 I would like to welcome everyone here, our guest as well as both House and Senate committees are present this morning to hear from you folks in regards to WELA. To get started, we'll introduce ourselves, and then we'll get to Charlie Hammond be our first witness. So it's great to see all of you here. I'm Bobby Starr, Senator from Orleans County, and we'll start with, well, maybe we ought to get our other chair. Happy to be last. That's nice. Brian Collamore representing the Rutland District in the Senate. Hi, there's Supernaut and the House representing Windsor-Four Barnard-Pawford Bridgewater. Hi, Grace. I represent the Bennington-Rutland District in the House, Dan B. Dorsett, Landrove, Mt. Tabor, and Group. Representative Don O'Brien, I represent Windsor-Orange-1, which is Royalton in my hometown of Tunbridge. Representative Rod Van and their relative, Orange-Sherry, which is Williamstown in Chelsea. Representative Esmei Cole in the House, I represent Windsor-6, and that's Hartford. Brian Campion in the Senate, Bennington County. Irene Runner in the Senate, Chittenden North including Garfax. Representative Jed Lipsky, Lamoille-1 District, Stowe. Representative David Templeman, Orleans 3, that's Brownington-Barton, and Westmore. Representative Joseph Levitt, Randall Chittenden, which is all of Randall County and a little bit of Westmills. Representative Charles Wilson from Caledonia 3, which is Lyndonville, Sheffield, Wielach, Sutton and Mork. Representative David Durfee from Shaftesbury, also represents Sunderland and Gloucesterbury. Thank you. So, anyways, the Working Lands Enterprise initiative has been a very important part of our working landscape. It certainly helped a lot of businesses over the years to grow. And so it's great to have you folks with us this morning. And I think we'll, according to the schedule I have, we'll start off with Charlie Hammond, who's the vice president of the board. I'm the vice chair, not president. Vice chair. Not too big. Good morning. Good. How are you doing? I need some binoculars. I know. I'm looking over at Orleans County. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much for the opportunity today. For the record, my name is Charlie Hancock. I occupy the consulting porters seat on the board and I also currently have the privilege of serving as the vice chair of the board. I'd like to start today's conversation with you all by thanking you, Senator Starr, for being one of the original visionaries that defined this program. It's the foundation of work. It's that foundation of work that really allowed us to build the incredibly successful program that continues to serve the most local landscapes and the vermonters that depend on it today. For those members who were not part of creating the working lands program in 2012, legislators passed Act 142, allowing the creation of the working lands enterprise initiative for the public-private partnership to invest in the economy, environment and culture of Vermont's working landscape. It's important to note that Act 142 came out of the Vermont Council on Rural Developments Council on the Future of Vermont's work in 2009. Through the work of the council, we want to identify our state, our great state's working landscape as being critically important to our identity and to our future as a state, articulated a desire to protect it and support it. With discharge from our fellow vermonters and the face of the multitude of threats facing Vermont's working landscape, legislators in 2012 had the foresight to understand why a program like the working land enterprise fund needed to be created. Founded on the principles of collaboration and responsiveness to the ever-evolving context within this landscape that exists. There should be slides along with what I'm talking about trying to make some. If something else pops up, let me know. Since its inception, the working land enterprise initiative has successfully advanced the mission laid out in the program's guiding statute. The program was created to save Vermont's working landscape, and the program's thoughtful design has allowed us to successfully keep thousands of acres of land working and build long-term food and forest systems viability through strategic supply chain and technical assistance investments. Since 2012, $15.6 million in grants and contracts had been allocated to 446 working lands businesses and service provider organizations who directly support those businesses. We're going to hear from a few of those businesses later. Support from the working land enterprise initiative has helped to create over 540 new jobs while also maintaining the viability of countless existing jobs. It's led to more than 92 million in generated sales and it's kept the working landscape vibrant and vital with over 24,985 acres directly benefiting from our investments. Additionally, $24.6 million has been leveraged in matching funds through this work. So for every $1 of public investment, another $1.6 in matching private funds has been leveraged to support this work. It's important to note that while matching funds is a critical component of the working land enterprise initiative's work, we do see grantees every year who request a waiver on the match assistance because of the struggles that they're seeing as the businesses that they're all facing. And so we do work with applicants to provide waivers for that. These investments continue to make an impact in all 14 counties, as you can see behind me and in the report in front of you. In the beginning, people doubted if farmers or foresters or those making their livings in the forest would take the time to fill out grant applications because they're busy and they're in the forest and they have no connectivity, right? But each year, working lands enterprise initiative breaks its record for demand. In FY24, we are seeing the greatest demand to date for grant requests totaling 13,805,441 dollars. And with only $2 million in funds to award, that's a seven times ask compared to the funds available. Seven times the amount of funds being asked for them, what we have to give. If nothing else, this demonstrates the immense need and the opportunity that we have to deploy more funds if and hopefully when they become available. At this point, I'm going to hand it off to Elizabeth. Elizabeth Sipol is our program director. Before you leave, Charlie, are there any questions from committee members on the stats that Charlie gave us? Pretty impressive. It's very impressive. I think you'd be hard pressed to find another state program that has this sort of impact given the investment that we're putting into it. And as we pointed out, the need there is great. All this data is also included in the really great report that you've got for reference later. I should say I don't want to take much of your time, but when you put a program together like this in the beginning, you never know whether it's gonna work or not work. And I think the reason that this has been so successful is because we had a good board of directors that looked after it. We had staff that really cared about making this work. And it's all we do as legislators, I've done anyway, is you listen to people and so you come together and you put something like this together, but it could backfire and all fall apart if you don't have real good staff people and board of directors into the future to make it all work. I think Charlie, you've been part of this for a long, long time. Yeah, I would be hard pressed to tell you how long time is one of those things where most things feel like they happened yesterday and folks say, no, that was years ago. So yeah, it's been a while, but it's been a pleasure and really a privilege to work with the great staff we work with, with the great board that we have in all sorts of sectors from across the state and working with legislators like you to help make this possible. So thank you for the opportunity. Yeah. Great, thank you very much. Thanks, Charlie. Thank you, Slive. No. I'm not sure what you got. This one? Yeah, okay. There we go. That's just funny. I could like, it was like, I don't wanna see these. Good morning. Morning. It's nice to see familiar faces as I was with all of you last year. My name is Elizabeth Sipple and I am program staff for the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative. I actually feel like Senator Starr basically offered a perfect introduction to what I wanna talk about, which is like why do we think that the Working Lands program is working so well? Like what are the structural components that allow the program to be responsive and continue to evolve within an ever-changing context? So I think one of the key elements to the Working Lands program's impact or successful impact is the ability for the program to flexibly respond to individual business's unique needs. As you can see here in FY23, we were able to fund 51 projects with just over $2 million in grant making. Can actually go to the next. So, and I think this is the slide that captures the diversity. So like this is the slide that to me represents our ability to fund a diversity of businesses flexibly. So, responding to their unique priorities and not being overly prescriptive. And this also is in the impact report that you have a hard copy of and I think PDF access to via your website. But I think it's nice to sort of pause for a minute to let folks take in the diversity of projects. I mean, you're gonna see projects ranging from meat slaughter, to cidery, to maple, primary forestry, secondary forestry. I mean, it truly like we do, the diversity is impressive. I also wanna point out that there is also a great diversity in the range of the awards. So in FY23, the smallest award excluding the trade show assistance grants because those are all 2,500 to 5,000 but the smallest business enhancement grant was $24,000 and the largest impact grant was $250,000. I think another type of diversity that I wanna capture is also the development stages of businesses that are funded by the board. As you can see here, the majority of businesses do self-identify as being in growth stage even more so the maturity stage but there is also a very meaningful representation of funding to early stage and startup businesses. And this is, it's self-identified within the application process and I do think that there are some early stage businesses that also self-identify as being in a growth stage just to point that out. Okay, so yeah, so the first design factor is like the flexible funding. The second design or structural part of the program that I wanna highlight is the diversity of the leadership. So we have the tri-agency collaboration between FPR, ACCD and the Agency of Agriculture. But then in addition, we have this incredibly diverse representation on the board with board members, business owners, service providers that are representing a whole diversity of farm and forest sectors. So as you can see in this slide, each board seat by mandate represents a specific sector or a specific initiative. So we have a maple seat, we have a dairy seat, we have a, I mean, there's 17. So I think it's just the important, the takeaway here is that there's this like incredible diversity of expertise on the board, which is a real strength. And I think all comes back to the visionaries that created the program. Okay, and this is just speaking to the vision of the tri-agency governance that is a part of the board. So I think that basically the tri-agency collaboration and the diverse representation of the board allows for the board each year to successfully identify and respond to current needs and opportunities. And each year, during our annual planning process, the board looks across the landscape and identifies priorities. So examples from recent years are the board has prioritized some targeted investments in meat slaughter and processing facilities, in dairies, and in the strengthening of markets for low-grade wood. Those are some priorities that have been identified through this annual prioritization process. I think that as a result of the expertise, the diversity, and also the annual planning processes that are built into the program's work plan, those are the pillars. Those are the cornerstones that allow the program to continue to evolve and be responsive. So some examples of the program's evolution are in the beginning, the maximum grant cost at $20,000, but in recent years, the board has leveraged, especially leveraged special appropriations, as the $2 million ARPA appropriations that were appropriated in FY23, two strategic investments of up to $250,000 in supply chain projects. So projects that are gonna have significant impact on the specific supply chain that they're targeting. So for example, in the beginning the, oh, sorry. So prior to the existence of these larger grants, of these, we call them the impact grants, the board was not investing significantly in supply chain infrastructure, such as distribution and processing initiatives. And these, we identify as initiatives that create new opportunities for multiple businesses in those supply chains. So this slide shows how that has evolved. These are all examples of grants that are building the food system and creating new opportunities for multiple businesses. So we'll see grants made to distributors, one example is the grant that was made to Farm Connects, which is actually a photo here. They received