 it's um it's the meeting of house agriculture and forestry and we are well really um lucky today to have with us the senate agriculture committee as we try and finalize some of the long language around the um dairy assistance program the non-dairy assistance program and the uh adding some language regarding farmers markets so um thank you uh senators for for joining us i don't know if you've got to be on the floor at some point but um bobby is there anything you would like to say well just that uh you know we're anxious to um to get this language done and so we can move it on to the uh appropriate uh people and and try to get it uh into law as soon as possible i think michael and your committee and and steve at the agency has been working on some short revisions and so i'd be good to you know go over those revisions and see uh if our committee can can run with it yeah we we got that i i think it came um later last night i didn't get it until uh just a little bit uh a little while ago but uh took a look at it various members of our committee did look at it and thought that it accomplished the goals but why don't we uh put that up we're lucky today to have michael grady and also members from the agency of agriculture food and markets with us and uh linda can you go ahead and try and put that language up thank you and mike would you be willing to go through it with us sure thank you um i couldn't find the right of way uh about the farm trackers and the implements of husbandry i've i've found that before but i'm gonna just email anthea right now okay great there there was a question before we started um from terry norris about who has the right of way in terms of large farm equipment versus um regular passenger vehicles so thanks mike for doing that okay um so yesterday you reviewed the proposed changes to act 138 to address some of the issues that have arisen with the um coronavirus relief funds that you appropriated to the agency uh page one two and three there are no changes similarly page four and five there are no changes on page six may is highlighted at the top of the page because you had a i posed a question to you yesterday of it should be may or shall and you said you wanted it to be may so it's may um and then on page seven line 14 uh this was the um revision that i recommended in that senator hardy requested that uh not withstands the requirement in act 138 section 7d5 uh related to the net profit requirement for those persons applying to the non-dairy program there is a typo there on line 14 that there's it should say it is the intent not tt um and then moving on to page eight there was the request yesterday i believe it was specifically from senator pierce that there would be language included about the application of the w2 slash sole proprietor requirement the w2 requirement for sole proprietors so it is the intent of the general assembly that a sole proprietor that applies for coronavirus relief fund assistance from the agency of agriculture shall not be disqualified for from receiving an award because of inability to provide a w form w2 form to the agency so sole proprietors are really the only ones that are having the issue because those that aren't sole proprietors have w2s and it's it's not that they haven't submitted one it's that they they have the inability to provide that w2 form because they did not register under a w2 form so i think this language works but i'm willing to discuss if you would like okay thanks did uh has the agency looked at that uh michael and no i haven't i haven't sent it to the agency yet i was trying to get some feedback i i thought the house was meeting first and then the senate so i was trying to get the house feedback before i gave it to you but um uh so that's what i was trying to do and i haven't sent it to the agency well uh steve is on on with us this morning uh steve uh what do you uh do you think that language will work for you guys uh can you hear me senator yes yes okay thank you uh good morning thanks senator star i just looking at this now as mike said and i think it's fine i'm not sure about the inability to provide a w2 it might because that suggests it might be more of an administrative issue that they that they have a w2 but can't provide it so it might be better to just say does not use a w2 or something like that but that's not a minor detail yeah i i i had submit but submit means that they might have one i had um apply with it's it's i think that language could be played with a little bit and i'm more than willing to talk about it i see chris's hand is up yeah thank you ma'am chair michael the um this really comes into play with the working lands and that as i understood it actually comes through accd and so i'm wondering if if you think that's a problem here because it just references the the ag agency um well remember that you're giving the agency well first let me back up the working lands money was appropriated under act 137 which was referred to as the accd bill but it is appropriated to working lands which is an agency of agriculture program um plus plus our money if we uh let the agency move money around that was all appropriated to the ag agency and if it ends up in working lands well that's what i was going to say the second point is you've given the agency the ability to pool these funds into or reallocate so it's really the agency of agriculture that the one and the the applications are going to the agency of ag agriculture they're really the one that