 And we, the committee- Excuse me, Bobby Allison's on your way, she's here. Well, we'll take Allison up first and she's gonna talk about the H2A workers and how that is working out and if it is working out. Morning, Allison. Morning, Senator Starr, how are you? Good, good. And we're gonna do that first and then we're gonna get right into the dairy issue and I'd like to have Amanda and Bill give us all an overview of what's going on in the dairy industry and on their farms and milk pricing and all that. So Allison, if you'd like to give us an update in regards to what's happening at the ag agency and specifically on H2A workers and whether they're getting here and in that issue. Sure, so I think I'll be brief in the issue. We've seen workers arriving this week, which is a good thing. They were behind last time I spoke to you two to three weeks on arrival. The last group of workers that's late had an April 1st start date. They will be arriving tomorrow. And what we're seeing is though the essential worker visas are being processed still, there's a curfew in Jamaica, 5 p.m. They have to be out the streets and folks are not able to get to the embassy to get their visa printed. So they go to the embassy, it takes two days to get the visa printed and then they have to make another trip back for transportation and picking up that visa. So there seems to be a delay in those mechanisms at the current time. Also the lack of commercial flights. Once the visa is obtained, we're seeing it takes another five to seven days to get on a flight. Though I did look at commercial flights coming in in May and it seems like there's more frequent flights. So hopefully that'll help us to get workers here more timely. But right now it's up to a four week delay on getting workers. And those are for the greenhouse operations primarily that they're bringing in workers at this moment. Yeah. Are there questions to Allison regards to Chris? Yeah, Allison, thank you. What happens once they're here? How are we, they should be quarantined by the executive order for two weeks. But the housing situation is, you know, not consistent for these workers and many cases would be kind of crowded. So how, what's the agency doing to sort through that detail? Great question, Senator Pierson. Happy to answer. So I'll remind you that H2A housing is inspected by State Department of Labor and has to pass inspection in order for those workers to be approved to come. Per the executive order, they're critical workers and our general counsel has said that they're not required to quarantine. That being said, the workers, we are having conversations with employers as well as the H2A agents and all of the employers have wanted to quarantine as do the workers. So I'm not aware of any workers that have come in and not quarantined. And when I say quarantined, our understanding is some are simply, you know, they are able to come in early and they can't work until their start date. So there would be that quarantine period where they're not working. They don't go into any social presence as well as retail establishments and such for grocery shopping. It appears that their workers, employers are doing that. So they are quarantined for the 14 days. Some are going beyond that, choosing not to leave the firm and having others assist them with shopping. As far as housing goes, many of these employers do get another round, especially the large ones workers later in the season for picking. So their housing is not full at this point. And then those that do have full housing, there's been conversations of recognizing where the housing is for apple orchards and if they can work with those orchards. I think there's an employer just last week that was getting workers in Southern Vermont and they worked with a neighboring farmer that had housing so they could space them out and quarantine them for that period. So as usual, you know, we're innovative in Vermont and employers are working with employers and doing the right thing and the workers are doing well. Yeah. Well, that sounds like you're staying right on top of that then and looking after the wellbeing of everybody. There are other questions, Ruth. Hi, Allison, thanks for being here. I was just wondering if sort of picking up off of Senator Pearson's question about if something were to happen to one of the workers if they were to come down with COVID while they are here, what would be the procedure for that? So I would say that that's more of a health department, a health question than it is an ag question. But as you're aware, Senator Hardy and our conversations that we've had around workers that do become ill or have become ill, the state epidemiologist is in touch and there is tracing being done. Also the UVM program for migrant education and bridges to health is going on these farms and having conversation of how they can best protect themselves during that time and what the options are as far as quarantining. And do you feel like the farms and are they required to go through the training, the required training that the governor just announced in terms of the health and protection stuff? And also, do they have proper PPE if they need it? Yeah, so they are required to go through the training and we have been doing messaging to ensure that the message is getting out there on that VOSHA training. The other piece is educating on PPE, which the VOSHA training does do through that PowerPoint. You've been contacted by employers that have been having issues being able to obtain PPE. So the conversation of if you cannot get surgical masks, there's not the need to, you can do homemade or you can rip up a t-shirt as long as we're covering the face and the mouth when we're in the presence of others. So those conversations continue to happen. All right, Anthony? Yeah, I'm just curious how many of these folks they're gonna be, how many workers do we expect? Through the H2A program, there's roughly 500 that come into the state throughout the 12 month period. And I'm also curious, you kind of already answered this a little bit, but in terms of distancing, social distancing, when they're working in their homes, I assume they're pretty small quarters most of the time. Are we concerned about or keep in our eye on whether or not they're social distancing or not? Yeah, I think the governor has been very specific that we're gonna educate and that's what we're tasked with doing. Their lines for this housing, as I said, it is inspected by Vermont Department of Labor. There are upgrades made to the housing. Each year, if there's a problem, they have to correct that before they get certified. I think there's a square footage requirement too off the top of my mind. I don't remember what it is, but in the bedrooms, there has to be a square footage allowance for each worker as well. Yep. Thanks. Other questions for Allison, Ruth? Yeah, I just, Allison, on the Davosha training, I know that that's required for existing workers who are already working here. And I'm wondering, is there a Spanish version of that training for the dairy workers who may not speak English? It's interesting you asked that because we're actually, that was a question that came up yesterday making sure that we're able to get them what they need. So no, as we're, we did translate our COVID fact sheets to Spanish and so we're gonna have to translate that as well. It's not available in Spanish right now. Okay, good. But it's in the works, so that's great. Yeah, great question. So there are other questions from the committee in regards to H2A? No. Another issue that has come up, maybe you could check on for us. I had some small farms call and ask if they would qualify for the PUI employment, the unemployment thing. And many of the small and smaller dairy guys that aren't incorporated, they aren't really qualified to get into the PPP program because they don't have employees. And they were wondering, I had two call one last night, late and one early this morning. If I could look into that, is do you know about that Allison, if they are qualified? So my understanding is I sent an email yesterday to Cameron Wood, who's general counsel at Vermont Department of Labor. I was contacted by a representative young in regards to a farmer who was applying for the PUA program. And my understanding is since dairy farming is even though we know it's not lucrative, still in business that they would not qualify for PUA. So I was asking for Cameron to confirm that to the farmer. I have not heard back on it. Also on PPP guidance, first round guidance, my understanding is that it did not have the guidance proper for schedule F or those that are self-employed to arrive at what their wages would be for PPP. But I believe second round that they have guidance came at the end of the last round when all the money was out, but second round has begun. And I know that those SBA lenders in our area most have been going to the National Bank of Middlebury or Yankee Farm Credit. And then also Vermont Ag Credit Corp is where they can direct those questions and they should be able to answer them. Okay, Kresch. Thank you. Allison, yesterday we got some notice that the feds plan to allow reimbursement or some kind of payment to health providers who are covering uninsured. And the feeling was that it was broad enough that it could include undocumented workers. And to me, this is a great relief because we're somewhat limited in how we can help our migrant farm workers and how to reach them, et cetera. But at a minimum, they ought to have some confidence if they come down with COVID-19 that they're not gonna lose wages and have medical bankruptcy. So my question is, are you guys, is the agency preparing a strategy to get that word out? I hate to think that people are not seeking medical treatment when they need it because they're afraid of the horror stories or legion of the debt following you, et cetera. And so I'm just wondering if a strategy is in the works to help communicate that to the farm community. Yeah, I would have to check again with the UVM extension program that runs bridges to health on that. We really rely on them to get the message out to the migrant labor community. So I am not familiar with what work is being done on that at this point. Sorry, I can't answer that better. That's okay. Can you get us just a follow-up email or something when you hear from them, please? Sure, I will let you know that the director of that program just had a baby last week. So I'll get in touch with the one that they say is the main contact. Thank you. But may not get immediate answers. Yep. The other piece is a conversation if I may that Senator Hardy and I have had around unemployment, not my area of expertise, but I know that the question has been asked about those workers and if they're able to get unemployment. And it's my understanding in conversation with the OL that federal laws prohibit that and that if a worker potentially was paying into unemployment, their employer paying into the contribution and a worker went to request unemployment on that, they may get that payment though it's illegal under federal statute to receive the unemployment benefit. So I was able to actually get that answer, Senator Hardy. Thank you for being patient. I think it was two weeks ago, she asked about. Yeah, no, thank you for following up on that. That was the answer I expected to get, but it's nice to have it confirmed. Yeah, and if you wish to ask Department of Labor, it was Dirk Anderson, their general counsel that we had obtained that information from. Okay. Yeah, and I've got a meeting scheduled at one o'clock with Cameron Wood on this unemployment stuff. So on these small farms. So I'll talk to him in regards to, see what they were telling me, their income has dropped dramatically. So their personal income, even though they don't have a payroll account, but they're like a self-employed contractor. They live out of their