a grant for $250,000 to scale their operations. And Farm Connects delivers products for over a hundred Vermont producers. And they were moving in 2022, they were moving $12 million worth of product in 1,200 square feet of space. So this grant was helping them to expand, upgrade their infrastructure and actually expand their space. And I think you will also see the result of the targeted funding to meat slaughter and processing facilities in this list. I think in the beginning, we also, in the beginning of the program, we did not see significant investments into primary production with forestry and like, so like logging and sawmills, largely because the cost of the equipment that the businesses need is so high that a $20,000 grant like barely scrapes the surface. But as you can see in this slide, that has changed significantly. So for example, we have a grant to the White Rock Farm. Basically, it's an example of a sawmill expansion project. So they received a grant for $250,000 to expand their building, to house a new mill and to buy a new used mill. But that was going to allow them to expand their production from 200,000 board feet to 400,000 board feet within the first year of operation. That grant also allowed some expenses for to cover the permitting costs. If you know are specifically a challenge for forestry businesses that are looking to expand and they have successfully completed that project at this point, which is very exciting. So in summary, what I am trying to capture here is that it is the flexible, non-prescriptive funding. It is the annual assessment processes built into the program. It is the experts that are brought into the grant making process, specifically in the participatory review process that we maintain. And it is the expertise of the board that really allowed the program from its structure to remain responsive and to make catalytic investments in both individual businesses, but also investments in initiatives that are building the food and forestry system in which all working-length businesses can have a better chance of thriving. Thank you, I love this, but are there any questions from committee members? It's like about structure or... Yeah, thank you, and this is very helpful. Even though these grants are smaller in nature, if you could just talk a little bit about the trade show assistance grants, what do they entail and how I can understand going to a trade show and getting the product in front of people? Yeah, and that is basically the goal, right? It's to create new markets. It's to support businesses who are looking to go to trade shows to build, to make connections, to expand their markets. The trade show grants are focused on business to business, trade shows. The businesses identify the trade shows that they are looking to go to. It is a match, it is a grant that requires a match. Is there other, are there more specific? Don't know, that's fine, okay. Thank you. So with that trade show, is Eastern States considered a trade show? Because we have, I don't know, how many people go through that Vermont building? I don't know, qualify, but I've been there where your shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow. I mean, there's a lot of exposure to Southern New England. Okay. That show. And I haven't been to that specific show. Do you know if I follow up guys? If you're not charged to go to the big E as a Vermont vendor in the building, it's more they pay a percentage of their commission sales once they are vending in the building to be a participant. So many of the trade shows actually have thousands of dollars of registration costs that you stay in a hotel and there's a big cost to have a business be at a state trade show event. And so that's what the trade show grants typically covers. And I know this year we funded businesses to go to trade shows in Texas, in California. So they've identified a market, like a niche. And then, you know, so it's quite, you know, it's impressive how far businesses, you know, are going to break into new markets. Great. Anything else? Thanks. Thank you. Okay. And I guess I just would like to end by saying, it's Claire and I who are the program, full-time program staff for the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative. And we are 100%, 150% available, you know, to meet with you one-on-one or to answer just questions that come up after hearing because our, you know, our contact is minimal, but we would love to be as, we are as available as you would like. Yeah, Dave would like that. Yeah. There was a slide that you had back, a few that showed over time, the grant amounts and the, how the demand had gone up proportionately. Okay, yeah. So just thinking about, so since you mentioned staffing, it's not clear how much will be available in funds this year. Have you had, did you have trouble handling five and a half million dollars in 2022 with the staff that you had? It's a dramatic increase in the previous year. So that is the year and that is the funding that helped create the role that Claire is currently filling. And I think that is, you know, it is critical to have that role be filled with that level of funding. Thank you. So previously it had been one staff person. And I think that the additional staff person also just allows us to bring our like human resource, the resources that were the one on one attention that we can give to grantees and applicants to another level. John. Thanks Bobby. Elizabeth, I'm just looking at your cumulative program impact slide. And well, we have members from Bennington and member from the islands here. I just wondered how you account for such wide range. I was just surprised at Orange County has done so well. There's been a dial in Bennington in our, our tailing way behind. And what does that reflect as far as the economies or rural nature of certain places or just the entrepreneurs live in certain counties? I think also the impact grants do make white, like if, if a county receives an impact grant. So like up to $250,000 that has a very big impact in like the funding that's going to that county. So I think there is, I think that's important. Cause that actually would be interesting. I'm just thinking now it'd be interesting for us to note like the number of awards cause that actually might be more equitable than some of the dollars. But I think, you know, there's, there has been a focus, for example, a lot of interest in, you know, the counties that you see with fewer grant dollars going to them. We specifically, Claire has been working quite a bit with like the conservation districts to, yeah, better understand what the challenges are and also like to build support, like more localized support. So this year we did have a service provider grant go to the Franklin Grand Isle. What is the name of that? Of course, regional thank you. And so specifically they're going to, I mean, they are doing business advising, but they're also going to support people in like thinking through potential projects that they could write grants for. Anything else, John? Yeah. No. Any other questions? No. Well, thank you, I love the good work. Thank you. And Abby saw that they're up and ready. Senator Ruskin, do you want to use this musical chairs moment to join us in the picture? Yeah. Okay. He's better off over there. It's nice to have both things in the same room. We don't get to do this right now. Well, I don't know if we have a room at the state house, as big as this, where we can have a meeting. No, this is a nice big room. It is big. It's too big. You know, I'm so used to that little Senate. Tired to work in a room this size. Yeah. Yeah, it's a nice opportunity. Yeah, we miss rooms 10 and 11 for this purpose. For the record, Abby Willard, Agency of Agriculture. I think some of the questions that you all just asked are a nice segue from Elizabeth's components to the pieces that I wanted to share about the Working Lands Program, which touch on this design feature of the investments in service provision that the Working Lands Program provides to ag and forestry networking lands businesses. So I've been at the agency quite a few years now, and in 2011, when I joined the agency, I really looked at the Working Lands Program as a granting program. And truthfully, the program provides much greater value than just providing grants to ag and forestry food and wood manufacturing businesses. There is this really vital role over time that throughout the design of the program and through implementation, that the Working Lands Program and staff provides in the form of business technical assistance and other service provision to support the viability of our businesses. And when we use the term viability in the Ag and Food Systems Strategic Plan, we were really clear about what we meant by business viability. And it was that we were providing both economic stability, but also social and ecological responsibility of our businesses. And so I think that's an important piece to keep in mind that that's sort of the objective of the viability of the program. So from the start, we talked a little bit about the structure of the Working Lands Board. And in the design, there's three ex-officio organizations that have representatives on the board. And that's from VEDA, so Vermont Economic Development Authority, from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and from the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund. So those three ex-officio seats join those 14 industry representatives to make 17. And each of those ex-officio board members really bring with them the expertise and the knowledge and the guidance that they have collected over the years of working with the businesses that they either provide business technical assistance to or lending support to. So they really have helped as long as well as the other visions from the board members, where do we make investments and where are there gaps or needs that need to be addressed in investment opportunities? And Elizabeth spoke to like that flexibility that exists within the program every year for the board to sort of reevaluate where investments are most needed. I think we move to the next slide. The Working Lands program really does focus on investing in those service provisions needed by working lands businesses to be successful in the Ag and Food Systems Strategic Plan. And on one of the priority strategies identified that there are 17 additional technical assistance positions that were needed as well as ongoing support to those organizations that provide business assistance. So that's a huge kind of gap and need that was identified in that strategic plan a few years ago. And I think we've had some success statewide in adding to those technical assistance positions. But again, just that ultimate recognition that for businesses to be successful, they also, they need the investments and grants that they also need that accompanying technical assistance and service provision to be able to make the pivots and the growth and the adaptive changes in their business models. So in response in fiscal year 23 and 24, the Working Lands Board really focused on what they call the executive business skills. So that would be providing investments to businesses with around marketing, around workforce development, looking at succession planning and kind of business transitions needed as well as just sort of like overarching business planning. So those executive business skills are really different than technical assistance on the production side and different from business planning in the traditional sense of like helping you with your financials and figuring out how to write a business plan and prepare a profit and loss statement in a cash flow sheet. So these executive business skills are like really nuances of being a successful and viable business. Then Working Lands, you know, acknowledged the need to make direct investments in businesses of all of those grants that you've seen to help develop these executive business skills and viable business strategies, as well as making grant and contract investments in service providers themselves who work directly with the businesses to help them be successful. So a couple of examples in 2023, the Working Lands Board made some really targeted investments in two grants that we wanted to just sort of focus on. One was to the Center for Women and Enterprise, which was an award to support businesses that were either owning and already had an established work-related business or were looking to do a startup of a business but located in two kind of critically needed areas of the state, so the Northeast Kingdom and then Southern Vermont. Another example of that service provision grant or contract was with the Vermont Forest Business School, which is run by Dr. Steve Hick, and the program was designed to provide a six-month intensive kind of mid-career logging and or forest product production business assistant, so focused on business acumen and around the value and promotion of peer learning. So then the other piece that we wanted to touch on was that at the agency and specifically within the Working Lands program, which we see as one of our kind of economic development signature granting programs, making our granting programs really accessible has been a priority and a focus. And so part of that kind of accessible granting is the importance of the staff that's available. So the work that