've charged them with coming up with a multi-year plan to reduce our reliance on plastics and it's going to be a community effort right because there's a lot of places where our business and other businesses our vendors are relying on plastics so there's a lot of work to do but I think there's a real commitment there so I have a question that's not so much related to the co-op but I got here late so I eat lunches here at the senior center which they serve on Tuesdays and Fridays and fortunately they publicize the menu in advance so you can choose pick and choose what you want to eat or what you want to come for but they do serve beef a lot and I prefer not to eat beef so I just wonder and I have no idea what the source is how we can encourage them to serve at last or what would be the appropriate thing to do because I'm assuming it's not local oh you got wisdom on that speak to your authorities I mean we're we're happy to use their space this is the senior center right yeah we're speak to Tana speak to the chef I guess we don't have any influence other than I happen to be a member of the senior center but we're not really affiliated with them but yeah I'm not shy about my opinions and I would certainly bring them to those at the top thanks for choosing to be the fabulous y'all and thank you so much for the wonderful okay I just have one more question Hunter Mountain is such so local centric is that something that's on the forefront of your mind or your co-op in the playing field is that something that you want to just maybe give a couple comments about your experience with your members in that respect co-op is always exciting anyone here been to the playing field co-op ever it's great it's really another of Hunter Mountain co-op and is now much much small we're really an old-timey kind of co-op playing field is a great small town and it's really a wonderful exercise in community development and community economics to be a village of 1200 people and have a million dollar store that stocks a ton of local products from over 100 local vendors is really cool and really complicated so if you haven't had a chance to check it out I really encourage you all to come and just see the playing field co-op and of course we have board meetings and a community center and we'd love to welcome any of our sisters brothers and sisters from Hunter Mountain any time to come over we'll gladly give you a tour of our expansive space it's really, it's such a great honor to work with all of you and really strengthening to have such a robust co-op network in Vermont and just in terms of the broader marketplace you know again I do this work I study food systems and it is so different we are so lucky in Vermont to have a network of independent community on co-ops watching Amazon buy whole foods outside of our state has really changed the marketplace for local producers and natural foods really kind of decimated the marketplace and so it's we're all keeping an eye on that because it feels like it's kind of creeping in around us there are a lot of supply chain pressures which come from that merger that we're not totally immune to but it's a really great time to stand up and support your local farmers and also your local independent stores so glad to have teammates like you guys