that should not apply the w2 requirement okay as long as you're satisfied i just wanted to point that out okay so how do we feel about the language there in terms of w2 do we did is there do we need to change it steve do you have a recommendation um go ahead senator sorry well i was going to say if michael if michael feels comfortable with what the agency wants to recommend uh you know i'll find in good if if michael has a question and feels that it's not right then we ought to stick with our our council's uh recommend and move move forward with this my my other thought is it's because the soil proprietor has not filed a w2 form with the irs right that that's really what they haven't done yeah they live out of the checkbook so so that could be an alternative because they don't have a w if they have not filed with the irs they don't have a w2 to submit to the agency um so if you want me to work with steve or alison to come up with with the appropriate language there is i think there's some opportunity to change that i think it makes sense to to do something that not only um we think is right but something that actually works yeah yeah okay i saw all right so chris yeah i just wondered what did a uh house commerce they tackled this is is this language borrowed from them michael or is there it's it's not actually in act 137 right no no that you we referenced that the other day they were making this change for all accd programs and so right so what they're doing is that they're saying that soil proprietors can't apply and they're not really referencing the w2 form because the w2 form was was uh an eligibility requirement that accd set up but i will double check with david hall about that and if i can find consistency i'll i'll do consistency thank you great um so i want to take you to page nine right now i want to skip over the change to the next change on page eight so you wanted a cap um so that the maximum amount of an award was consistent with the award cap for those farmers markets that had ten thousand dollars of annual gross sales so if you just go with the cap of ten for ten thousand annual gross sales and under 25 the the award is $2,500 but do you want the caps for all thresholds to apply or do you just want it to be at the 2,500 with the concept that most if not all farmers markets aren't going to have annual gross sales of $25,000 to $49,999 what's the cap from 10,000 michael is there a cap on them 10,000 to 24,999 is the cap is $2,500 the cap for annual gross sales of 25,000 to 49,000 is $5,000 the cap for and then the next cap is is 10,000 and the the next cap after that is 20,000 so wouldn't we want a cap for the small guys of less than the next size up sure so do you want i don't know what the committee would like to do but say if it was 2000 the cap be $2,000 at least it isn't the same as somebody generating 20,000 well this is for this is for farmers markets that are generating that are making less than ten thousand dollars right right that's correct so i don't have any strong feelings about this bobby well it shouldn't be the same as a bigger farmers the cap shouldn't be the same as a bigger farmers market from 10 to 20,000 should it should be a little less that's my question yeah well what do you think bobby do you think 2000 is right what are the well i'm just throwing that out what do the committee members think and feel brian anthony bruce chris what do you think i'm fine with the two grand rose well i michael you that i know you told us to ignore the earlier language but you there's language about 250,000 dollars that would be set aside for this purpose if there's right over right so i skipped over that because if there are 50 to 70 farmers markets and you're only giving them say you're giving them 2,500 dollars 50 would be 125,000 and 70 would be 175,000 so an appropriation of up to 250,000 dollars is too much right i i think limiting it and not setting aside 250,000 dollars is a lot of money for tiny little farmers markets that don't even gross 10,000 bucks so i think limiting it and even limiting it to lower than 2,500 these are tiny little farmers markets and i'd rather see the grants go to farmers and farm operations that are then potentially able to sell their goods at the farmers market and you know it's sort of if we can get the farmers and their products going again then the farmers markets will be going again so i don't know it seems like a lot of money for these teeny tiny farmers markets um so rodney graham has his hand up and then sharon rodney i agree i think the 2,500 it's too much it should be lowered okay thanks rodney um sharon what do you think um you know i if i remember correctly and i may be wrong that um the the number of um that they've had to cut the number of um vendors in limited space by a certain percentage um and i i'm wondering if it would be a pain in the butt for the agency to consider just the the percentage of you know what never mind i'm about to go down a rabbit hole i think that i agree with um i agree i think that we can do a $2,000 limit because some of these farmers markets their their annual income is $5,000 and if they're being compensated you know two-fifths of their their their total that's that should take care of them they're still being compensated for their economic harm and so it's it's those expenses and other losses that they can submit to the agency so john o brian's hand is up john do you want to weigh in so as it stands now would the appropriation come