Elizabeth and Claire do to support applicants along the process that they experience as they apply for or look into or inquire about a granting program. So their focus has been around making grant applications very clear and accessible. So we do have a grant portal that requires applicants to log in and create a registration and submit an online application. Sometimes they even have to submit a pre-application and then be invited back for full application. So it's not always been an easy process for businesses to navigate that system. So our goal had been to providing webinars and instructional materials on our website and by phone call to make that process as accessible and easy as possible. There's a lot of support of just helping applicants navigate through that process of just sort of understanding what the deadlines are and materials that need to be uploaded and when they should apply and then when they should hear back. Lots of communication about sort of throughout the application process and then referring applicants to partners that may be able to provide more of that in-depth application support depending upon where the application, where the applicant is in their process. So in 2023 and 24, the Working Lands team made an ongoing commitment to working with the Vermont Farm and Forest Biability Program to coordinate their business advisors to connect with the business enhancement grant applicants who would be looking for someone to just talk about the scope and vision of their project with. So not submitting the grant application, not writing the grant application but just talking about project strategy which can be a really helpful support service in the early stages of an applicant trying to understand, does the project that they have imagined is it's a great fit for the program? Do they have the right outcomes or thinking about the right metrics? Do they understand sort of how the program is designed and how their application would be competitive? So between fiscal years 23 and 24, the Working Lands Program referred 22 Working Lands applicants to work with the Farm and Forest Biability Program in this manner. And then when we reached out to program staff, they shared that they also on a regular basis, typically when a funding opportunity is not open but they're just talking with prospective applicants and hearing from businesses, they refer another five businesses a month to the Farm and Forest Biability Program. So that's just a really robust partnership of folks reaching out to the agency, possibly looking for a grant and then we may recommend that they work with a business advisor to be more kind of like business ready before applying for funds. I think we've talked about the ready program in the past that DHCB manages. So Ready R-E-D-I is a program that provides in-depth grant writing assistance for businesses that need a certain criteria based upon where they're located in the state and the size of that community. But they've also agreed to provide grant writing assistance to the larger ARBA primary producer and supply chain impact applicants for the Working Lands Program, which is a really helpful grant writing assistance for these larger kind of like bigger impact applications plus the ready program provides grant writing assistance to applicants that are applying for federal programs. So they're offering a little bit more complicated a slightly more complex application. But I will say the majority of the grant applications that we receive are still submitted by the entrepreneurs and the businesses themselves. So some of them are receiving grant writing assistance, some of them are working with the ready program but many are carving out the time and creating the expertise to submit their own applications which we're grateful for. One of the last points I wanted to share sort of thinking about this kind of full circle of technical assistance that's provided and imagined by the Working Lands Program is that there's often an opportunity to refer businesses who are not ready for a Working Lands Grant for other technical assistance or maybe even connecting them to other capital resources. So other granting programs that we don't, we are not currently offering. And because we wanna see working lands businesses sort of feel supported by the program even if they're not receiving an award that's what this envisioned kind of partnership is is sort of connecting them to other grant opportunities. And because this program has been so oversubscribed year over year, there are many high quality and oftentimes even shovel ready projects that the program and the board are not able to invest in. And so really directing them to other funding opportunities that they may be successful with. The program staff shared that they received 20 to 25 calls per week when a funding opportunity is open with either questions or providing some of that kind of application process assistance. And then kind of like per design of the program and it's evolved over time, every applicant that applies for a Working Lands Grant has an opportunity to receive feedback on their application. So areas for improvement, other resources, other programs that might be a good fit for their program. Sometimes that's provided to them in their denial email and other times in that email, depending upon the number of applications that are received per funding opportunity is an open invitation to reach out to the program staff to receive more of that feedback around areas of their application could have been strengthened or ways in which it wasn't as competitive as some of the other applications that were funded. So as you can imagine, that's a pretty high intensive communicating kind of role and kind of service provision that the Working Lands Program and Working Lands applicants and grantees receive throughout the life of their kind of applying or exploring funding opportunity to hopefully becoming a grantee. And over time, I would say of the program's 11 years, we've seen an increase in both the quantity of applications. You saw that in sort of like the oversubscription over time, as well as a real improvement in the quality of applications that were received in the program. And I think that's just a real testament to the program having a commitment to both investing and really exciting and really interesting and high impact, high return programs, but also projects, excuse me, but also providing those additional value services to applicants that are inquiring and looking to grow or adapt or pivot their business. So I get to hand it over to the second Working Lands Program coordinator, Claire Salerno, to talk a little bit more about the work. Yeah, thank you, Abby. It's certainly good to hear that Working Lands works or directs people to like the Farm Viability, Farm Force Viability Program at BHCB. You know, that, I don't know, we created that a few years back and it really helps people to understand and go to the next level, what they would need and help with their financials if they're having a little trouble, try to straighten them out. And we had testimony earlier from BHCB that the percentage of people that they helped turn around was tremendously high. I don't know if you folks have had them in yet. And the Ready Program, which you mentioned, it could get a business up to a certain level and then they could apply for, I would think, a Ready Grant from BHCB because that is all, that's another issue that we, the Ag Committees have put together way back in the beginning. But that's all federal money that's sitting on the table that nobody is asked for. And so we, it's set up so people within a community of 5,000 or less. So, you know, like Burlington, the bigger places can't get into that and take the money. I'm sure they have professional grant writers, but little places, little communities, they don't have professional people to help their citizens after these grants where the Ready Program through BHCB, and that could be individuals or nonprofits, small businesses, you know, that money is sitting there and if we don't apply or our people don't apply and take advantage of that, it gets sent back down to Washington and they redistribute it. So it's good that you recommend to working lands folks when you get those calls to those other agencies because it could really help. Yeah, I think it is an essential partnership of just connecting businesses to the right funding at the right time and then whatever kind of technical supports needed for them to be successful. And yet, business advisors are critical for that and the Ready Grant Writing supports also really helpful. Yeah, you had a question. Thank you, Senator Starr and thank you, Abby. I just wanted to make a comment regarding an initiative that you've funded and highlighted and that is the Vermont Forest School led by Stephen Bick. And I liked your presentation across the board about the segments of social, economic and ecological values as criteria. But much to my surprise over the years, even Bick said, Jed, you're actually too old to go to my school. I'm focused on the younger, yeah, mid-career folks. I took offense to that, but we'll move on. But I want everyone in this room to know as far as the history of how a logger, which is sort of the base tier of the forest products industry has gotten their knowledge and a lot of it's handed down and maybe what they were told was incorrect or whoever was teaching them was not sober. You don't know, but it hasn't worked great. But Dr. Bick has been so knowledgeable and I've had access to him for decades as a writer. He submits articles in the Northern Logger and wow, that's thoughtful. But to have Northeast Forest practitioners have access to his sort of knowledge, organization and acumen has helped elevate my profession as a timber harvester to a whole other level. And as a sort of a vulnerable industry within our region, dad's a professionalism and knowledge. That grant was absolutely important. And I thank you for that, for your whole organization to recognize that unique need. Have you participated in any of the peer, kind of to peer business support that this program sort of focuses on? In some regards I have, obviously I've gone to, you know, tech centers, Green Mountain Tech and to give insights and intel for young folks trying to get into the logging business. But, and I've served in like the summit, we added Balton, I interacted with Dr. Bick and I try to be an advocate in our committee for some of this stuff and the master logger program, that sort of thing. But no, I've just been out there as a, someone who cares immensely about our future in this world. But thank you for recognizing Dr. Bick's gifts. Well, thank you, Jed, for your question. Thank you, Abby. Stay in touch. Yeah, I'm going to, but. Good morning. For the record, my name is Claire Salerno. I'm the program coordinator for the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative. So the other full-time staff person along with Elizabeth. And I'm here today to share some details about, more about the grant making process which other folks have touched on and focusing on some changes that we've made in FY 23 and 24. So prior to my role here at the agency over the last couple of years, I grew up in Johnson, but I spent several years in Washington, DC working on evaluating federal housing programs. So I know that capturing the results and impacts of any government state-funded program is really critical to understanding its success. So to stay responsive to the current context, the Working Lands program continues to evolve how we measure grant project impacts. And so we ask questions about the potential project impact during the application process. And then we also follow up with grantees after their project is complete to understand what those impacts have been. And so for example, we made several changes this year to how we ask about targeted project impacts in the applications for the most recent round of grants. And we made these changes based on feedback that we heard both from applicants during the application process as well as from focus groups with business advisors such as those at the Farm and Forest Viability program as well as Working Lands stakeholders last summer. And as you saw in some of the earlier slides, job creation has been a very key metric of program success since the beginning. And we still ask about projected job creation in the application as well as in follow-up surveys with grantees that are funded. But given the current labor context, we've expanded kind of this focus on job creation to think about what our grant project impacts are on labor efficiencies, workforce development, and worker and owner well-being. So for example, Fort Wake Farm, which is a dairy farm in Corinth that you see pictured here, they received a grant in FY23 to increase the efficiency of their bunk style feeding operation. If you want more details about it, it's in the report that's in front of you. And then Giddings Hill Forest Products, which is a logging operation in Bakersfield, their grant was for the purchase of a forwarder, which is safer for employees, increases efficiency and has a lower impact on the environment as part of a transition to cut to length logging. And you can also read more about those specific impacts and how they've made those operations more efficient and reduce the physical strain on farmers and