checkbook, you might say. And they seem to think that they ought to qualify like any other contractor or small business, but I'll talk to him more deeply on that at one o'clock. Anything else, Allison? No, I think that's it. And for all of you, Anderson was supposed to have been on this morning, but he was working with joint fiscal and those people on a dairy relief package and of course, we're working on our own. So he can't be with us. Brian, did you have a question? I did and it just occurred to me, Mr. Chair, thank you. Allison, I do this radio thing every morning down here in Rutland and one of the questions that came up had to do with the opening of the farmers markets this weekend. And somewhere someone said, they heard on channel three that there was a restriction of having only 10 people at a time in the market. I went through Anderson's guidelines yesterday as lengthy as they were. And I couldn't find any reference to any number of people who would be allowed to be at a farmer's market. I mean, I can't imagine being very successful, having only 10 people come through the market at any one time. It just didn't make any sense to me, but I thought I'd ask. Yeah, I'm not the professional on that, but I'll have our general counsel get in touch with you, Senator Calamore. Okay, thank you. Brian, did you get an email from Carolyn that went to Linda and Linda sent out, I think yesterday under 2.1 outdoor retail space. There is a maximum of 10 total people including customers and staff at outdoor retail operations. So I don't know if that would include, it says garden centers, greenhouse offering mulch, stone, plants, trees, seeds, but that isn't farmer's markets, that's this other deal. And I did read Anderson's guidelines from the top to the bottom, and there's no mention of any sort of restriction on people. So I think that has more to do with garden centers and stuff. Yeah, I think your caller got mixed up with the two different operations. Yeah. Anything else, Allison? Any other questions for Allison, Rose? Sorry, I just had another question, and you might have to think about this, but if we were to try to come up with something to help dairy workers, particularly ones that aren't qualifying for the federal assistance of any kind, do you have ideas on how we could effectively distribute or identify who should qualify for this, depending on how we define it, obviously, but just sort of this question of how do we figure out who people are, if you know what I mean? Oh, it's a great question. And I think we continually work with UVM Extension for a reason, because they have the Bridges to Health Program and the Migrant Education Program, so that seems to be where the information has been housed as to who the workers are. It's one of those areas where we speak with employers, that's not a question we ordinarily ask, so we don't have any data of that nature. The H2A is different because it's in a federal registry, and so we know the H2A workers that are in the state of Vermont. Right, okay, so UVM Extension, that program may be the best avenue. I would think so, and I just wanna remind you also that H2A workers would not get unemployment, and then we go back to 2010 when our department of state shut down Jamaica Central Labor Organization, and they lost their healthcare. They had great healthcare at that time. They paid $20 a week in premium, and they had a $100 copay, so we had workers that would get an appendectomy up here. They'd pay their $100 copay, and within a month, the rest of the bill was paid in full, and department of state stopped that insurance. It was Caribbean insurance, and they didn't want it here. So for us, working with those workers as well, the same questions arise. If they get sick, what happens? They lose out on pay, do they get paid? Some, every employer handles it differently. Some employers, and I'm sure you can speak to those that are on with us today. Some do give sick pay, and they have to give sick pay to comply with your regulatory framework, but it's not two weeks' worth that they're required. So each employer handles it differently. Okay. Thank you, and thanks for that reminder. Anything else for Allison? If not, thank you very much, Allison. Keep up the good work, and... Thank you. We'll all get through this eventually. Likewise, and if you have further questions, don't hesitate to reach out. Appreciate all you continue to do. Thank you. Yeah, and we're gonna have a, I would hope a dairy proposal of some kind to work with the agency on and the push forward, so. Yeah, and I see that Michael had requested some numbers too. So I don't know if Diane's gotten those to him yet, but I'm very appreciative to see the work that you're already starting to do on that. Yeah, and Diane did get those numbers to Michael, so. Yeah, very good. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. So welcome, Bill and Amanda. Good morning to you both. And I don't know if you have a procedure that you like to follow, but we'd like to hear how things are on the farm and the issues, major issues that you're facing and how we might be able to help in some fashion in the, I hope, the near future. So I don't know which one wants to lead off. Go ahead, Amanda. Yeah. Well, good morning, Amanda and welcome. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Amanda St. Pierre and I appreciate this opportunity to join you today. And if I could have figured out how to do it with not so much background noise, I thought it would be neat to do it right in the farm, in the barns, but that was just too noisy, did not work out. But today I also have with me my son, Jamie, in the orange and his future wife, Ellie Purrier, both future farmers, next generation. And I'm very excited that they are participating with me in some of these activities. And I'm sure they'd be welcome to answer any questions that you would have at this time. I just wanna briefly, I think I've met most of you. I've testified before, but again, my name is Amanda St. Pierre. I work and live on this farm with my husband, Mark, of a lot of years, 30 plus years. And our three children, my daughter, Megan, who's a social worker and works on the farm part-time. My son, Jamie, and I have another son, Bradley, and his future wife also working here with us. We have around a hundred employees. Some of them are seasonal. And we have a digester on our farm as well, our renewable energy project. We do sugaring as well. But most recently, we've been dealing with something we've never dealt in our lifetime, which is the pandemic as everybody. And it came on fast, I feel. I feel like it was really like a tsunami that just kind of rolled in and all of a sudden we're dealing with help and protocols and education and worry. A lot of worry and a lot of stress. And as we roll through those early days of it and tried to figure things out and how we can protect everyone here on our farm, then the financial tsunami began to be clear. And that is what we are now facing on our dairy farms here across Vermont. I should say that I'm also the executive director for Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance. And we work with Sholdice Associates. And we've been working for about five years now for the Vermont dairy industry. So that also brings another perspective in to my testimony today. So I don't wanna go on too much, but I did think it might be good just to give some reassurance on protocols for dairy farms and what dairy farms have been doing in COVID-19. And of course education, right? A lot of education involving UVM, extension their migrant worker program has been super, super, super. I cannot stress how helpful that has been with translation and training. And but also following Governor Scott's press conferences every day. And so we've instituted protocols across all of our departments. I think farms are now like cleaning so much more than they used to from spraying down, milking equipment, that the truck drivers come in from other farms in touch, providing gloves to all workers. I think currently we're all struggling with the mask piece. We're trying to figure out how to, A, get masks, B, what type of masks we can get and see how are they gonna be cleaned? How are they gonna be washed? Are they gonna be discarded? So somebody else is gonna pick it up and touch it. Like there's a lot of things like that we're trying to really work through. We set up isolation housing so that if somebody experienced symptoms, we would be able to isolate them quickly. And we have protocols to follow that as other farms. Farms are taking temperatures on incoming employees if they can do it in a shift type of a situation. We've closed off early on. We closed off all our farms and farm areas to any outside visitors and just do curbside and no extra family members and that kind of thing. So now we are beginning to opening up the state a little bit more. We have to just re-educate now with the new guidelines the governor has rolled out and the Spanish version needs to happen. We can do simple translations like put things on a bullet point and do that but that PowerPoint is a little too involved for us to do. And so I don't know if they're reaching out to UVM to do that but I'm sure that they could take that on if they were asked. Now we're looking at the financial piece of this and that really is the most critical right now for your Vermont dairy industry. I'm speaking as a progressive conventional dairy farmer. I know the organic market has seen dips in prices but they are also able to handle their supply and they've got a smaller group to handle. So I think I can't speak really to them exactly other than I think they've experiencing some downfall in price but I think they're somewhat stable. For us, the tsunami is here. It's gonna hit now in the next milk checks our farmers get. We've got dairy cooperatives looking at stabilizing price through supply management. It's something that I've worked very hard with Bill Rowell and a number of other people on for many, many, many years but that doesn't help us in the short term the way it's being unveiled. We were young when we started that. Not so young now, Bill. But we are looking at almost a $7 drop per hundred week from our price pre-COVID to post-COVID. And we are looking at Senator Starr putting in a proposal hopefully end of this week, beginning of next week with some ideas on what can directly help the dairy community. But a couple of things that we thought may help are waving fees such as the annual digestive fee that farms pay for running renewable energy projects to LFO and MFO fees. And I think all of that really has to be done legislatively. And while that is not a huge amount of money it is some money and more importantly it shows that our state of Vermont recognizes our commitment to staying open during this crisis that we are essential to the state of Vermont and that there's some concern for the ones that are still working. I do wanna touch upon one thing Senator Starr you were talking about the PUA program and we had worked hard to get included for firms who get their money right from the milk check. They don't get a paycheck. It could be a grandparent, son, next generation all living off that paycheck off that milk check but not getting a paycheck. And we were told that they should be included in that. So I'm very concerned to hear that Deputy Secretary Eastman has heard that they are not. I've had farmers reaching out to me I've walked them through the process I've asked them to keep going you get denied eligibility and then you go into the PUA system. And then at that point they're supposed to be getting a callback to go over their application and then be deemed eligible. So I'm really concerned and I'm thankful that you're having a meeting Senator Starr this afternoon on that. Yeah, Chris has a question I think, right? Just on that point Amanda, as I understand it and I think all 30 