from something outside of what we were already appropriated or would it be at the discretion of of the secretary of aafm and future pooled money down the road like if dairy's not spent well let's go to page eight then because that yesterday you said you didn't want it to come from the crf you didn't want it to be new crf funds right and so it provides that if on october 1 2020 corona virus relief funds appropriated to the agency under act 138 remain unappropriated or unencumbered up to 250 000 as appropriated from the coronavirus relief fund to the agency and that that might be should be transferred 250 000 is transferred from the coronavirus relief funds appropriated to the agency for the purposes awarding grants to farmers markets in the state that have suffered verifiable loss revenues or expenses caused by cova 19 so it's it's about moving the money that's front in dairy non-dairy and working lands whatever amount you want to decide on to this farmers market relief assistance program so it my thinking behind this whole deal is if we drop if we drop that figure see that under ten thousand dollars they were not allowed in before so we're allowing the small ones in but set the cap at at two thousand dollars and then using michael's suggested numbers that 250 is is quite high so we could drop that to what 175 maybe i i think if there are 50 to 70 farmers markets and they're being reimbursed for their economic losses and other harm caused by cova you could set the cap the maximum amount appropriated at 140 000 right 70 being the maximum number of farmers markets yeah times two that's 140 and but you say it's up to 140 to give the agency the discretion to keep you know to to move 100 if only 100 is necessary yeah i think that's that's a good idea i think i see ruse's hand is up and chris's hand was up but go ahead chris you can go okay michael i just don't understand why this these gymnastics are necessary because farmers market farmers markets can already apply to the to the non-dairy and the working lands program what happened is we just didn't put a we we just didn't let the teeny tiny ones apply because we add that ten thousand dollar revenue floor so if we just create another category from zero to ten thousand dollars and say they can come in for up to 1500 that should take care of it and then we don't have to move funds around you don't have to create this other separate thing we just let them into the current program just create a a smaller tier for them you would have to change the mtx application which would shut down the working lands and the non-dairy application for a couple weeks and cost maybe cost as much as this program would cost that is so frustrating whereas if you if you for a while whereas if you just push this through the agency's normal grant process like he did with the ag fairs they they already have a process set up for applications no contractor cost but you got to move the money and so that's that's why the gymnastics are taking place i see okay bruce mine was sort of the same i don't understand why we don't loop the man just to the small producers or whatever uh couldn't we just include them there but i think you just answered Ruth it so that's what i originally did um and then i floated that language by the agency and they said well that's going to make us change the application which has all the negative repercussions that you've already heard about no net profit etc well if that's the case i don't understand we're sort of this phraseology and the impact is probably different but the way it's phrased here we're sort of saying if there's any money left over we'll be happy to help you now i think in reality there will be money left over by october 1st but i'm not that's not my desire to put them in into a sort of lower priority i just think of them as part of the infrastructure just like we've treated processors and and others um but maybe it's a distinction without a difference right to me this is a waterfall to address the administrative issue of not changing the application but still providing awards to small farmers markets it's it's not i mean it's not ideal and it's not great optics center appears in your right it does look like you're minimizing them but if if you're really looking at a hundred thousand to a hundred and forty thousand which is what you're dealing with a two thousand cap for fifty to seventy farmers markets i have a pretty good confidence level that's just going to be a hundred thousand dollars of unspent funds um if not a couple of million of unspent funds on on october 1st and and still the agency can move that money to different areas of the uh overall programs right right if it's unexpended then it can be repurposed for the other programs so i i think we're in pretty good shape um the way the way michael is you know explained it yeah bobby i noticed that rodney's hand is up and i'm not sure that he forgot to lower it or get another question rodney i i forgot to lower it okay thanks rodney um yeah um is there's lower ginsburg on laura ginsburg is uh i also noticed that john o'brien's hand is up so after we do you have a question for laura rodney well it's about uh very fine whether there'll be some money left i on the dairy assistant program if you max out on the milk only and then you subtract the cfap payment that you probably got what happens with that money can you apply other expenses for it or does that yeah good morning hi laura ginsburg agency of agriculture i'm