loggers. So similarly, we've always prioritized the project impacts on increased acreage in production, wanting to expand and retain Vermont's working lands acreage, but we also now prioritize what grant project impacts are on land management, climate mitigation, and climate adaptation. So for example, Tufts Crossing Farm, which is a goat dairy in Orwell, their grant project was to support the purchase of a tractor and the key kind of element of having that tractor was the ability for them to both brush hog their pastures and to stack their hay bales in their manger. And so the key kind of impact there was both on the land management improved pasture quality, which therefore improved their ability to pasture their young stock well into the fall, which was not something they were able to do before, as well as to both increase their storage capacity by the ability to then stack their hay bales higher and then also cut in half the time, spend kind of transporting hay bales from the storage to then the feeding area. So there's kind of like all of these impacts around both land management and then efficiency that we're seeing in this grant that seems kind of like a straightforward tractor purchase. And so we've made these changes so that we can kind of capture these, you know, really important impacts of the project. So we've also added a new impact category that applicants have the option to discuss in their application, which is focus on equity, engagement and equality. So this is where applicants can describe how their project will reach or impact historically underserved or marginalized communities. So this could be people living below the poverty threshold, people facing food insecurity or homelessness, immigrants, LGBTQ plus people, people of color, people with disabilities, veterans and women. And so we did note that in fiscal year 24, which is the year we're in now, so far there seem to have been more operations in the startup phase, including those especially owned by young people, especially young women and couples. So this includes the ones you see up here, which is Bear Island Maple, Vermont bees, finale ferments and triple J pastures. And so to get more details about these businesses, the finale ferments writes that their staff comprises primarily LGBTQ individuals and includes representation from racial minorities and that the grant is an essential part of growing their business and therefore will directly uplift these communities, foster empowerment and economic opportunities for their staff that represent these groups. Vermont bees here on the top is a startup business that received an FY24 grant to purchase a honey extract. And they emphasize that the grant project will aid a retired veteran who is a co-owner in continuing to work, as well as support the only woman that's Yonka Brahman. She's the only woman working in commercial beekeeping in Vermont. And she also notes that the purchase of the honey extractor will drastically improve the efficiency and reduce the physical strain on the bodies of all of the workers so that she felt that for her as a woman and a smaller person that having that equipment is going to be especially important. And then lastly, triple J pastures in Irisburg received a grant for a mobile chicken house and in their words from their application, Jennifer Rodriguez who was one half of the triple J husband and wife teams, a first generation American or from a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father and the family is raising their daughter as a bilingual English and Spanish speaker. And Jennifer is a member of the Vermont Relief Collective and shares their vision of a Vermont that is an equitable, safe and just place for BIPOC to work in, participate in, benefit from and lead within land environment agriculture. And then lastly, the projected impacts on increased product output and sales have been a remain very important impacts that we capture both in the application and then as follow-ups with grant projects that are awarded. So I wanna share a few more details about the granting process, including several key updates that we've made in the past year. So as we've discussed already today, even though the number of applications continues to increase every year, the board and particularly our staff are dedicated to ensuring that each application is carefully and thoughtfully reviewed. And we wanna respect the time that applicants put into writing and submitting the applications as well as ensure that the funding decisions represent the highest and best use of working lands funds. So we've made some additional changes this year, which is FY24, to shift our review meetings to sector focused review meetings. And I'll talk through kind of what that means. So this has changed from larger, like one time review meetings to smaller sector review meetings allows our application, each application to be thoroughly discussed one by one while maintaining our commitment to a participatory review process that engages sector experts. So every application that is submitted is read by three individual reviewers who have been vetted for any conflicts of interest. And that is not new this year, that's been the case throughout the life of a program that anyone with a conflict of interest does not participate in reviewing or voting on an application. And reviewers and board members are reminded in any review discussion to focus the discussion on verified information about an applicant and to keep opinions and conflicts of interest outside their review process. So to provide an example of the changes for this year in the past, if we had a funding opportunity where we received 50 applicants, that meant we would engage 20 to 30 reviewers working in the forestry and ag sector from the public and private sector, which we still do. But instead of convening one meeting where all of those people are trying to discuss all 50 applications, we now convene several review meetings focused on two to six subsectors. So we might have a Darian Livestock meeting. We might have a forestry one. We might have a like cross and produce one. So this means that a smaller group of sector after reviewers is discussing maybe 15 applications at a time. And as we mentioned before, we offer individualized feedback to applicants that are not awarded. So the discussion of all of the applications in smaller groups with these sector experts really strengthens the quality of the feedback that we can offer. And overall, the participatory review of applications by sector experts is one of the design elements that allows the program to remain up to date with current sector priorities and make strategic investments that respond to those priorities. And then the last thing I wanna draw your attention to on this slide is the time between the application due date and the applicant notification date. And we strive to keep this period to about two months. And we find that this is the appropriate amount of time needed for each application to be carefully read by those three reviewers convene those review discussions and then hold the final board decision meeting. And then lastly, another significant discussion and shift that took place in fiscal year 23 was the board's decision to make the Working Lands Program's first investment in a pilot net zero emissions farm with your housing project. And so this project is being executed by a Riverview Farm, which is a dairy farm in Franklin. And it is being done in collaboration with several partners listed here. So including efficiency Vermont, BHCB, and the Champlain Housing Trust was actually not listed there. And so we've told businesses and service providers working in the farm worker housing space that Working Lands funds can be part of funding housing but their best place to fill that minimal last mile gap in financing. So when there's already other sources of funding invested in the project. And so in FY24, we received $355,000 in requests for farm worker housing through their recent ARPA primary producer impact grant. And the board has decided that they'll invest up to $200,000 of those funds into housing. And the board's decision to invest one time allocations into farm worker housing is driven by the human rights concerns surrounding current living conditions on farms and the importance that decent safe housing plays in any farm's long-term viability. And the board has decided that base allocations will not be used for farm worker housing. And taking questions. Thank you Claire. Any questions for Claire? They're a lot new off easy. Oh, sorry Bob, you know, that's a very impressive group of five institutional funders, but the working lands grant on this farm worker housing project was 171,000. Did those other institutional funders make up the entire amount or was there some level of match by the farm themselves? I believe there's some level of match from the farm itself as well. And my understanding is that all of the other, those other pieces were in place, including match from the farm and we were the last funder. They came to us and said, we have all this, we cannot make this happen without additional funds. And that was why the board decided that if this was going to be the funding that could make it happen. Just as a final comment, Claire, I got to say in our committee the house ag food resilience enforcement farm worker housing is an issue of importance living in our country, so I lawed that. And I think I will say I think it's a precedent now because we haven't agreed to fund farm worker housing out of the year to our grant opportunity. We won't be able to fund at this level, which we let all of these partners know. We had a very participatory conversation because this year we have five requests for funding for farm worker housing. So we're looking at more like a max award of 50,000. So they knew preemptively the businesses also knew that they would need to figure out their funding package with like that, basically like ability to fill that gap in their mind. So in some cases that means that doesn't mean that the farm has to be willing to take on a slightly larger loan, but they are able to use the grant funds to help leverage that loan. So that's the one advantage. Thank you. Yeah. John, please. Claire, last year's appropriation, Maple Meets Produce grants, do applicants know that like they should go for those or a working lands grant? Like I can see some overlap there. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time on the phone with a lot of people talking about that. I think, yeah, we tried to make it really clear, on the web pages and in the RFA, the application information documents that like that other funds available sort of direct folks of like, if you have a produce operation, you might want to think about the grant dollar amount is a little different. So for folks that I talk with, it really depends on like, if I direct them to one versus the other, it depends on their grant dollar amount, whether they have matching funds available since the agency opted to not require match for that other grant. And we did make the choice to allow folks to apply for both. If they wanted to, that that could be their decision. We didn't want to be restrictive, but that they couldn't be awarded both. So with folks that kind of fall into both, I've definitely spent a lot of time kind of helping them weigh those options and understand both the timelines and like that they can, you know, choose how to invest their time if they qualify for both or if they don't helping them direct to the right one. Can I ask them to follow up on this one more? What I was thinking of looking at your business grants was the sort of floodgates, opening the floodgates problem where like Sweetland Farm got an electric tractor because they want to transition to carbon-free farming. But now once you've given a grant like that, I can see a thousand farmers saying, oh, we want an electric tractor too, including some on this committee. So, you know, what sort of thought when you're giving grants like that, do you think like, oh my God, we're gonna have 20,000 people applying next year? Well, that was a big question with the housing project was are we gonna open the floodgates? We have a million dollars every year that cannot possibly cover. So I think that's why for that example, we opted only to use these special appropriations for housing because I mean like the tractor, I think it's a matter of that's kind of maybe a pilot. We stay in touch with Sweetland, understanding like, okay, what has the impact been? As I mentioned, to collect all that information and you know, if it turns out it's not going so well or like whatever reason, then maybe if you know, a million other farms come, it's maybe it wouldn't be funded. It's also a new technology. So it's quite interesting to be able to test it out and see if it's viable. And I think it's also a part of Sweetland Farm as a very, they're very dedicated to becoming as close as possible to a net zero carbon emissions farm. So it's also part of a much larger initiative for their farm, I think also made the grant more interesting. Like they're looking to transition their greenhouses to be wood fired. So I think that's another component. It's like helping them with a larger vision, but if there's a farm that's like, not making those say like, the level of commitment to transition, like maybe that would be