senators are trying to get up to speed on what the PUA program offers and how to help constituents. It's not been smooth. But I think the program is directly designed for people who've lost jobs or lost big chunks of their income. And obviously we're all concerned about milk checks and milk prices but it had not been my understanding that dairy farmers were seeing the decline. I'm hearing you say you're expecting it and I can imagine that's true and it's something we're trying to get our hands around but in the last month do you think in your experience there's dairy taking a hit or I mean people are dumping milk? There's a lot going on but I'm trying to understand in terms of that program if it's designed for people whose businesses have just stopped. Right and I would say that yes because the decline really started at the end of March right when COVID began and restaurants were closed and schools were closed. So while the bigger hit is coming next month it's been about $3 to $4 a hundred weight. And if you look at a milk check when someone is not getting a paycheck out of that milk check and the milk check is net zero where are they buying their groceries? Where are they paying their health insurance? And that is my biggest concern that they should be eligible and yes they're working but they're working for the good of everybody who's buying food in those stores and for them not to be able to go out and buy food that's really scary to me. I've talked to several farmers who are very frightened about that and so perhaps we're a little bit late to the game and coming to all of you and saying we need help now but we had, I'm just gonna be really honest we had a struggle even being listed as essential and that is really like I can't even understand we had a really fight for clarification that we were part of the essential workforce and in this state with the economy that depends on our agriculture sector so much that was really discouraging and we really need to work on that and so every time a program has come out a lot of it from the federal obviously we have to fight for our status and our place because we're not normally included and so yes the paycheck protection program has been helpful to those of us that have employees but there are a lot of farms that don't operate that way they just live off whatever's left of the milk check at the end of the day and so their income has dropped and it will drop more severely in the coming months. I think I wanna go ahead and- Well, go ahead Mr. Chair. Before you go on I said earlier I had a call this morning from a small farm and he was telling me he got his milk check yesterday and it was same actually he said he sent more milk this last period than he did back when this milk check was for and his milk check was down $5,000 from his previous milk check and that's a small farm you know with the 51 to 200 cows and he was shocked because he thought it would only be like 2,000 down and he opened it up and he said he thought he was gonna have a heart attack because he was planning on the full amount and it was already down that much this pay period. I don't know did you get your milk check this today or yesterday Amanda from- So we get ours on the 18th of the following month but in our most recent one the one that came in April yeah it was down severely and that's the struggle right is this is really this isn't related to typical milk you know cycles which we've gone through for the last four and a half years this is really directly related to COVID-19 there's no denying and you know there needs to be a lot of further discussions and I don't wanna take up all the time and I wanna be able to answer questions or if you wanna ask questions of Jamie or Ellie but really this is directly related to COVID-19 and the further discussions we need to happen is that the milk that we're dumping we're dumping a product that the food banks need we're dumping a product that is limited in stores like they're not allowing people to buy over two gallons of milk and we have had so many conversations I know that Ag Agency has reached out our group has reached out our co-ops have reached out to the grocery stores to say look you can't be limiting butter and milk and cheese like that product needs to move and yet I go to the local store in Richford and they've only let you buy two pounds of butter and you know we have a distribution issue that we are really gonna have to fix and we have a system that as we now have experienced a pandemic we need to look at the system of getting food from the farm to the homes and that is something our country really needs to work at Vermont needs to work at we need to plan for we need to invest in. So I'm going to answer questions. Yeah and we'll get to you, Bill but Ruth has a question. Oh, that's fine. Thanks Mr. Chair and thanks Amanda for your testimony. I've had a couple of questions I think you're absolutely right about the distribution issue and that's something this committee has talked about a fair amount previous to COVID trying to figure out how we might improve our distribution system in Vermont for local food. So appreciate hearing you say that as well and we don't have any solutions yet but I just wanted you to know we have been talking about it quite a bit but I did have a question I was looking back at my notes from last week when we heard from our federal delegation and I have in my notes that I can't remember which I think it might have been Senator Sanders office that's his staff or said that farmers are eligible if they're self-employed farmers they're eligible for the PUA program. That's what it says in my notes. So it's interesting to hear the complications that you're facing with that. I understand what Senator Pearson was saying about how it seems to be set up more for people who are just fully unemployed and most farmers are not fully unemployed but at least the federal delegation had the impression that there should be a way for you to be eligible or at least some farmers to be eligible but I'm wondering about the we also heard about the I don't remember what the name of it is but the program that the USDA is coming out with that would be the sort of price margin program apparently there's $2.9 billion for dairy and I'm wondering if what you've heard about that and if how helpful or unhelpful will that be to you? That's my first question and then I appreciate your comment about potentially waiving fees and I just wanted you to know and while we haven't fully discussed this but what we have been hearing is that most of the federal funding that the state has received cannot be used for revenue replacement. It can only be used for expenses. So if we waive fees then the state has to make up for that revenue that we don't get and we can't use the federal funding to make up for that revenue. So that puts us in a sort of difficult position. So it may be better to think of ways that we can use the federal funding that is not about replacing revenue but about getting funding out to people who benefit people and businesses and farmers that have been affected by COVID. So just as you're thinking about your proposal to us but more of the question for you right now is what have you heard about that other federal pot of money and how helpful or unhelpful will that be? Right. So when I was probably good, I'll tag Bill after I get done my part of the answer but what my understanding is first of all, they're still unveiling how they're going to distribute. My understanding is they're basing it on the losses of the first quarter. So January and February were okay pre COVID-19 and then you had March. So I'm not really sure. I'm hearing different numbers. I don't know. I'm hearing that the cap will be 125,000 which is a lot of money but when you're losing five times that amount in a quarter, it's just not something you can easily suck up. And I think the other piece I just wanted to touch upon is the creditors have been extending for four and a half years and I just got a letter yesterday from a green company that says, do not plan on being able to extend any credit. We used all the credit we have. We're not able to get loans or credit from our banking institutions. And so don't plan on that as a way of leveraging your way through this crisis. And so that is really critical. And so the USDA did come out with this money. They're breaking it down into a lot of food supports as they do in food programs and there is gonna be a direct payment to farmers. I am concerned that they're basing it on their first quarter. I'm concerned that while it is helpful it is not helpful enough. And again, the timing of when that funding comes in. So I'm gonna maybe open it up to Bill and then we could take questions at the end for either of us. Okay, thank you. Bill, are you all set? I'm pretty well set. Yeah. So let me put things in perspective from my point of view. Our farm, we have a large farm. We milk less than a thousand cows. Our milk check for the month, if milk is $12 a hundred, our milk check for the month is gonna be short just shy of $200,000. That's what we will be short. And we have to do everything that we would normally do without the cows or the people or the state or the federal governments realizing that we're in distress. That's a possibility for a short time but if you don't have any creditors, vendors that will work with you and allow you to use some of their credit line in order to stay in business so that they can stay in business. Then that's not gonna happen. It's not gonna work too well and we're gonna lose, I'm gonna guess a higher percentage of farms than we would normally lose. But there's also that aspect that we overlook is the amount of food I was watching in the news and in Florida, they had all of these beautiful tomatoes and squash in the fields. Nobody to pick them and nobody to process them, package them. And they were plowing them into the ground. Well, that food was destined for somebody's table and now there's gonna be a hole in that production. The same thing with the chickens that they didn't know if they were gonna have to euthanize and the hogs. That puts a hole in the production. That can't be replaced in a few weeks. So we may have some things coming down the line at us that we're not ready for if those things happen that way. And as far as the local economy, I understand that we're a small state. I understand that our economic framework is fragile at times right now. It's pretty vulnerable. But what we need to do is see if we can figure out how to move the economy. How can we move the milk market? So I talked with Bob Grave. Bob, Senator, you know Bob Grave from the co-op meetings. He's the Northeast Dairy Co-op Lobbyist in Washington. And I said, Bob, Bob, I've had an idea. Listen to it if you would and tell me what you think. And I said, our problem is the milk markets aren't moving. We need to make that move. How can we do that? You know, the federal government's writing checks that are really crazy money, big dollars. And somebody's gonna have to pay that back. I'm glad that I'm not the youngest person in the room. So how do we do that? We spend all this money. A lot of it isn't even getting to where it's intended to go. And so, well, we'll correct it next time. But they're not sure this time it's gonna get to where it goes. And how do you have billions of dollars disappear before you even get a chance to apply? So that's a real concern to me and a lot of the farmers. But here's the idea. What if we look at our export markets? We've got four primary markets. We'll call it Mexico, China, South Korea and Japan. Now, each one of them takes quite a lot of product from us. If you look at Mexico, their dollar, their peso is a fraction of our dollar, I think less than a quarter of our dollar for one of their pesos. They buy food, our dollar is strong. Our dollar is worth more than a dollar at this point. And they