happy to talk about the dairy application so some folks are applying and reaching their caps with just milk losses um and then there's a number of programs that people dairy farmers are applying to that includes cfap uh dairy margin coverage dairy revenue um protection livestock gross margin that is a duplicative payment that then is reducing their state award because it's the same loss that they're being paid for so we can't pay for the same loss twice but farmers are eligible to submit a number of expenses to reach their cap so it doesn't just have to be milk losses it could be that they purchased new equipment because they're diversifying their business or they are a dairy farmer and under the same e in they produce maple or grow produce and showed losses in those categories as well and so we do have some farms that are reaching their cap in those manners um not just with milk losses but typically the larger farms the LFOs and the larger side of the MFOs are reaching their caps solely on milk loss i don't know if that answered your question so what happens to so if a farm max is out on milk you subtract the cfap and other payments so they don't get paid twice what happens to that money those funds so they would just stay in the the dairy portion of Senate bill 351 um and then we move them around as we are instructed based on the bill language so there is a good chance there'll be some money in that program even though people are capping out right we anticipate that there will be money left over particularly because organic dairy farmers are not reaching their caps as quickly um as conventional farms and we do have such a large proportion of small farms that are not reaching their caps just on milk price losses uh carolin yeah i have a question i don't know if laura would answer it or or who but it seems that uh when covet hit uh cows were selling for 1500 to 2000 dollars once covet hit the price of dairy cattle dropped dramatically uh so why wouldn't that be a legitimate loss uh that the farmer suffered uh if if the price of their animals went from 1500 say to a thousand dollars and and their value dropped 500 dollars why isn't and it's all caused by covet why why wouldn't that be a legitimate uh cost that they could ask for help on thanks for the question senator star we are paying people on those losses so to my knowledge we've paid probably 30 people or more for losses of replacements or if they've had to beef some of their cows that they otherwise would have been able to sell what we do is we take if they sold animals in 2019 we take the average price that they were able to sell animals in 2019 and then the price that they were able to sell them for in 2020 and we pay them on the difference per head and so that is an eligible expense that we are paying re reimbursing people for so i i was just i just brought that up so rodney would understand that if they did cap out on the milk they produced there's many other things that they can ask for help on that are legitimate uh cost um expenses caused by calva that's great there are a number of farms that haven't sold cows and so their losses are purely limited to revenue declines from milk price um so it it's very it's highly variable the applications that are coming in each one is a unique story into itself yeah thanks laura john o'brien's hand is up thanks thanks for your patience john thank you caroline uh i just wondered across all all right well you sort of have three pools of of covid relief fund um and it looks like dairy might have some left over so i was wondering where we're going to have a lot more demand than we have money for just so at the end of all this sometime in november that the the agency you know has a chance to to get rid of every last dollar um and and how do they decide that say you know does would it go all towards working lands because that's really opened up with this new legislation here on sole proprietors or would it would it move towards the non-dairy people um if if there's a twice as much demand there for what what we appropriated you've given the agency that flexibility um to to reallocate or pool to meet the demand from many of the programs now the non-dairy and the working lands are first come first serve programs the dairy was designed to to address all dairy farmers and their potential losses or at least give them an award to cover some of their losses but uh that's going to be part of what the agency's going to have to manage when they when they pool or reallocate is meeting the demand and shifting the funds to meet the demand wherever that demand may come from well to this point now that we have the experience i mean as we designed it and i remember we went through the spreadsheet and we made some guesses about uptake rates and literally in the dairy categories they range between 95 and 100 percent and then we had to live with 15 to 20 percent in uh non-dairy and somewhere in between for processors now to to michael's point i think this language allows the agency to make up for for the the you know acknowledge the the actual data we're seeing but is there any reason why we would be a little more assertive as you say michael it's first come first serve for everything but dairy um and the reality is you know i i guess i just worry about the timing so so right up into some point the program looks empty the first come first serve dynamic hits and people's and and the agency is potentially having to say sorry and then they shuffle money and