a less competitive experience. Thank you. But any other questions from the committee? No, thank you, Claire. Thank you. They're also still waiting for their tractor. That's a problem. Yeah, that's like a problem. Where do you get an electric tractor? From your governor where they're sourcing it from, but it's small, isn't it? That's not great. So that's the next agenda item was question and answer, but we find our time. We find our cover as we went through. Because I don't want to. I want to get to the grantees. So our first, and we'll have other questions, time. Joe's Brook Farm? Joe's Brook Farm? Yep. There you are. Well, I'm coming to good morning. So you're a grantee and you're going to tell us a little bit about how I helped you. Absolutely. Yeah. So my name is Eric Skolstead, and together with my wife, Mary, we own Joe's Brook Farm in Barnett, Vermont, Caledonia County. Currently, Joe's Brook Farm grows about 10 acres of vegetables and three acres of organic strawberries. So five acres of covered crops. We have just over half an acre of high tunnels and we employ six to seven full-time equivalents on a seasonal basis. Our crops are marketed through a three-season CSA, farm stands, two farmers markets, local grocery stores and co-ops, local institutions, and regional distributors like Beep Room and Farm2U. So we have to sell it to a lot of different places to make our business viable. Joe's Brook Farm is 15 years old. So in 2008, in the beginning, we purchased an acreage of tillage on Joe's Brook and a 150-year-old English barn, parts of which routinely fell off into the town road. So jack the barn, we moved it back from the road, 15 feet before a new foundation and set up a washback facility and a farm stand. And began to cultivate the available acreage. We've received state barn grants, restoration grants, that point for that barn, Department of Eggs and Markets grants to assist in the build-out of that structure, which was really the anchor of our farm at the time. In 2013, we leased a 30-acre parcel on the Posomsic River known as the Robinson Farm. It's three miles from our home and barn. Our barn and home are at the Joe's Brook location. So these acres, including a farmhouse, included a farmhouse and an ancient Thai-style barn, probably one of the oldest ones in Vermont. They have allowed the farm to grow significantly over the last 10 years. In 2020, we were fortunate and we were able to purchase the Robinson Farm from Dot Robinson and our partner Sandy Turman. Dot's family had owned it for almost seven years. I think they stopped milking around 1985. We leased it, it was a-field and alfalfa. So now as owners, it now made sense to begin to develop building infrastructure at the Robinson Farm and we applied for a working lands grant to do that. So I need to paint the scene a little bit. We are just south of St. Johnsbury along Route 5 here and the railroad tracks are running parallel to Route 5 and the interstate is running parallel to that and sort of somewhere in the middle is the Posamsik River. So imagine a beautiful red Thai-style barn with a soaring Gothic roofline and those six by six single pane windows running down the length of each side of the barn. The building sits above the prime flood plain soils that we grow our vegetables on and it's beautiful. It's inspiring. It's also completely worthless unless you're a dairy farmer in 1938, all right? So it's almost 100 years old. The barn features about six different, well, featured six different concrete elevations poured for the gutters, feed troughs and milking setup ideal at the time. So without a working lands grant, there is no way I would have dreamed of converting this building to something more useful. Barns like this are a black hole, a money pit and they will never be as functional as a new purpose built structure. But the barn that I described embodies this pastoral grommet and there just aren't many like it left. It is what we want a grommet to look like. So the tension is as a farm we need to constantly invest in buildings and equipment to make us more efficient and increase our capacity. We don't have the luxury of fixing up old buildings for looks. With the working lands grant matching our farm resources, we think there is a way to strike a balance and keep the barn around while adding capacity and creating efficiencies. So with an old barn, you have to start at the beginning. So our grant, our project is basically that ripping out 100 year old concrete by hand, digging in water lines and drainage, storing a new reinforced slab, installing new overhead doors, installing, insulating the shell, upgrading the electrical service, all of which will allow us to develop additional vegetable wash pack storage infrastructure over time. Converting the barn, which is 36 by 96 to vegetable production will result in the following outcomes for us. Reduce travel on route five with equipment, product and packaging. It's currently a six mile round trip from our location at Joe's Brook Farm to the primary fields on route five at the Robinson barn. It will give us increased vegetable storage capacity, increased product cooling options and ice machine access closer to the field, optimized seed fertilizer and packaging storage. We'll have office space there to help coordinate our pick and planting logistics and it will create a safe and efficient space for maintaining equipment. So this new space will increase our capacity for palletized loads, increase our efficiency pre and post pick, increase the quality and longevity of crops coming in from the field and increase the use of mechanized equipment now that we're better able to maintain and will eliminate downtime. We think this will increase sales particularly through our large customers and regional distributors like Deeproot and Farmers2U. So like with the new ice machine infrastructure we imagine we could double the amount of bunched crops we ship through Deeproot by improving the quality of the capacity, probably an increase of about 650 cases a year of crops like kale, bunched flat leaf Italian parsley and cilantro setting crops. Our efforts to build a more efficient cooler in this newly converted barn have also been assisted by the Working Lands Program in another way, sort of through a service providers grant I think we have received a matching USDA rural development grant targeted for efficiency upgrades to replace some of our coolers in our old facility with a newer cooler in the new facility and a group called Clean Economy Works received the Working Lands Grant and they applied for these energy efficiency upgrade grants on our behalf and had no cost to us. And so while it's very, it's reasonably easy for me I'm comfortable with the State of Vermont grant application process to apply for a USDA grant is something different and tired. So very grateful to have the assistance of these service providers to help us really make the most of this project. That group again was Clean Economy Works and they're helping a lot of farms. So, you know, a lot of cool things about this project everybody loves old barns. I think part of one of the most, my favorite things about farming is fixing up these structures I've done two of them now. It's a work in progress. We're still working away at it. We're doing most of the work ourselves. And it's, I don't know. When you use these structures, then it makes sense to maintain them and they exist on the landscape and they bring a lot of value culturally and I think they also now bring a lot of value through the production. So that's our project. Well, thank you, Eric, Senator Kainz. Senator, do you have an image, a picture of the barn? It's all the cover. It is, it's this one right here. Right, thank you. Yeah, it's pretty beautiful barn. Yeah, it is beautiful. For what style barn did you call it, tie? I call it, it's a tie, well... Ties. Stillsbrook Farm is an English barn. That's a very different older style, not for... That's not what you're... That's not there. The barn that we're talking about in this case is the Robinson Barn. It's a tie stall, gut style barn, probably a kit of dating from the late 30s or early 40s. It would have been one of the last barns built for the storage of loose hay. So hand harvested, hand raked hay, possibly, not compacted in any way. So the upper level just soars when you're in there and you can't imagine what to do with it. It's got a Gothic style roofline, which is a problem because it's curved. So roofing it becomes very challenging so that's something we'll have to look forward to in our future. But it's a unique building. Thanks for being here. Eric, how soon will you have your project completed? Yeah, so we got the concrete board. I mean, we worked away at it all last summer. We had a difficult growing season with a lot of hours spent recovering from floods. We do have floodplains and we farm. And so that took some time, but we got all the concrete port removed in port and we dug in all the drainage. We poured over 60 yards of concrete for the winter service charge kicked in on the 1st of November. So that felt great and we're just sort of catching our breath and we'll start back up in it once it falls out a bit. Yeah, good. The next step is to frame in the in-walls and the new doors and yeah, beyond. Brian? Thank you, Bobby. So, Eric, we seem to be appropriately focused on the barn, which is great. And to follow up on Senator Campion's question a little bit, is this a recent picture? In other words, if somebody drives by and you've done most of this inside the barn, how much of that would people be able to tell as they sort of drive by? Cause it looks like it probably- Tell there's a project going on because we had to, I mean, again, jack the gables up this barn for footings to accommodate the new slab on the gables. We were able to leave the e-bedges intact along the 96-foot length of it. So it looks the same from about the top of the windows up but on the gables is the Vermont tarp look going on. Yeah, for the winter. But everyone got to watch us work on it. And people are really nice. They stop in and they just say, this is incredible, better you than me or that kind of thing. And they also say this just gives them hope, you know? It's like so encouraging to see people working on these types of things. Congratulations. Thank you. So you had 15 acres and then you, then you bought 30 more. So currently we're going, we started with only one acre up tillage. One acre and that was up through 2013. So from 2008-9 to 2013, we had one acre of tillage that we farmed. And so we were a market garden and we expanded dramatically in 2013 when we purchased or when we leased when Doc Robinson and her mother Carol leased us that property, the 30 acre property, which we now grow about 10 acres of vegetables, three acres of strawberry and another five acres of cover crops on. You've got a lot of product to sell. We do. We do. That's the hard part, honestly. Yeah, it does move, but do you send any to Southern New England or is it mostly here in Vermont? Most of it's direct to consumers here in Vermont, in the County and across into the White Mountain region, little 10, we're pretty close there. And then like I said, a big focus of this project is to get into that regional distribution more. We are members of the deep root co-op of growers. And so there are crops that we think have our growth crops in that co-op and they're bunched crops. And we think by having some better storage close to a little closer to the field, we could really improve our efficiencies related to those crops. So, yeah. Great, other questions, Rayo? Well, good luck to you. And thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to point out that the, there is more information about the clean economy works program in the impact report. And it's another way that the Working Land Genter Reson Initiative is trying to get more federal dollars into the hands of our farmers. So they received a small $20,000 grant from us to work with eight farmers, a minimum of eight farmers to help those farmers access the USDA Rural Development Dollars for Energy Efficiency Project. So that was what Eric was talking about. Yeah. It's like the sort of double working land support. Good. If there are any other questions for Eric, no. We'll move on to LSF Forestry and Tucker. Morning and welcome. Thank you. I'm Tucker Riggs with LSF Forest Products for Small Sawmill and Fletcher, Vermont, which is in the bottom corner of Franklin County right next to LaMoyle and Shending Counts. Thank you very much for having me today and allowing me to share a story. We're a small community sawmill up in that neck of the woods. We're sawing approximately 500,000 board feet of timber a year, primarily focusing on timbers for the post-the-beam industry, as well as rough cut lumber for contractors and homeowners in their area. We're a family run sawmill with approximately three full-time employees, plus myself and my father. My father started the business 20 years ago. Shortly after he started, he invited me back to join him, to work with him and to kind of take it in a direction that I saw fit. I'd spent nine years working and going to school in New York in Maine and down in Virginia in the forest products industry, and really with that experience, wanted to move back to Vermont and really set my roots and trying to make a living here. From the inception of the sawmill, we have grown again to find a niche supplying the timber frame market of the timber frame industry, and we are now the go-to source for timbers for that industry in the northern tier of Vermont and beyond. We've seen steady increasing demand for our products and are in the final phases of an expansion project and process. The expansion and that process has been a high-opening experience for us. It took approximately 18 months and close to $70,000 to obtain our Act 250 and associated A&R permits for an expansion. We're to set the scene a little bit. We are a mile up a dirt road in the town of Fletcher. We don't need to post office in town. The sawmill was started on a, which was a farm in the 70s, but had been a family hobby farm. We started the sawmill there and we have kind of grown. We went through the permit process originally. That was a very simple process. This latest round to build a 30 by, I'm sorry, a 50 by 140 building and do the yard infrastructure that was needed or is needed to expand capacity was a extremely arduous and expensive process. I don't want to bother you, but you said it took 18 months? 