kind of afford to feed their people. So they're having the same problem in all those countries that we're having here. So my idea was this. Why is it that the government instead of doing the food bank thing, that's good. And we need to continue to do that. But why don't, in addition to that why doesn't the government issue a voucher to those exporters, to those co-ops, those processors exporting, let's say if you're talking about 10 million pounds of cheese in this order, it's X number of dollars. And in addition to that, maybe another 20% of that food the government could issue a voucher to the processor. And tell that receiving country, this goes into a feeding program. This goes into a food bank for your people that can't afford to eat. That would buy some loyalty, it would move the market. It would put us back in business. I don't understand why we can't do that. So then I called Peter Welch, Bob Grace, I like it. I called Peter Welch, he said, I like it, but I don't know how to make it move. So I called Mike McCloskey, the big guy out in Indiana. He's a friend of mine. And he said, well, we're working on something of a version of that already. So maybe they have something there. So last night I got a call from my friend. He was the chair of the DMI board, the dairy marketing. And I said, Steve, can you talk with Peter Vitaleano? He's the chief economist and see what would be the problem of doing this, as I suggested. And see how do you get past the World Trade Organization? All of that stuff. There are people that know how to do that. So do it, make it move. Get us back to where that we can function on our own. We realize the state doesn't have a lot of money to throw around, and it's hard, I understand. But now the way you need to look at it is if dairy is putting $3 million of cash into the Vermont economy on a daily basis, and if dairy accounts for $2.2 billion of economic activity annually, if you lose, we're down to what? 600, less than 650 farms at this point. Well, 670. 670? Yeah, somewhere's in that neighborhood. Well, that's... You gotta add in goat and sheep. Oh. Oh, so dairy, cow dairies are 647 or something like that. 649 as of March 1st. 649, okay. Yeah. So anyway, where do you go? And if you look at it from the perspective of can we come up with enough money to do anything meaningful for these guys? That looks like an undaunting task. If you look at it from the prospect of, let's say we're down the road a year from now and the economy is returning to normal and 20 or 30% of those farms aren't there, is that gonna be a regret? Is that gonna be a missed opportunity on the state's behalf as far as trying to keep these farms in business? So I guess that's the way I'd like you to frame it. And what do we expect from you? My opinion, if you don't have any federal money to work with, then we expect less from you than if you do. So I don't wanna put a figure out there so big that you immediately build a wall between you and the farmer. So if you look at a dollar per hundred weight, is it meaningful on a monthly basis for our farm? That would be a little better than a trailer load of fuel which is pretty important right now for planting and spreading manure and all that sort of thing. If you have some additional money from the federal government to work with, then maybe $3 a hundred weight, maybe more depends. If in other words, our ask is, you can't replace what we're lacking is my point but you can do something to help us. And if you don't do anything to help us, you're gonna lose more numbers probably than the state wants to lose. So that's my perspective. And hopefully the guys doing all of this thinking on how to make the markets move will get it and make it work sooner than later. That's a possibility. But in the meantime, here we are. Questions for Bill? Bill, if we did this, if we tried to do something on a per hundred weight basis on every farm, it seems like that would be quite complicated and time consuming to do. Have you thought anything of, we have our four classes of farms, small, small certified, medium and large. Yeah, have you ever thought of any or have you thought anything about doing it like in the different class sizes on an average like payout per farm or anything like that, which would be pretty easy to maneuver and easy to administer? Well, I understand that, Senator. If you take a large farm, that's 700 or more cows. But that also goes up to some thousands of animals. So how do you do it if you don't recognize what they're producing? Well, you build an average in there. From the small, you have the top numbers. In the medium, you have a top number. But on the large farms, there is no top number to try to find an average to go by. That's the only problem is the big farms that we don't know the end number. Right. Well, we've only got a couple of dairy cooperatives in the state. And I'm sure they'd be happy to share that information with you if it was talking about monetary funding for those farms. Yeah. Questions for Bill. If not, Chris. I'm trying to think of how to frame my question, Bill, you and Amanda, you laid out plainly from the farmer point of view. It's crystal clear that this has had bad news on top of years of difficult situations. From the state point of view, I guess I've been wondering how we work with partners in the ag sector to make ourselves less vulnerable to this dynamic. And to me, that has to be a move to diversification. There is, it's really clear to me if I'm concerned about farmers, individual farmers, I want to do everything I can to help you out. If I'm looking at the state and at the rural economy, we have to, I think, look beyond a strategy of immediate aid. And that's not where you're coming from. I understand that. And I'm not trying to ask you to accept my point of view. But I guess what I'm wondering about is how do we, what could we do that would help people plan? You mentioned what happens any year from now. It will be a failure if we lose farms. It will also, in my mind, not be a success if we have somehow found a way to prop up dairy operations that are not sustainable given the global commodity market. And I'm trying to think of ways to help people approach this differently. Somebody mentioned goat farmers, you know, there is a demand for goat milk. What do you think current dairy operations that are struggling, what is there something we could offer that would incentivize a transition so that a year from now, maybe we accept fewer dairy farmers, but we don't have to accept fewer farmers, more working land. We don't have to accept a retreat of our landscape and the tradition of farming. We have to maybe have an approach that is comfortable with fewer dairy operations. This is an impossible question as you heard me struggle because I admire the work you and all of your colleagues are doing. But I also recognize the state has to, I think, acknowledge some of the reality that we've been fighting against for decades. Sure. Well, one of the problems that we've had for decades is that we operate under federal milk marketing orders. And the farmer isn't free to do as they choose to the extent people think they are. But one of the things that would help us immensely is if we could control or at least balance the supply of milk with the demand for milk. And right now, so let's look at it like this. We did a lot of work there since 2006. Amanda and I and a number of other people. And we got to the point where we had the votes in the Senate. We had 66 out of 100 votes in favor. They equipped the votes in the House. We had the votes in the House. Then Secretary Boehner wouldn't schedule a bill for a vote. So because he knew we would prevail and he obviously had been paid off. They twisted his arm, whatever, and he wouldn't schedule a bill for a vote. Peter Welch was furious about that. But we didn't get the management tool that we had hoped for. But what happens as a result of it, the dairy co-ops can manage their own supply of milk legally. No act of Congress required. So what about that dairy co-ops? How come you guys aren't managing your supply? Why are you dumping farmer milk at farmer expense? Why is it you can't manage your supply? You're the leadership. You're going to have to have farmers in business. If you expect to have a plant, they call it a wet plant. A dry plant doesn't do them any good. So guess what? Now we're seeing DFA, the biggest co-op in the country. I think seven of their councils. I think there's either seven or nine councils, and there are two councils short of having everybody participate in the country in a management tool of some kind so that they're not having to dump milk. And we're just getting started with that. So the Northeast Council is going to have to reduce milk by 15%. You're going to have to reduce your production. 15% below what you have been producing for the last year. Will that do anything? It will align supply with demand. Will it create a shortage of milk? It may temporarily or initially to iron the glitches out of the system, but I think that they're going to watch it close enough because they want all the milk that they can have. They like to have milk that's not too expensive, but we need to have milk where we can at least have a profit. And when you see milk in the store selling for $5 a gallon and the farmers getting something like some sense for that, it's a little bit disappointing. The other issue that you say diversification is fine. Some of agriculture right now is doing real well because they're the small guys that are raising beef and doing vegetables and that sort of thing. That's doing good. But not everybody can do that. And if you look at the dairy market, for example, you know, Roger, I'll be a couple of years ago called for everybody to go organic. Well, organic can't support all of that. And so their markets curtailed there in sort of the same predicament we are to some extent. And is there a one size fits all deal here? No, probably not. But I think the management tool would go a long way. And I think that if we could have a floor under the price of class one milk, that would go a long way also. So in other words, if you have a floor for $15 a hundred weight or 16 or whatever price per hundred weight, I had one guy tell me get a floor for $30 under class one. And he said that that would take care of all our problems. But it has to be affordable to the people. And you know, at $15, $16, you wouldn't be, you wouldn't be hurting anybody. I mean, it would be the farmers would be able to keep their lights on. They're not going to make any money at that, but they could keep their lights on. So that's something that you'd have to do with the federal level. So if you're working under a federal order, of course, it makes it hard to talk to somebody at the state level about what needs to happen at the federal level. But at the state level, you have some folks that can put some pressure on the federal level to make things move. And so the management tool appears to me to be a must. And keeping farms and business is, is going to be essential. And having a floor under, under that product, a price floor would be that, that would lead to some confidence in the dairy community. I can tell you that it's a little disconcerting to be sitting where I'm sitting right now. Well, let me just say, if, if I had any voice in Congress, you and I would have a lot of fun down there. Thank you. I appreciate that. Bill, I've, I've been fooling around with. Mr. Chair, could I just interrupt because Amanda was going to jump in and I cut her off. Oh, no, no problem. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Pearson. I just wanted to add a little bit to a couple of things. And we are working on some short, mid and long-term strategies that we're working with Heather Derby from UVM extension on, and we're hoping to get that out beginning of next week. Like I said, but there is some ability to provide options to some of the programs that have the infrastructure of which to diversify in. I'm going to use us as an example. We've invested a lot into an infrastructure that supports conventional progressive dairy. We have buildings. We have supplemental infrastructures. We employ around a hundred people. And for us to take that and convert it into another type of agriculture would be difficult. Now, is there a way to add to that portfolio portfolio? So our income stream is different. Absolutely. And we're always, I think, in a lot of farms looking for other means of ag that we could bring in to our wheelhouse. I know UVM extension and the farmers watershed alliance up in Franklin County, we're looking very excitedly at a program where you could build a market for carbon credits and, you know, some, some income generation from managing our land well, which the state is very involved in and puts it as a high priority. So there are some ideas out there. I think what I want to just point out is the funding that we're asking for potentially is not for a bailout of a failing industry. It is for unforeseen facing every industry out there COVID-19 pandemic. And the food makers that supply the restaurants who will be getting assistance in order to keep their businesses, I think should be recognized as such not so much as a bailout of a failing industry because there's no way that the, that the funding we could request could offset those decisions four years ago. We're looking at a short-term window to look at getting through the planning season. But equally, there are some ideas that we can put out and talk about as providing more choices for farmers in the state to diversify to look at other income streams. My son wrote down, you know, more low income loans, you know, as young farmers begin to come into the industry and they're taking over their parents' farm, maybe that's the best time to look at those alternative ag or more diversification. And if they had better financial options and can manage their funding at low interest or further spread apart their payments, it gives them more liquidity to go into some trial markets. And, you know, it takes a while to develop a market that, that is sustainable. And I think we're seeing that with a hemp that happened last year. Everybody was all excited about the hemp and some people made out well. Some people did not severely make out well. And it's because, you know, kind of got ahead of what the market was there. So there's lessons to be learned in this. And, you know, we absolutely want to keep our working landscape and this land in agriculture of some type. So I think there is some reasonable conversation that we would love to engage in, you know, at some point down the road and certainly you'll see some of those in our proposal that we put forward. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have a follow up question, Chris? Brian. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I know you want to get on to your proposal, but I just wanted to thank Bill for his view. I sincerely appreciate having that big picture view that you give to this committee whenever you speak before us. Amanda brought something up that I thought we'd already tackled. And I realized on the scale of things, Bill, it's not, you're sort of on this macro level and I really do appreciate that. But I'm talking about the signs that apparently are still in some of the grocery stores, which are restricting people's ability to buy as much dairy product as they want. I don't see them in Rutland. And I thought we had already talked to Aaron Seacris from the, from our retail grossers. I would much rather see a sign that says help farmers buy an extra gallon or buy an extra pound or whatever it is. Are we still facing those situations in grocery stores? Yeah. I mean, this was literally two days ago. And there are no signs because I got an argument with my husband. He came in all pot and bothered and full of piss and vinegar. And I'm like, no, the signs are down. And he said, no, we went to the counter and the clerks are saying you can only have two. And the issue is, you know, some people are shopping for multiple families. Like if my in-laws can't get out, I'm not going to make two trips to the store. I'm going to do one trip to the store and grab it all. And I can understand toilet paper. I understand to some extent, but we need this product to move. And I don't know how many conversations. I mean, Diane, they've had countless conversations. We've had countless conversations. Honestly, I think it takes the Vermont governor to stand up at his press conference and say, we are not limiting, like it needs to be that clear. And it's frustrating for all of us. And if you guys could manage to fix that, that would be just also a little bit of less mental tension that we all have knowing that we can sell as much as we can. I'd be glad to get behind that. Yeah. I think we all would. Yeah. Bill, I getting back, I had a question for you in regards to the federal milk market program that we're, we're all blessed with. Right. Nobody can ever change. Have you, have you or your organization. Thought it all about having our own Vermont. Milk order, our state, a state milk order that's regulated here at home. I know years ago, we talked about this, but we were exporting the bulk of our milk to Southern New England. And of course, back then the bulk of it went to fluid markets, which we got paid, you know, usually a fair price for. Now, if you run the numbers, we utilize over half of our milk. I think it may be much towards 60%. Right here in Vermont through, you know, through Cabot cheese and Ben and Jerry's and yogurt plant. And so I'm wondering, you know, if we could have our own order and tell the feds to take theirs and ship it to take their order and ship it to wherever if they want to export by our product at our price and export it to wherever they want to go with it. You know, if you go to Wisconsin and over the last, I don't know, maybe 12 to 15 years, they've spent a lot of money on their infrastructure. They have a lot of processing capability out there. And that that is that. That's a real. Provoking thought, isn't it to have our own, have our milk contained here in the state and not deal with interstate commerce or federal orders. But let me tell you like this. The farm I grew up on in Albany, Vermont is a small farm. In the fifties, we milked 40 cows. In this, in the sixties, we milked 60 cows. And it was a good life. And it didn't take as much to support a family back then, if everybody worked and everybody worked. That farm was sold recently to a young couple. And they're going to produce milk for Jasper Hill cheese. And right now things are slow. So, so even even them and that in that situation, things have slowed up for them as well. And they're like, like Amanda said, nobody saw this pandemic coming on like it did. I mean, it happened so fast that it was kind of surprising. At first I thought it was kind of a fluke and maybe it's something that would pass soon enough, but now it appears that it's going to linger for some time. And it just went to an extent that nobody really, I couldn't imagine such a thing. And we're caught, we're caught as, as a society, we're caught as the human race, we're caught as the world, we're caught. And there's no way out for us at the farm level that I see at this point without some help to sustain the operation, to make it move at least to limp along to get through it. But would it work to do that? Even if we made all our own product here in Vermont, out of our Vermont milk, we'd still have to have customers and those customers would exist not entirely in Vermont. That the money, the money, a lot of that money would come from out of state or out of the country, but especially out of state. You know, you look at, you look at the Northeast and there are 54 million consumers from just DC up through to New England, maybe West as far as Ohio, 54 million consumers. That's one of the hottest markets on the planet for dairy products. And everybody's buying for a piece of it. We make specialty products in Vermont. We could make more and probably we should make more. But in this instance, that, that wouldn't save us. I don't think. Well, thank you, Bill. Are there other questions for Amanda or Bill right at the president? If, if not Diane, welcome. And you've been sitting here. Patiently. So would you want to give us your perspective on, you know, what you've learned in the last few weeks in regards to dairy and, and how the numbers are, are running at the agency. Yeah, thank you. Diane Boffield agency of agriculture, food and markets. So thanks for, for fitting me in this morning. I think one of the things I want to report on that is, is moving is diverting that milk from the manure pit. In to products for the food bank. We're doing one load next week to go to bottled milk. And that'll be a partnership of DFA HP hood and the food bank. So that, that provides 6,000 gallons of milk. So we're working with the food bank to be able to distribute that. And we have funding from the community foundation that everybody is kept whole. The dairy farmers get paid for the milk. And that's what we're doing. So that's what we're doing. So that's what we're doing. So that's what we're doing. Processing facility gets paid for their workers and their packaging and whatever other costs they have. No one is to make a profit. So that is, that's load number one. Load number two is the following week. Going into Commonwealth yogurt from DFA. To make cups of yogurt. And one tractor trailer load of milk makes 42,000 cups of yogurt. That'll go to the food bank. And that's the total amount of milk. Same thing. Keeping everybody whole. We probably have enough funding from the community foundation to do one more. Tractor trailer load. Folks are talking about donations. I'm trying to get an answer out of the co-ops on. If they donate a tractor trailer load of milk. What's that do to the profit and loss on the bottom line of the co-op? The goal is to keep everybody whole. So that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to keep everybody whole. We're trying to keep everybody whole. We're trying to keep everybody whole right now for their losses. So not that three tractor trailer loads of milk is going to change that tremendously, but it won't be a deduct. They'll be, they'll be paid for. So that's happening. So Amanda, we're working on that. Roger Albee is out. Searching for other money to help us with that. We learned today that. Nationally dairy promotion money that has been collected from the farm. So that's what we're trying to do. I mean, it already got taken out of the farmers and then we're turning around and using it to buy product or buy milk. So what does that mean? So we're looking into that. The Vermont dairy promotion council. Has a contingency fund that they set aside every year. We'd have to call them back together and have a proposal and vote on that. So nothing. Nothing firm there yet. If we utilize other funds for that, go back to the community foundation. See if we can do more. So that's what we're trying to do. So that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get that out there from Rotary clubs, et cetera, to be able to move other tractor trailer loads into production instead of to the manure pit. So working on that. It takes a while to get things scheduled into plants and those things. So it's going to come to fruition. So we're happy about that. And yeah, I want it to be more loads, but want to make sure everybody's whole in the process. Because everybody has expenses. So that's happening. So that's what we're trying to do. So that's what we're trying to do. So that's what we're trying to do. So that's what we're trying to do. There's a lot of stuff we don't know. Amanda is correct. They're part of the payment to dairy is 2.9 