then the next person that comes in is in line is there do we should we and have we thought of any protection to smooth that out as we have to acknowledge that the assumptions understandably that we made in june are not totally bearing out there is language on page six that says if the secretary reallocates her pools the secretary shall do so in an equitable manner designed to provide assistance to as many of the eligible applicants as possible i don't know if that it fully addresses your concern um it is it it is that directive is it possible for us to have some language and this we we kind of brought this up yesterday and it was tricky so i'll let it go if people are sick of this but i worry about somebody that applies on september 28th is told no there's no more cash and then it turns out there's cash on october 2nd and is there some language we could have that would allow the agency at least the permission to to go back or to to look back at or maybe it's already in there or maybe i'm the only one that just makes sense i thought i thought we already fixed that no application would would be denied it would just be held for the next round of money to come through i i thought we'd already done that well well not no not necessarily um um you've you've provided that if an application comes in before october 1st it's going to be it's going to be um processed uh hold on a second i'm trying to find that language if the secretary elects to reallocate her pool coronavirus relief funds the secretary shall process application applications received on or before october 1 2020 in the order received and shall issue awards from the program fund for which each application was submitted um and and that's to address the the concerns of of equity and priority for those people who submitted their applications before october 1st and to not have to pause their applications um during the reallocation of funds um and i'm trying to find the latest dairy update from diane um the latest crf update from diane to look at how much money is still available in each of those programs i have numbers if you'd like sure i'd be great laura sorry to interrupt instead of uh you having to dig through so as of yesterday we finalized um paying an additional portion of grantee so we've paid out 167 dairy applicants at five million six hundred ninety one thousand five hundred seven dollars and eight cents so that's the total that's been appropriated from the 21.2 million and then for non-dairy how much is left in non-dairy we've run our first payment this week we're testing to make sure it works there's four awards that are going through across the two bills that total 95 thousand dollars right so senator pierce and i think everyone applied before october 1st from any of the existing programs and and let's just close the the loop are how much is left in working lands so there's um eight and a half million dollars across the three funding streams i i don't have exactly the which bills those are pulling from sure assuming that there's two from each it's only 40 thousand dollars from each of the bills so a very minimal impacts yet so that's it the majority of funds are still available right and when laura references the three streams there's the non-dairy in aquan 38 there's um the working lands and the accd aquan 37 and then there was another million dollars in working lands and just the appropriations bill so those are the three streams into the non-dairy working lands and there's eight and a half million that's still available for people applying under this program there's going to be money available on october 1st so anybody applying before october 1st gets processed underneath their program after october 1st the agency has discretion to take whatever's left from the 21.2 and whatever's left from the 8.5 and pool and address the greatest need for demand so we've got we're going to have 30 million dollars and after october 1 to hand out i think it's probably going to be closer to 20 million dollars um and 25 maybe 20 yeah to move to reallocate okay john's hand has been up for a while and then i see ruth's hand actual hand is up john do you want to go ahead i just wondered when when we'll know if dairy has any leftover money because they have the opportunity right to apply with an addendum and so if if we have to wait till the very end um say there we we get a second wave of small certified dairy farmers who haven't reached their cap applying because of september milk is down um will there be a moment there between november and december when when there might be leftover money that gets dispersed if any the application deadline for both the initial application and any addendum has been moved to november 15th so on november 15th all applications should be in including the addendum for dairy and the agency should have a snapshot of what's left over considering the times of process applications um and the fact that applications will be rolling in probably up until november 15th there there's going to be money that's available at that point um on november 15th and enough enough time for a turnaround say the non-dairy farmers maxed out their appropriation so between november 15th and december yeah well the the agency said november 15th they've been taking about 23 to four weeks let's just say three to four weeks to process an application um and then the money has to revert on december 20th so if you use three to four weeks with that december 20th deadline uh the money that