18 from start to finish from when we first started the process to when we finally got the permits. So it was about 18 months with the engineer and going through the state. So the working lands grant that we received was a $35,000 grant for to help offset the cost of the stormwater infrastructure that we'll have to implement and we'll have to build out in order as with the permit. We'll see costs of over $100,000 for to build that infrastructure just to maintain and to carry on with our operation and to be able to grow to the next step. That $35,000 is a small piece of our larger product or project, but really a crucial aspect to us being able to say, okay, this is viable. We don't necessarily have to close the doors. Like we can do this. We weren't eligible because of where we sit as a sawmill and our business structure. We weren't eligible for any of the ARPA funding last year through the working lands program. That being said, we are eligible for a supply chain impact grant this year and have applied or in the pre-application stage for a much larger grant to help us with the overall project. So in addition to the $100,000 of stormwater work, we're looking at close to a million dollars worth of investment into a sawmill in Franklin County, which has two sawmills left. When I was growing up in Fletcher, we had three sawmills in the town of Fletcher and we're down to two left in the county. Apart from the direct funding that we've seen through working lands for our infrastructure work and hopefully potentially the work helping offset the cost of an expansion for our facility. We've been impacted by the working lands in a few different other ways. I had the pleasure of participating in the Vermont Forest Business School on the last session with Dr. Beck. It was a intensive six month course. We met weekly. We covered business skills and many different other areas of business development for that mid-career individuals. It's become an invaluable part of my business education specifically geared towards the forest products in the forest industry. He continued to host alumni sessions. I continued to participate in those on a monthly basis when I can and it's been a huge benefit to me personally and to our business. The working lands has also provided direct investment to some of our log suppliers which has allowed us to maintain a continual and steady log flow into the sawmill and what has become pretty adverse weather harvesting conditions. Getting Hill Forestry on the logging who's on our backdrop here for most of the slides is one of our major suppliers and his transition to cut to length harvesting his ability to work on land in less than ideal conditions when and be able to do a good job has been a huge impact for us to be able to steady out that supply of logs even if we have four months of rain and it dries up enough for him to be able to run he can get a load or two or three or 10 out for us to continue to go. But what type of wood do you buy? We mainly we used to be a broad range on hardwood, softwood, anything we could get our hands on. We have grown to a point that we have focused on softwood lumber. So white pine and eastern hemlock almost exclusively and at this point in time right now we're only about four to six weeks out on our orders during the spring and the height of building season we will be up to three to four or five months out on my production schedule in order to meet the current demand that we have. We also, sorry, I didn't follow my notes super well. I would like to, since I have the opportunity I would like to hit on the fact that operating in my mind operating a small sawmill is very similar to that of operating a small dairy or dairy in the state of Vermont in my perspective. We're both, both operations are taking resources that are grown from the surrounding areas albeit we're typically on a 40, 30, 40, 50 year rotation on a crop versus say a yearly rotation on a corn crop. If as a government or in a society we ask the farm to keep the land in production whether it's harvesting that corn and keeping it open but through regulation and lack of investment all of that product, the corn, the hay, the silage everything else was shipped to New York was shipped to Maine was shipped to New Hampshire was sent out of country to Canada to be processed into milk. That in my feeling is where we sit as the forest products industry today. We have this immense resource. We have this, you know, these forests I was driving down the interstate this morning and just looking around and the amount of wood that is out there and that's being managed is the vast majority of that is being sent out of the state for somebody else to profit from by turning it into a higher value product. My feeling that with investments such as the working lands that we could get a lot of that production and a lot of that resource and that, you know benefit to our broader economy back here in the state of Vermont. Currently, I've been through working with fireman forest viability and having submitted some grants that weren't funded or that I had to pull because of the permit process. I've, you know, developed a broader knowledge of what's available for funding. What's out there for the primary forest products meaning the sawmills and, you know those manufacturer, those producers who are taking that rod taking that resource from, you know our surrounding environment and turning it into a higher value product. And apart from some permit assistance grants from the forest parks and rec working lands is it like that is the only funding resource or opportunity that as a small sawmill we see or we have. And it has been vital to, you know the hope or glimmer of hope, you know for us to continue and to, you know really paddle upstream in creating a, you know viable forest products, you know industry here in the state. I'd like to think that starting and by working, you know as hard as I have and my employees and my father for the last 20 years that we can develop a model for a small sawmill that can be, you know successful and, you know move forward to really create a new path and to create something that adds value here to the state and adds value to the resource that is in our backyard. And that I think really everybody values and wants to see, you know maintain. So really in closing, I'd like to just reemphasize that the working lands grant not only the direct investment that we see or have seen or hoping to get, you know it's really impacted our operation and me personally as a business owner in many ways apart from that direct investment whether it's the forest business school or investment into our suppliers. It's crucial for the vitality of what we do and what we're trying to do. Yeah. Yes, Jack. Bobby, thank you. And I won't belabor this but Tucker, thank you full disclosure. I have a special relationship with LSF everyone in this room is connected with to many that represents agriculture and forestry. And I just need to point out we all have the same responsibility for protecting Vermont water quality. And there's a history of federal and vast financial support in the agricultural sector to protect, to finance and fund initiatives by ag producers. So there are no non-point source discharges into any Vermont waterways. There is zero support for the forest products industry. And the thought of I've been to your yard it is a modest thing that you need to spend $100,000 on a water quality sediment pond or initiative just to allow you to take the next serious investment step of over a million dollars for future productivity or production or a hand share operation. There's a disconnect between how Vermont supports the working lands, particularly where 74% forested in the state of Vermont and that forest aesthetic and character and culture for our history is as important as the agricultural aesthetic and culture and history of the state. So I would urge us all in the room as we go back to try to find some equity if we're going to hold on to a forest enterprise like the Riggs family is doing as they're, pointed out too many times in my lifetime we've gone from over 500 sawmills in Vermont to under 20 and we need to at least flatten that trajectory if not let it rise. So thank you, Bobby. Yeah, thank you, Jed. Senator West. Tucker. I had the pleasure of periodically being Tucker's share of buying water. It would be helpful for me if on some sort of a sheet if you'd be willing to share what you have spent on the permit process broken down between the engineers and you know, at some point probably last summer or spring I think you told me it was 120 spent. The most important part I think the impressed part for me about what you said, Blaise, you're one of those 20 that's existing given the storm wash or not given the active 50 and it's not just one permit it's the whole group of things that you've had to do. Could you have started as a new business and work through the process? If we would have started the sawmill and known what let me back up a little bit prior to COVID hitting we were successful and it was a work of passion for me more than like this is something I'm gonna retire at 55 and carry on move to Florida and do whatever. I'm not that type of person. I am a little bit stubborn and would like to enjoy the fact that I'm able to walk out my door and work and support my community there. That being said, if we would have known that prior to COVID hitting we were kind of bumbling along and had a successful business we saw a huge increase demand with COVID with people wanting to source a local lumber. We also the snowball had kind of grown to a point where we were getting out of our tight group of customer base for the timber frame market. We've then started exploring expansion and like how do we do all this as well as our sales group exponentially post 2020. If we were to have gone through the permit process especially without help from working lands prior to that we would have closed up shop and said no thanks where there is we there would be no absolutely no way that we could afford that or go through that process. That the money that we've spent on getting a permit represented over 10% of our gross sales for that sawmill to be able to expand and where we are not a large operation. This is a small mill kind of tucked on the hillside and Fletcher we hope to have a larger impact than being there but it's definitely been there. The real question is if our hope was in the future we'd like to grow the industry. Yeah. You were established you were following on the footsteps of your dad before you and in your established we've got three place in your sending timber and we're doing but what's the chances of anybody else opening the business? If they're going to follow the regulation to a T and go through the permit process zero they're not going to start a sawmill or go through the investment that the margins just aren't there. It is not feasible in our current state of the regulation and last of course those outside investment which as I mentioned at this time the only outside investment for a small sawmill in the state of Vermont is working lands. So how would we reverse the trend? My feeling is either a tiered approach to some of the permit, the regulation or that permit structure or direct investment to help offset the costs or quite frankly pay for the costs of going through that permit process. And as an industry as a whole we are not my feeling anyway is we are not opposed to regulation. We don't want run off into our streams or rivers or we don't want to hurt the environment any less than anybody else. And quite frankly we are reliant on a healthy forest. We are reliant on clean water as an individual and as a society and so I don't disagree with the overall intent of stormwater mitigation and things like that the just the scale or the intensity of the process or what needs to be done. I mean we went through the same process as if we wanted to site a Walmart or a Hannaford supermarket up on our hill and there just seems to be a disconnect between what we are going through or what the process is to the impact that we really have on the environment which would be a detrimental impact on the impact. So I've been where you just came from. So what different procedures