billion. It's national. They're going to look at losses twice. They're going to look at January through April 15th and then April 15th out through two more quarters. That second quarter certainly will be larger. The expectation they'd pay on 85% of the loss in the first quarter. So that's the second quarter. So, but there's a cap on payments of 125,000 details. Have not come out from USDA. Sign up what milk volume you're going to use. None of that has come out yet. They have to go through rulemaking. They have to go through OMB. So it will, they don't expect any payments to go out until the end of May, if not into June. So not much more detail than that. The, the USDA also is putting money toward purchasing. Dairy products to go into food banks 100 million a month for at least three months. So there, that's coming up soon. I, people are being asked to apply to be a vendor in that right now. They're trying to move that quickly. But they don't expect those boxes to be going in, you know, those extra dairy products to be going in until later in May. So, you know, we're watching that. Program we're doing of putting product into the food bank and, you know, trying to match it up with what's happening with the USDA. So those things are all occurring. Yeah, prices are certainly going down. You know, some of the concerns of the loss of income. And I think Amanda and Bill clearly got that stated there. It is a drop. The, some of the information that's going out to farmers right now showed 1350 for milk and last month's check was 17. So that's, you know, a drop already in prices that is painful. And there's an expected it'll drop a bit more. As we get into May and June. So not, not sustainable prices, not, not anything that, you know, anybody's going to. Make any money on and the count of farms. I apologize. That was, that was April 1st of 649. We get a count at the beginning of each month. So soon we'll have a May 1st or early next week count of dairy farms. We've only heard of one that went out at this point. And it was a direct sale. The cows cattle left the state. About a 500 head milking facility. So. Direct sale. But I don't know who's buying cattle. So they're, they left and they're done, but that's the only one I know of this point that ceased operations. Certainly watching very carefully what's going on around us. Our in state. Meet facilities are booked and operating at capacity. They're booked out seven and eight weeks in advance. Bill and Amanda spoke of the, the programs that are happening within cooperatives of reduction, reducing production. And one of the ways to do that is to, to send animals to market, cease the milk production and send them into the beef market. And then we'll have a couple of other facilities in. Pennsylvania area to be able to take in those beef cattle. Our, our slaughter facilities in Vermont will not be able to take into those animals. So how do farms manage that? Trying to determine what's possible there. Could people delay, keep the animals on their farm longer schedule stuff into the Vermont slaughter, but there's costs associated with that that dairy farmers aren't able to do that. So that's kind of an overview of what's happened federally and in the state. And the last few weeks around dairy that I know of, but willing to take any questions. Yeah. Thank you, Diane. I'll, I'll lead off with a question. What does it cost to take one of these trailer loads of milk and either bottle it or make it into yogurt? What, what is the, the ultimate cost of all that when it gets back to the food bank? Yeah, the, it depends. The load of milk, we don't have the price yet for May. So milk is priced a month behind. So we don't, won't know the final price on the, the milk until June on the milk that's done in May. That's just the way the system works. Commonwealth has told us that it's 35 cents a cup. And it's about a dollar a gallon that hood is proposing on, on their processing. But if grand, grand total would be between 22 and 25,000 milk. That's an estimate on the milk, milk and processing between 22 to 25,000 per load. Yeah. Well, if it was headed to the manure pit, if you've got 50 cents on a dollar, it would be better than going in the pit, wouldn't it? Yes, but currently we have the funding to pay the going rate for the milk, which helps keep the farmer more whole than even class one prices is in the $16 range. So if we can pay for the milk at a flat rate, no profit, maybe the hauling to get it to the facility, that is, it's got to be better for the farmer than, than the zero if it goes into an orbit. But yeah, you're right. I just want to make sure since we have the funding, that is the goal to make sure everybody's whole. Yeah. Questions from committee. Well, they're letting you off easy today, Diane. Hey, good things come to those who wait. Well, thank, thank you, Diane. Thanks. So, Michael, I guess we're down to you. So, would you, would you like to give a little report on, on our dairy issue that we've been working on the draft that you put together from the old seven, I think we asked all we had, and we, we had a dairy, a dairy program back then. Would you like to go through that and maybe put that up on the screen? I don't know. Have the members. Had that a copy of that. Yeah. I did email that to the members earlier today. Yeah. So you could run through that, Michael. Sure. So first, before I go through the, the document that's out there, on the zoom meeting page, I just want to refer back to what Senator star was referencing in 2007. The general assembly approved an interim dairy assistance program. That program paid the difference between a target price established by the secretary of agriculture and the Vermont secretary of agriculture. And the combined announced federal order statistical uniform price at the Middlebury location. Plus the amount of any milk check payment. On a per hundred weight basis. And it was paid for a two month period. And then there was also a buy down of interest. That the Vermont act, credit corporation. Financed. So using that as a model, I put together this kind of framework skeleton. Where you see that the, the first section, subsection would establish a program to provide financial assistance to milk producers due to the loss of markets. Such as schools and restaurants caused by COVID-19. Public health emergency. Then you have the question or for you, what would you. Or how would you want to structure a payment? Remember in 2007, it was based on the, the difference between pricing. The USDA direct benefit program. And then there was a, the U. S. D. A. Direct benefit program. That was referenced by Diane and others. That is also going to be based on a difference between the projected. 2020 prices and the post pandemic. Prices. That might be a little pricey for Vermont. To do it based on that. The chair also referenced earlier. That's what this yellow highlighting is referencing. How would you want to develop a formula for a payment? Whether or not you want the payment paid as a one-time award or monthly. And whether or not you would want to put a cap. On any payment. So that's, that's a question for you. And that's what this yellow highlighting. Is referencing. How would you want to. Develop a formula for a payment. Whether or not you want the payment paid as a one-time award or monthly payment. As I believe Amanda, St. Pierre referenced. And Diane referenced. It's going to be. The federal program is going to cap out. At $125,000 per commodity. Per farm. So if a farm is suffering losses from dairy and from corn. They should be able to get a payment for both of those commodities. So if Linda, you can move down a little bit. And if you're going to use that subsection B, that really depends on what formula you're going to use. If you're going to be. Facing any payment on producer production data. You want to be able to have the agency of agriculture request production data from farm services agency to the extent it's available. And similarly subsection C. This is, if you're going to be using production data, it just directs the producer. And then you're going to be able to use production data. To the agency of agriculture. And then food moving down in subsection D. This is, it would be a separate check. Direct to the milk producer. It's not going to the co-op. It's not going to any handler. It's going direct from the state. To the producer. And then sub E again, as if you're going to be using production data. That's what you'd want to consider. Curses commercially marketed milk. And then if Linda, if you could scroll down a little bit. In that section B. This is wet. If you want to buy down the interest rate of farm loans at FM, I credit corporation and what months you would want to buy it down for. That's a possibility in helping those farmers that, that have. That's a possibility. That's a possibility. That's a possibility. That's a possibility. That's a possibility. Through Vermont ad credit corporation and how that could be done. Then in sub C, you have an appropriation question. You have the first, if it's going to just be in fiscal year 2020. And that'll depend on your payment schedule, I believe. And then how much you want to appropriate. And. And then in sub B. Whether or not you, if you're going to buy down. Interest. I credit how much you want to appropriate to, to buy down that interest. So again, this is based on 20. 2007 assistance program. There are other options that you could. Use as a framework. But I just wanted to show you something in the chair asked me to show you something. And that's where you could just plug in. Different data, different decisions. In order to establish a dairy assistance program. One of the things you're going to have to think about is that, that appropriation. That might be what establishes the criteria. For how you move the money. Because you might have to back into a formula, depending on how much money you can get. So you might have to figure out how much money you're going to get. First for the program. And then back into a formula. I can work with Stephanie. I've already been in contact with her. She's aware. Of the different dynamics and choices that could be made. Just as a reference, you might not be able to do that cost differential. Similar to what the USDA is doing because it's just going to be too expensive. So you might have to figure out how much money you're going to get. And so JFO is, is. Able and ready to provide assistance if, if you want them to. That's all I have. Well, thank you, Michael. So. Here we are. So there any thoughts on behalf of the committee. Or why do you think. How much money can we muster. Ruth. Thanks, Bobby. I guess my, my initial thoughts are, I don't know if we have been given a number yet. That we can. Talk about. But I think it would be whatever we do keeping it as simple as possible is the better route. Especially because almost everything else seems to be super complicated. So, and people are having a hard time figuring out how much they're getting or if they're eligible and all that. So having our program be as simple as possible, I think is important. So I guess I'd, I'd lean toward the sort of grant program option rather than tying it to a milk price. Because I think it would just be. More clear. I also, you know, the way it's structured right now, and I, you know, and I know it's based on what the two seven, 2007 proposal, but I would like to see it be broader than just. Dairy, because I know that there are other types of farmers that are also struggling with the beef market being weighed down. And so I think that our beef farmers are struggling. Our other types of dairy producers like goat and sheep. And our specialty cheese producers are really, really. So having it a grant program that's not based on the. Milk price would also allow us to. As Senator Pearson said, diversify this program. So we're helping more different types of farmers. And