the agency has opportunity to move all that money in that time frame okay it's not it's not it's not i'm not trying to minimize what it's going to take the agency's going to agency's going to have a rough holidays or a holiday up to that holiday season it's going to be busy right Ruth thank you thanks caroline um so just uh following up on john's question if the in the non-dairy um portion of the program we have those caps and the maximum cap i believe is 20 000 and we put those caps in because there were so many potential applicants that we didn't want one big or a few big operations to to suck up all the money but if there is so much money left um those caps may be unnecessarily restrictive and i know that we don't want to change have to change the application but is it is it possible for if we have a you know a big beef operation or poultry operation or vegetable operation that has more than 20 000 of losses would they be moved into the working lands program and then be able to get a larger award um to cover their losses that's a that's a question for the agency anyone from the agency want to try that steve you're unmuted go ahead sure thanks senator hardy yes the actually the working lands program is specifically designed to accomplish that so if there is somebody who is a fit eligibility criteria any of the group or what if you fit within 350 eligibility criteria you have revenue excuse me you have new over 250 dollars and that's the same criteria used for the working lands group then the cap is 50 000 dollars every s 351s actual is thousand dollars if they meet that new criteria now that that raises a question of fund flexibility and that we're asked to be able to transfer the funds another on the money that we expect to have left over i i i'm not i think we're going to have as much money left over it's just been talked about i don't know but the the figures that laura gave didn't address the pending application we have approximately 75 completed pending applications in both the dairy program and in the non-dairy i producer program so there's about 150 applications pending that we need to review and probably most almost all of them will be eligible for an award and just the nature of the beast is people wait until the end and the current deadline is October 1st and there's a real incentive if you're a producer to wait until the deadline if you haven't met your cap so that's one of the reasons we want to preserve that October 1 deadline is this system these promises have been put in place so everybody that's coming into that we make sure that can get what they're eligible for so i think we're going to be spending a lot of money with applications by October 1 and then the question is how do we make sure we can spend all the rest of it before November 15th right i saw chris's hand does up thank you could someone at the agency is there a plan to go to the press and and alert people that actually they're they're you know that we haven't had the uptake we've assumed we'd have and farmers and and food producers blah blah blah encourage that i mean i i do think that would be a smart strategy but i'm curious what what you all are planning so do you want to address that sure i can start steven happy for you to add in some more feedback um we sent out just this week a newsletter reminder to about 5000 people who make up our marketing newsletter to remind them that the deadlines are approaching and this week we're having a number of meetings with advocacy organizations that represent large groups of farmers to make sure that they understand the application and can provide information to their members we are seeing a lot of interest in the applications i think folks um are taking their time to do it right which is what we've encouraged people to do it so that we can process their payments more quickly but we are putting out those weekly emails to every person that we have registered the agency which is between four and five thousand emails a week to remind people that the applications are open that they should apply where to find the resources so it's it is getting out there i think people are just really busy this time of year and looks like representative partridge is sharing that exact email that maybe she got from our market last yeah this is uh i got it both on my personal email and my ledge email just as application deadlines approaching top five tips for completing your agriculture and working lands application so this is it's really helpful actually yeah so are we in pretty good shape with our language uh michael so uh let's talk about what the changes would be i would fix the typo on page seven line 14 i would reduce the cap for the farmers markets to 2000 and subsequently or consequently reduce the amount that would be a moved um from the crf funds in act 138 to the farmers market relief assistance program from 250 to a maximum of 140 000 yeah and then i think that is it yeah and and uh carol oh and and i'm sorry the the agency and i are going to talk about the language about inability to provide a w2 or submit a w2 or file the w2 and uh get some agreement on that um i i noticed that john's hand was up and i don't know john if uh you want to go ahead before we move on to yes just just a quick question i was wondering if if there's such pandemic fatigue that you know judging from the vermont's response to the u.s. census say say they're unexpended funds um december 20th across all these categories is is there some sort of uh