would you have done differently than you did anyways with or without a permit? If, say if we continued on without a permit. Yeah, what did the permit do to help the environment that you wouldn't have probably done anyways? The pretty much it designed the stormwater infrastructure some of which we already had in place but essentially we now have a map where the exact stormwater infrastructure needs to be. Granted it'll be above some stormwater infrastructure that we already have in place that we put in prior to all this. So in the grand scheme of things not very much different than what we have done and have tried to do up to this point. Well, that's the way Vermonners normally do things. Right, they don't have to be told and spend a hundred grand to how to do it, right? They, I mean, you don't wanna ruin the land that you've grown up on and create your living from. But anyways, other questions. Thank you. Thank you, Chuck. I appreciate it. Sean and Sarah, we kind of walked in together. Yeah, you let us in. Yeah, we're stranded off. We can pass these around too. My name is Sarah Zhang, flower. And this is Sean. And we're from AnyK Greens in Waterford, Vermont. We began AnyK Greens in 2020 because we saw demand for local grains but options were limited or non-existent for Vermont grown grains. Our original plan was to grow grains and sell them in bulk. Freshly-milled flour was never part of our original business plan. Once we got more familiar with growing grain, we realized that the margins for selling grain at commodity pricing wasn't going to be enough for the vision that we had for ourselves and our business. In 2021, we started having our wheat and I should preface this by saying we received a grant in 2022. So our point of view is from having our mill for about a year, so we've had time to kind of see the benefits of it. So in 2021, we started having our wheat milled into fresh flour and by a baker and miller in Vermont that offered to mill grain for us, we had the infrastructure for planting, harvesting, cleaning, drying and storing grain, but we were lacking a flour mill, so we outsourced it. In about six months, we realized that in order for this to be profitable, we needed our own mill. We were driving two hours round-trip weekly to pick up flour and that was cutting into our efficiencies in our bottom line. Our maybe someday plan of getting a mill turned into a we need one as soon as possible. We wanted to make sure that we can continue to get freshly milled flour into the hands of our customers and to spread awareness and educate as many people as we could about the benefits of fresh flour and our working lands grant has helped us greatly in this process. In 2022, we were awarded a working lands grant to help build the expansion of our farm store and purchase a granite stone mill so that we can create a space to mill and increase production of freshly milled flour that has grown and milled in Vermont. Because of our bigger retail space, we've noticed an increase in traffic and because of the mill we can mill on demand, we can guarantee we're sending out the freshest flour possible to our customers. We work with amazing businesses like Trencher's Farmhouse that uses our flour in their pastas, local doughnut uses our flour in their doughnuts and sourdough breads, Patchwork Bakery uses it in their fresh breads, Open Hearts Pizza uses it in their pizza crusts and there are many more that are able to access fresh flour because we have our own mill. Our working lands grant was integral to the success of any can grains. We would not have been able to expand our space to accommodate a mill room and retail space. Without this funding, we would have had to take on significantly more debt in the form of a loan or personal funding and it would have forced us to break this project into multiple phases that would have taken much longer to complete, ultimately slowing the growth of our business. Since the purchase of our flour mill, we've had the ability to increase production dramatically. We're no longer limited by the constraints of having someone else mill for us. Our mill is a 40 inch granite stone mill that can produce six to 800 pounds of flour a day. If not for the grant funds, we likely would have gotten a smaller mill resulting in less output capacity. We're approaching the one year mark of having our mill and since then we've increased our flour sales by about 500% versus before we had our mill. On average, we plant between 175 to 200 acres of small grains, about 60 to 70 of that being wheat each year. And we notice the shift in how those grains are used. In 2020 sold much more whole wheat berries in bulk versus now we're using 50% to 60% of our yearly harvest mill for flour. This gives us a much better profit margin without having to acquire more land. We're very proud that all of the grains that goes into our flour is grown in Vermont. We want to be able to tell our customers that it's grown right down the road. We are one of the very few farms where a customer can get flour that was grown and milled at the same place. Sean is a fourth generation farmer and from 1950 to about 2015 his family milled Holsteins and the Voltail dairy market has forced us to look at different ways to create streams of income. When we were dairy farming we had very little time to look into diversifying info streams because all of our efforts went into making more milk. Selling the dairy cows forced us to look around and see what we could do with what we already had. We know the value of good farmland and our goal was to keep it in production and maintain a healthy soil to grow helpful crops for generations to come. If farming has taught us anything it's that you have to keep evolving and that diversification is a very important key to success. A portion of our wheat berries are processed into steam-flaked wheat which is something that local breweries like Foam Brewers in Burlington, Vermont, Reckless Brewing in Bethlehem, New Hampshire and Shilling Brew Beer Company in Liverpool, New Hampshire all use as part of the brewing process in their beer. Right now we currently offer a sifted flour which is our version of an all-purpose flour a whole wheat flour and a whole wheat pancake mix which is what's being passed around. The flowers can be purchased in two, five, 25 and 50 pound bags. In the fall of 2023 we planted a winter rye and we plan to plant a spring wheat this year so that we can eventually add more options into our flour lineup. With our grain bins we can store a very large amount of wheat and grain our goal is to have one to two years of grain inventory in our bins so that we have a bad growing season. We can mill and fill orders uninterrupted. Our goals for 2024 would be to start working with distributors around the state and regions so that we can expand our delivery radius. We also like to begin selling retail size bags of flour and pancake mix online. We're constantly looking at what gaps there are in local grain system and how we can fill them and ultimately our goal is to build this grain and flour business up to the point where we can make significant land purchases so that we can secure our future in growing and laying local grains. In front of us we also have talked about wheat berries so this is essentially what we grow and harvest. Our sifted flour is our version of a white all-purpose flour. It has about 20 to 25% of the bran sifted out of it. And then we have our whole wheat flour which everything that goes into the mill goes into the flour. So we can pass these around too. We have a special sifter that it sifts out some of the bran so that's where we get the sifted flour from. Where do you get these? So we throw those right out of our farm in Waterford, right? Right at the Zheng family farm in Waterford, Vermont. That's the farm that's been in his family for, well, thank you. Yeah, thank you. It's your farm right in the end. Right by I-93. Right off of exit one. Yeah, a lot of people haven't realized it but they, you know, driven by it. A lot. I finally got the Christmas tree back up on the silo. How many acres of product do you grow? How many total on the whole farm? To take care of, you know, flowers and so. Wheat variety is usually about 75 acres total. We've got a new winter rye in the ground. It's great for distilling and baking. That's kind of our next product line that we're focusing on is adding some more milling varieties. So with the small grains, I think we mentioned up to 200. We're around 100 of small grains for milling varieties, 100 acres. And then there's another set of acres that we use for rotational crops and cover crops. So a large part of that is non-GMO soybeans that we're growing for a local mill that's actually right in, based out of Barnett, Vermont. So they've been helpful on putting our crop rotation together and having a local source to sell to. And they press the soybean out, they press the oil out of the soybeans and they use the soybean meal for dairy rations to selling to dairy farms. Otherwise, the soybeans are a great rotation for what we're doing. But otherwise, if we didn't have that local market with Morrison's feeds, we'd have to ship them off to Canada or maybe down to New Jersey to the port and we'd be paying a lot of trucking. And they do offer a premium for the non-GMO right locally with us. So that's huge. That puts our 200 acre rotation together where we can put like a three to five year plan together on the acres where we know we're gonna come in with wheat and then we'll follow that with a cover crop and then we'll follow that with soybeans and then we do, we're boarding heifers for another dairy as well. So we've got grasses in the rotation. So between all that, we're able to put it all together about 600 acres total on the farm with the raising the dairy heifers and our grains. That gives you a local outlet for all your products. Yep. Yeah. We have a farm store right on the farm where we have flowers, we have other local products. We raise beef. So it's kind of a little bit of everything but we've definitely noticed since having the mill and since having the bigger space like traffic, it's just increased exponentially. So yeah, it's really great. Yeah. I was just wondering, we hear all the time about the sort of 500 down to 20 in terms of loss of sawmills. I wonder if you have any historical context for how many grain mills, flour mills there, and how many there are. Well, in Vermont used to be like the bread basket of New England in the 1800s. And we used to have a lot of grain, there used to be a lot of grain grown in the state. But yeah, I mean, really honestly, like when we talked about, you know, not doing flour, like we really had no interest or no, you know, we didn't realize that people had so much interest in flour. You know, like I said, we went from like, yeah, maybe someday to like how fast can we get a mill? Because we're kind of maxing out the capacity that, you know, that our miller could do for us. But yeah, I mean, we, there's maybe a handful, if that. We know some other farmer friends that are doing some milling at their farm and starting to kind of get their products out. Yeah. And I know there is a friend of ours that helped us start with grains from Greensboro, Todd Hardy. He's starting a project down in Ferrisburg. And I believe he's going to be receiving grain is what the vision is and offering different types of cleaning equipment. Because that's one thing that we, as we built this up from 2018, we were transitioning away from dairy and just raising some heifers for another farm. But what happened where there were some extra acres available kind of saying, well, what do we do with these acres? Some of them were landowners we rent from that they wanted us to, you're going to keep taking care of our land, right? So we're like, okay, so we got to figure out what can we do in 2018. I went to the Northern grain growers conference up in Essex, Vermont, which we are now a member on the board. We've got another conference coming up in March. And that in 2018 coming from dairy and I was the crop manager for the farm sparked my interest in grains where I was kind of like stuck in the grass and growing corn stage of dairy and thinking there's nothing else. This is what we grow in Vermont. And I went there and met with people growing barley and wheat and we got introduced to flour. And so 2018 we started and then we were growing some barley for malt house kind of started transitioning away. Her and I officially formed the business in 2020 with the direction of going in more direction of flour. And so it was it evolved over the years, but yeah, connecting with some people that knew a little bit, you know, had the paved the way for us a little at the beginning, definitely helped us. I know on the Senate side, I don't know if the house has gotten to it yet, but we've had conversations with Heather Derby about the possibility of growing grains. And because now the few mills, the grain mills that we have left are either railing or trucking these grains in. And, you know, as we lose farms, we've got that land like in your situation, but we want to keep that busy. We don't want to grow up to brush in stuff. So I think maybe we're, you know, the big circle, we're back to growing going to be back to growing grains again. Yeah, yeah. It's gotten to the point where, you know, a lot of people realize that at