maybe just having some methodology as simple as possible. That, you know, that they can document that they've been affected by the COVID crisis in some way. And that the federal funding that they may be getting is not covering their losses as a criteria for eligibility and just keeping it as straightforward as possible, but trying to help our dairy farmers, so a broader specter spectrum of farmers in Vermont. So those are my two initial thoughts about simplicity and broad based diversification. Yeah. Thank you, Anthony. I think I agree with a lot of what Bruce said. I think keeping it simple would be nice. It's always difficult with dairy policy and foreign policy to keep it simple, but I think it's important that we try to do that. I also think the idea of moving it beyond dairy is good. I think people will question why we're doing just dairy if we do just dairy. I mean, I understand why that might be the case, but I think there's a lot of other kinds of hardships that non-dairy farmers are experiencing as well. So I think the idea of trying to put something together that goes beyond dairy would be good. I think there should be a cap on it if it's dairy. And I would say something like some kind of grant program that has a per cow grant and limits it to a certain number of cows would be one way to look at it so that smaller farmers who have fewer resources might be able to benefit more than the larger farmers that are struggling and losing a lot, I understand, but also have more resources to begin with. So some kind of per cow cap would be one way to look at it. I would look at it. Yeah. Other questions. Yeah, I pulled with this course. I've done this quite a few times starting way back. And I agree that simple is good if we can keep it that way. And I think, you know, we should include, you know, these other branches of agriculture, whether it be beef or whatever, which I haven't given a lot of thought to that. But I certainly wanted to help them, but we need, we need, I think we as a committee need to have some kind of solid footing with numbers and, and losses and all that because we've got whatever we do, we've got to sell to our, our colleagues. And it, you know, it isn't always easy, but yeah, they've always been very supportive in the past. I pulled around with, with the different classes of farms that we have talking with Michael just, you know, they're not so far off long, but trying to figure out a simple way to address it. And if, if you took the, like the small farms, the real small farms, we don't have any numbers on. So I was thinking of just doing a, a straight grant, straight grant to them. So the, the small farms that are certified from 51 to 199 pay like so much a cow, take the average of, of those sizes. So you would, you'd take the, the one, the 51 and the 199 and you would average that out. And you'd come in at like, you'd pay for like 125 animals. And at say $80 an animal, I think you'd come up to somewhere around $12,500 a farm, something like, like that. The little guys would just get a base grant of 5,000 under 50. The medium size that where we have 200 to 699 the, the average size, if you averaged it, because we don't know what where average is, but go halfway. You'd have 450 cows at 50 cents a cow would give them somewhere's in the $22, $23,000 range per farm. And then the larger farms, we, there's from 700 up, but God only knows what the upper number is. But, you know, average that out at 1000 cows each at 50 cents would, yeah, I think, yeah. And that would pay them, I think I've got it down, yeah, to $50 a cow would be like a $50,000 grant to each of the, the 33 big farms. I, I don't know if, if that sounds fair or right or, but I, I was going by a conversation I had with Senator Kitchell back a week or two ago and I was talking about trying to get, you know, eight to $10 million for dairy. And then I thought we would get some extra money for the non-dairy farmers, but she didn't, she didn't throw me out of the rumor, asked me if I was crazy or anything like that when, when I said, well, I'd need somewhere as I think between six and, and $10 million just to, you know, to offer some amount of money that would be meaningful and would allow our farmers to get their seeds in the ground and, and, you know, pay for their seeds and low fertilizer and some diesel fuel. But Michael, are those numbers that I gave, that I give those out accurately to the people? I just, it was, it was $50 per cow. You were, you had referenced 50 cents per cow and I just, and I just wanted to, 50 cents wouldn't, wouldn't go too far. Yeah, that would be a little bad. And I think for the certified small farms, it was $100 per cow at $125 or 125 cow average. That would get you to the 12,500 per farm. Yeah, so Brian. I think Anthony had his hand up first. Anthony, just two things to mention, even though we talked about simplicity before and more, we talked about this the further from simplicity, we're probably going to get. But in the ideal world, if you want to rebuild agriculture in a way that is better for the future, more sustainable economically, you might tie some of this money to efforts to diversify on the farm as well. There's something to keep in mind. The other thing is I'm supportive of giving relief to farmers for sure, and to farms and farmers. But we've also had a discussion about whether we should set up a fund for migrant farm workers who actually out there doing this work every day and don't qualify for the program. So I would like the idea of a fund for migrant workers to be part of this discussion as well. It would probably be a small fraction of the overall amount of money that we have to allocate, but it would be well worth it. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, any of those ideas, we can work into our, our proposal, that's for sure. And, you know, we can work those numbers one way or the other way. You know, I just wanted to throw something out that we could start from if, if you think that would be a simple enough way to, to pay it out. But anyways, that's just my. I think it's a good, I think I do think it's a good start. Yeah, Brian. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So is the six to $10 million figure that you mentioned when you spoke with Senator Kitchell, is that the sum of all of that added up that you gave us when you broke down the four different categories? I think I worked it pretty much to the upper end. Michael, what was the upper end cost of that? I think it's going to come out between 8.7 and 8.8. Okay. So, you know, there's, you know, we do whatever you guys want to do, you know, and we don't have a firm idea yet as to what the feds are going to give us though, right? No, not, not firm. Chris. Are we imagining the feds are, are. This is what we're hearing, right? That the feds are doing their own kind of farm directed relief. So is your concept that this is on top of that or to be ready for that? It's on top. Okay. Well, I'll just point out that Senator Kitchell didn't throw you out of the room because you weren't in the same room. So we've got to get ready for that. And is your concept just a one-time grant? Yes. Unless, unless somebody said, well, hell, you know, we can do more, but we've got to save, you know, we've got to add to this what we want to do for the beef guys and the apple guys and the, if Turkey's chickens, you know, the last time we, we did this either the last time or the time before that, we included some money for all the different people that are, we're losing money badly in. So it would take a little more. Yeah. And to me, I, I, I think there's a good starting point and thank you for pulling together and focusing the conversation. I, I, I am much more interested in, in sort of a strategy that is forward looking that offers relief and drives some strategy that we all believe we can talk about being more resilient in the future as opposed to, you know, temporary, temporary relief. And I think we need both. But I think Senator Polina referenced some somewhere, Senator Harder, somebody that, that it sort of be paired together so that we can at least acknowledge, you know, it's not COVID is acute for our farming community, but it's, we could have easily had the same conversation in January. Milk prices have been low for a long time and, and all deeply frustrated because we don't have real influence of federal policy where the solutions need to come from. And every time we ask the co-ops, well, why aren't you doing this? There's some excuse that it seems to never fall back on the fact that the co-ops are allegedly controlled by the farmers. It is an amazing paradox that we're struck in. So I want to see some relief, but I want it to be paired to a forward-looking strategy that does our best to build some resilience in the ag sector across our rural state. Yeah. Other questions of Michael or myself, Ruth? Yeah, I mean, I, I appreciate what Senator Pearson and Polina are saying. And I would agree. I'm curious. And we, I think we all need to think about this. Like what would those requirements be? How would we measure it? How would we define it? And, you know, to Anthony's point, the more we talk about this, the less simple it gets. So I do want to make sure that we stay as simple as possible, but I agree that some kind of forward looking sustainability marker is important. And the question I have for Michael, if we do try to diversify this and have it be not just dairy specific, then it, it would be probably easier to do it not on a per cow basis, but on a size of the farm basis. And we have LFOs, MFOs and, well, the small farms. I can't remember. And very small. And very small. Are those, those farm sizes across all farm sectors or just dairy specific markers? Technically, it's across all farm sectors, but I believe there's really only one farm that, one or two farms that are not dairy that are in the medium or large farm. And I will have to, I will have to confirm that with the agency. But, but all the rest would probably qualify as small farms. And is that based on the number of animals or the amount of money, their total budget or profit or whatever? The SFO, LFO, MFO is based on, is based on the number of animals. It's based on the Federal Clean Water Act rule for concentrated animal feeding operations. That's why it says AFO, LFO. But there is underneath the RAPs, the threshold for you being a farm subject to the RAPs and there's income requirements there, but they are minimum income requirements. You won't see, you won't see what they're generating or average profit or anything like that or size. You'd have to talk to the agency about how to distinguish those produce, beef, poultry farms. I don't, I don't have a good answer to that off the top of my head. Okay, because I'm trying to figure out if we try to make this broader, how do we measure farm size beyond dairy farm size so that we capture orchards and vegetable farms? And to be fair, and part of one of the requirements should be that they've actually been financially affected by COVID because some of the vegetable farms may not have been because they weren't in season yet. And so it will have to be a sort of longer term measure to see if they're how and when they're affected, but trying to get some kind of measurement of those farms would be helpful. I just know you don't, you don't need just one program. If you want to have a program that makes awards to dairy and a program that makes awards to non dairy or non livestock, you could do that. And that might be simpler if you want to base a grant to a produce farm based on their losses. Whereas in dairy, they might not know their losses until a, you know, month or two after they sold their milk. So you might want to base the dairy on a projected loss versus an actual loss. And the, the thinking behind my thinking behind this is, you know, in Southern Vermont, they've already started getting their