one point we, you know, Vermont was very, you know, as a big, you know, rain grower. So now kind of reflect what Tucker said about being more hands on and processing. I think that's where we're at with this. The only way we could do this was with that grant and being being able to take it from basically all we have is a raw product, which this can go on a truck and go to Canada. But to sell wheat on a commodity market is we don't have to have thousands of acres for it to really make sense. We can't. I mean, what we get paid is, you know, we break an even. So to, like he was saying, add more processing. I think as farmers and foresters to continue to keep that land open, we need the help of these types of grants to take that next step and say, all right, I'm going to take it. I see this niche, but I need this piece and like, how do I get there? That's what that's where we were at. Yeah. Oh, there. Yes, John. I just wanted to know if you could talk about, you know, like you need a combine. I mean, when you get into a product like this, where they're not your neighbor probably doesn't have, you know, that sort of thing or nail or for accessing seed. That was definitely a challenge. Yeah. We had a lot of steps. When we started in 18, we had the means to plant it, but we didn't have a combine. We didn't have anything. So we actually planted the crop without, you didn't know how we were going to harvest it. We should have been able to figure out somehow. Yeah. We ended up connecting with a farmer from. Lover, Seth Johnson, and he, he was able to come down. You know, we were able to do that. We were able to do that for years. And as her and I started, you know, working more on this and talking about it, like, Hey, we can really take this. And we know the pieces were missing. And we, up until we got our flower mill, we had all the pieces. You know, we were finally had gotten to the point where we were like, okay, the mill is missing. But, you know, we had invested in the infrastructure of the grain bins and the combine and all that. So we're like, okay. We've got only so much left. So I think, you know, with the working lands grant to help us with that was, you know, that was huge because we had our, you know, we were already in that kind of startup position. And this way it kind of was like, you know, we could not be so yes, you know, stretch so thin. The additional funds for the grant. We added the pieces strategically. We were able to purchase those out of cash flow. And we did get a loan to build our own green bins. So we have our own grain infrastructure. We've got two bins, a dryer, propane dryer. So moisture is high on harvest year, like this year, for like last year, we were able to sort of, just happy to get a harvest at home. So we were able to cash flow and make and buy some of those pieces, the combine and, and then the last piece was how to, you know, how can we take this next step and get into the processing? And so we've got everything now to plant it, store it, put it in the bag. And now our next goal is to get established with distributors and get it across Vermont, New England. Well, thank, thank you very much for your time. And we're, we're running tight on time, of course. I'm always a day late, all assured. The mud city folks and that's Christopher. Hi. Good morning, Chris. Good morning. My name is Chris Redder. My wife, Carrie couldn't be here today. Would have loved to, but she says hello. And I'm sure if you'd be inspired and like grateful to hear everybody's story and to see this, this body that supports the work that we're all trying to do. I think I'll start off with some less rehearsed comments. I am currently in Dr. Bix course for the forest business school and just have to echo the sentiments made earlier about how interesting and thought provoking and helpful that it's been for me, you know, as a mid career, you know, somebody in agriculture was, you know, has worn a few different hats, but a landowner to be avail availed to the material that Steve has, has shown us has been has been very cool because I don't think I would have had access to it or known how to get access to it otherwise, as well as just his ability to lead discussion and to bring in network of other people in the vein of the work that we do has been extremely valuable and I think I'm making connections within that group that I'll probably hold on to for a long time. So I was happy to see it. You guys will notice on page 16, there's a picture of Carrie and me and that's a little bit about the working lands impact on our project. So you can read more and see that photo of us there too. So our farm is located in Morrisville. It's just east of the Stirling Range. It was divided into its current plot from a larger dairy operation years ago. The land's developmental rights were donated by its previous owners to the Vermont Land Trust. Those previous owners are who we purchased from and that was Jeanette Lapine. I'm sure a few of you in here have known them personally. We rented when we moved to Morrisville, we rented from Jeanette and she was happy to allow us to start our farming endeavors. We had moved from Enosburg. We were lucky that they value the type of character who endeavored to work the land because I think if they didn't, it could have easily gone to somebody looking to purchase perhaps a second home or the story we're all quite familiar with there. But we were able to purchase it from them in 2019 and the development of some of our infrastructure was a slow process and over the last eight years we now have a working flower farm with multiple greenhouses, a dedicated irrigation system which serves about five acres of growing fields and we have two full-time seasonal employees for the growing season. And it's almost, you know, with our greenhouses, we're extending the growing season so it's nearly year-round but this time of year it's kind of when it's most inactive. The Working Lands program provided for us a pathway to diversify our business model and bring a large section of our property into maple production. So we have a maple sap production plan which gives us a chance to work in the woods all winter while our other operation is slow or non-operational at all. This helps us be in the woods more, which we love to do, and keep up with our forest management plan. And the grant that we were awarded is a direct line for us to diversify our revenue streams, which essentially is an extra income opportunity. We're now bringing in about 90 acres of woods into maple operation and it's our goal to kind of approach this maple sap production in a bit of a piecemeal fashion. The first step is to start the collection of sap and sell to a local producer who will pick up sap on the farm from a tank shed location. And we can prove to ourselves that we can get a handle on this over a few years. We'll then explore the commitment of processing, you know, to make syrup. The grant we were awarded was like pivotal to us being able to actually do that, to enact our vision. The barriers to entry mainly consisted of really large capital investment and supplies and equipment, which made it seem impossible without it. The working lands model of grant application, and we talked about this a little earlier, really forces its applicants to go through an important exercise. And this was a big surprise for me about a year ago when I was applying for this. And in that application, you really have to thoroughly examine the steps it would take and the budgetary process involved to achieve those goals. This is through budgetary tables, the narrative and what your business is like all the way down to a business plan. So this application is rigorous and puts the real planning effort and proposed project under operational financial speculation that I think ends up serving the grant recipients really well because it results in a higher level of success that the program intends. And it really, for me personally, gave us a really good structure to follow when a year later you've got this grant award in hand and you're saying, okay, I've already drawn out a roadmap to this project that I have going. So that was, while at the time I might have been pulling my hair out, applying for the grant, it's ended up being very valuable and I think that speaks to the work that Elizabeth and Claire have done on making that part of the process. I think it's only getting better. So our hope is that we can use every part of our acreage to contribute in some way to the ag economy. As we know the seasonal changes, they drive different markets. We've got maple in the winter and spring. We do have some hay production in the summer, but we leased to our neighbors along with our market-ready grown varieties of flowers and our ongoing year-round maintenance of some Christmas tree plantings and some logging. These grants really help landowners and actor dreams and they create, for us, alternative means of income and alternative means to have robust streams of income in place with changing on predictable climate events. I'm more convinced that through this type of work, the landowners develop a true sense of belonging to their properties and more likely to care for it as stewards of its health and production. So I just want to testify that these are incredibly important to the viability of our landscape as we all know in this room. And I want to thank everybody. That's all I have. Thank you, Chris. Questions from committee members? No, it's great. Thank you, Chris. Yes, we have one more. It's up to you. I'm going to close it out, but I know you're running late on time. Well, they're all like... You always want to hear from yourself. Yeah, we aren't going to quit right when the queen of us goes here. Oh, God, wow, okay. Danielle Fitzgold, I'm the commissioner of forest parks and recreation. Honestly, the stories, it just warms me. It makes me really realize what a success program is. And what a privilege I have to kind of close this out right now. When I was thinking about coming in this morning and I was like, what is it that makes this program such a success? I'm going to share three quotes with you because I think these are sort of the pillars of this program. So the first one is, in nature, nothing exists alone, from Rachel Carson. The next one is, success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, re-invigorate, react, and reinvent. That's from Bill Gates. And the last one is, our working lands are Vermont's advantage. And that's from Treasurer Pichek. Howard doesn't know that it's being quoted right now, but I heard him say that, and it just really resonated with me. And when I think about this program, the vision in 2012 to recognize that Vermont's advantage is our working lands, not only for the people, our culture, our prosperity, our working lands, or also our nature's best solution. So it has really this advantage going forward. Then when I think about that nature doesn't do anything alone, that's with everything. You have many priorities that you're balancing. The legislative dove, where money goes, working lands, and shit. We talked about balancing environmental stewardship with products. And it's all this balance that we have to do. And then finally, thinking about the organizational performance. I've been in state government over 20 years, and I have to give kudos to the Agency of Agriculture for their oversight and leadership in this program. They really lead this to be absolutely nimble and adaptable going forward. They use data. They listen. They oversee an amazing 20-member board that has experts that come to the table. They think hard. They vision forward. They are not stagnant. And I think you can see that from the stories that you're hearing, the results that you're hearing today. So it's just truly impressive. Thanks to the General Assembly for your vision back in the day and that your continual support and investment. You can see that it matters and it's making an impact, I think, for Vermont's advantage today and into the future. Again, to the Agency of Ag for their leadership, their ability to be nimble and adapt, the board, their expertise, they're showing up. I mean, I'm on the, I have a designee in the board, but I go when I can and really hard conversations. They spend days going out and thinking about, like, what's next? I love the wraparound service of the technical assistance that they do. It's not just a grants program. They're really thinking about what do they need to bolster up and support these businesses for the future, which I think is fantastic. I also love the partnerships. This is not just done in a vacuum. There's the farm to play. There's New England feeding New England. We just released the Vermont Forest Strategic Roadmap, which will be integrating and key to the implementation of that roadmap. So I'll just end with a thank you for showing up, for listening, for investing your time and energy and your wisdom going forward. Oh, thank you, Daniel. Yeah, the only, the only thing I heard today that, so question, maybe you could help with that chair, the agency that you work for, in regards to permit costs. Yes. That absolutely came up in our roadmap. And I think we heard some strategies of permit assistance, investing, and anywhere we can get exemptions. Thank you. Oh, so, oh, thank you all for your time. Thank you. Thank you all. And good luck to you. Thank you for meeting here.