ground ready and, and getting ready to seed and, you know, within the next couple of weeks, I, I would think they'd be putting stuff in the ground. And if, if there's no help coming and, you know, you keep him, if we keep him and hawing, not that I don't mean us as a committee, but we as state or the beds, you know, it could depress them guys into thinking, well, there isn't going to, they keep talking, but there isn't going to be any help. So they don't plant and then come next fall, there's no feed and then they sell the cows. So I kind of wanted to get this out as quick as we could to help alleviate the anxiety of being able to pay for the fuel or the seed or the fertilizer. Brian, I think you had your hand up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to point out and I realize I'm probably going to be in the minority, but that's a comfortable position for me. What do you mean? I, I haven't seen you smile too much any time along. This would give you something to smile about. I like, and I don't know whether it was Senator Hardy that first brought it up or whether it was Michael O'Grady, but I do like the idea of separating this to a dairy part of it. And then something else in terms of agriculture. And I just remind folks that as far as I understand, we're supposed to be taking up stuff that relates to COVID emergencies right now. The forward-looking aspect I think is fine, but I think that's a discussion for a day down the road, not necessarily now because I'm not sure we can use any of the federal money to make plans for the future. I think it needs to be in response to an immediate situation. And again, I just remind folks that the dairy farmers are the only ones that have to battle with the federal milk of the rules. The other aspects of the ag bond. So I'd like to see it as the chair drew it up strictly a dairy one, and then we can take part of the other money if we can and go back for the beef and the vegetables and the rest. Yeah. Thank you, Brian. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I just remind Bill, Bill pointed out the tomato farmers in Florida. Grounding their produce into the ground. We're hearing from vegetable producers who run, pick your own operations. They don't know what to do because they're not going to allow, you know, you can't get a successful operation with four people who don't own. We're, we're, so there's, there's a lot of infrastructure for operations like that. They could freeze or maybe or, or, you know, meat producers are slaughter. Shortage is going to be a glaring. This is, this is all COVID related. So I'm not saying, you know, let's build our dream ag economy here in Vermont because we have a little bit of federal money. I'm saying. I'm saying that. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that. I'm saying that. I'm saying that. I'm saying that. I'm saying that. There are clear, you know, when, when we went through Irene, any of us that were sitting in the legislature agreed with governor Shumlin, who said. Stronger. And that was relatively simple. That was convincing the feds to let us replace a culvert this big with one that was this big, right? That was very concrete, but it was smart. It was the right strategy. We have to take care of the crisis in terms of making sure people have food literally to eat. But we also need to be smart about spending our dollars so that when we are out of this, and it's not going to be in two months. That we can look constituents in the face and say, we have done our best to be smart and to be more resilient. Stronger in the, in the many weaknesses of our economy that have come forward, not the least of which is the food system. So, so, you know, I take your point, Brian, but I also think that it's on us to recognize these challenges. They surface all across the sectors and help us build some infrastructure that, that allows these producers to be less vulnerable to the challenges that COVID is hitting, hitting them with, and they are all hit. And by the way, I just would say as an aside, but something I hope we can look at next week. I heard from a friend of mine who works with Ben and Jerry's. Their production is off the charts. Their sales are up 40% compared to this time last year. And, and I know that some parts of their business is trying to figure out how to send the cash back to the farm. But they're, they're, I don't think, I hope we'll blend the urgency that we have with, as you say, Mr. Mr. Chair, we want to stop the bankruptcies from happening. Maybe we can do little pieces of this quickly, like maybe we can buy down interest rates very quickly, but then figure out how we can put together a real package. And some of that may be looking at our corporate partners to see what they're doing, how we can facilitate what they're doing, how we can put pressure on them to help us out. So it's not all the state. Well, if, if I had, if we had time between now with dealing with this crisis, I should have laid out my new milk pricing scheme that, that I fooled around with for a year and because what you just said would poke that in the eye that that 40% additional sales, some of that money would be going to the farmer and not funnel back through a co-op and, and then they keep part of it and very little gets to the firm. But you know, that's neither here nor there. Bill, did you have your light on? Did you want to say something? Well, my light's on, but I didn't have anything to say. I was, I was pretty interested in your thought process. And, and I was pretty interested in, in trying to defense of it, but I was also interested to hear Chris's perspective. Well, you guys, you and Amanda, if she's still on where the first ones that, that we've ever talked with, you know, about, about this. So, you know, it's the first take. And, you know, we've got a long, I hope not a long time to go, but we've got a long ways to go to get something going. Ruth? Yeah, I guess to that point, I was just wondering what our timeline is and what, what Jane has said to you about when we need something to work or what the pro tem has said or whomever is in charge. And whether or not we can meet more than once a week till we hammer this out and maybe get some testimony from other farmers to hear their perspective on it too. Yeah. Well, we're going to, we're going to start working on the budget adjustment act to the 20 budget. I think Thursday, tomorrow. Yeah, these, these crazy days where I'll have in one day runs right into the next and, and I have to look at a calendar to keep track of what day, what day we're at. And so, but I, you know, it makes it hard dealing this way because, you know, a lot of days, like at lunchtime or sometime I'll drop in and talk with Jane or Timmy, you know, and they're alone and it's quiet and, and ask them about things and this way, you know, you miss out on all that interaction and, and stuff. But I know, you know, I, I think we, we should, you should think about this and then we might even want to meet Friday sometime. We have, if there's some open time to see if, if there's any movement on some thinking taking Chris's ideas or Anthony's, you know, whether we should keep this one simple and straight up and move it in some fashion and these numbers you may, you know, I want you guys to take the numbers and, and work with them and see if you think it'll fit in in your area. You know, I bet Chris, your people would be in Chittenden County. But, you know, for the first take, you know, I, I think we've got something to work from. And I don't know, you know, where we're going to go the rest of our times up anyways today, but I think maybe Friday, do you think that's too soon? Friday is good. I'm Friday. That's fine with me. Friday morning. I'm wondering if you or Michael could send out the numbers that you had messed around with. So we could mess around with them too and see. Yeah, I'll have, I'll have Michael. Right there, Michael. Why don't you plug those into the bill? Yeah. Keep them highlighted and things and get them out to each member. And then, you know, if you guys want to add something to it or delete from it. Go ahead and then Friday morning. We'll, hey, we'll discuss the whole show. Could I just reference that when we did the numbers earlier, we were, we were dealing with a number of 677 farms. Yeah. And Diane said earlier, it's now 644. So takes the money and divide it. Accordable amongst the four groups. Well, that doesn't work either because. So I just, I'll send it based on what we did with 677. But then I'm going to ask Stephanie to work with Diane. To get the real numbers. Is that okay with you? Yeah, that, that would work, but. They might think different than I do. Well, yeah, obviously, obviously, but. I think they'll be able to work within your framework. Well, I'd like to keep. I want to get as much to the, to the farmers as we can. And I'd hate to see the 8.7. Get down to 7.7. And not have that included. Our program, whatever it might be. So I want to keep the outflow of money. Is close to nine million as we can. Okay. Understood. Okay. With you guys. Yeah. It's good with me. Bobby, the nine million total, total just for dairy or for total. What do you think? Well, I think we ought to have that for dairy. And then we'll go back and get more for the non-ag stuff. If we, because I haven't got a clue whether that would. Would be two million or one or five. If you have any data on that too, it'd be nice to fool around. Cause I think we should come together with a package. And even if it's a separate mechanism, that it's a total agriculture package so that it's integrated. So that we're looking, we're taking care of as many farmers across the state as we can. And if, if nine million is not going to be enough that we. Don't go into separate. Because we might not get the second one. I don't know how to get the data on, on losses to say vegetable farmers produce. I, I'll have to talk to the agency about that. See, we need to, yeah, we need to. Like they haven't even, I don't think I've even grown any veggies. Yeah. And, and I haven't got a clue on how they're going to be, you know, how many of them are going to be marketable. And I, I don't know how, how to heck to. Well, I'll talk with Michael. We'll figure out something for you guys to look at. The heads up. We may have floor Friday, but presumably that won't be all morning. Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll schedule a meeting around the floor meeting. If they're going to have one either prior to or after. So we'll get all Michael will get that material to you or he'll get the lender and she'll get it to you, but play with those numbers and think about what we've heard and testimony from bill and Amanda at least. And then we talked about this in committee with other farmers and we'll, you know, try to come up with something that, that we can get done soon. So. Yeah, we might want, we just might want to invite somebody, maybe from NOFA or someone to come back into the conversation, because they would have an idea of what the non-dairy farmers are experiencing as well. So some. Well, that would be good. And maybe you could get them offline to talk about that. And yeah, so you'd have some numbers and I don't know. We'll have to find somebody in the beef industry. I can talk to some beef people and some. Go people down here and see what they're experiencing. Yeah. And the guy down your way, Ruth, that does the beef that comes up and testifies. He would be. I think good. Yeah. But anyways, we've used up our time and I don't want to cut into your lunch hour. No, I'm kidding. I, I've got a meeting at one there with, with Cameron, Cameron Wood. And I have a meeting at one also. Yes. So anyways, if no one has anything else, thanks Bill and Amanda for hanging in there and giving us your time and we'll, we'll back in Friday morning. And go from there. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.