catchment we can put in that that the secretary then could use anything left over for you know standing up the program or some something that just so it doesn't have to go anywhere else because i i can see that happening even if it's you know a hundred thousand dollars given the caps and and how how tired people are of filling out forms well anyone anyone well the process we've just gone through allows the secretary great movement of monies all the way across all the programs we put together so if i don't know how much more leeway and freedom we could give the agency uh to use up the money i mean we can't go door to door and hand it out so um rose yeah i mean i agree with bobby that we've given a ton of flexibility hopefully to the agency to help them spend this money and um you know if there's a hundred thousand dollars left and it goes into the ui fund then that's not terrible i mean our ui fund is getting you know used pretty pretty uh well so i i don't think that that's a horrible outcome it's it's good to to beef up that fund if if there's but i'm pretty confident that the agency can spend this money if they're creative and do a lot of outreach and and really get to farmers and processors etc um just one more plug since i have i'm wondering bobby and caroline if we could maybe hear from uh uh the michael snider and see how the forestry money is going and if there are any changes necessary there and if they've been able to spend that money because we we put a lot of money into that pot too so uh well i i would be i'd be glad to do that ruth um the last time michael reported to us i don't have my notes in front of me but um they had um they had dealt out quite a bit of money and and one of our the questions for me was is there any place that we could scoop some of the covid money to use it for something else and it was pretty clear that with the number of applications that hadn't been uh yet finalized and considered that there was i think it was um the 3.6 million 3.1 million had been um basically claimed there was an additional half million that was um under review but they thought would be approved and then there was 1.4 million that yeah left uh of the five million but there were and i this is the number i'm not going to remember the number of applications that had been submitted but they felt that it it would be you know probably close if not you know 54 applications have been submitted uh but not finalized and i think that there was 1.4 million left to cover those mike do you remember 1.1.25 okay thanks and i can forward say i'm we can summary from september third whoever would like it which isn't to say ruth that i don't want to hear from michael i'm happy to if you'd like to our next meeting is friday at eight thirty in the morning so i don't know if you want to hop on to that or what um i'm curious about the timeline for this language i think we have a pretty good idea of what it is and i think um house ag members have basically approved what was sent out this morning and you know and i'm not quite sure what you know what our next step will be to actually finalize it other than us voting on it on friday bobby what do you need well aren't you gonna are you gonna try to get that into the approach bill or have you talked to kitty about handling this i have i've talked to kitty and to chip on quest who handles this aspect of the budget and their uh their feeling was that you were you know my understanding was that you were going to put it in on the senate side they would be prepared for it and knowing that we had accepted it they would be uh on board with it okay because um of course we haven't got the bill yet but it's i guess it you're debating that now and on the house side right i think it's tomorrow we're gonna debate it yeah yeah um are you gonna did you say you were gonna have uh michael schneider and friday well if ruth wants to hear from him and you can join us we could do that um but mike but michael uh also has his last report which he could forward to you i don't know if there's been any change but i'm happy to have michael in if you'd like to to do that what time what time are you meeting carol 8 30 to 10 30 just like today yeah would the senate committee like to meet the first thing or do you just want to get a copy of the report and we'll add it on to our bill if if we need to after we talk with um michael either way for me either way for me i could join the house committee or just get the report if michael if michael could send out the report i'd like to at least look at it and and uh you know i would be interested in you know hearing from michael and getting to ask him questions but yeah especially if we're considering any changes you know i i would i think the senate committee should hear directly if we're considering changes but why don't we we'll have linda try you want to meet at what time on on friday 8 30 is when we are slotted i what i'll do right now is i'll text michael and see if he's available and then michael could then uh uh linda can follow up well we just want to get a report from himself uh we could meet uh an hour before the floor time if if that's agreeable with the committee so at 10 30 sure okay so that senate will meet at 10 30 with michael and you can meet whenever uh if we can get him to come linda can line that up okay so our our slot of time for meeting is from 8 30 till 10 30 um so if you want to have him separately then that's okay i don't know if my committee actually needs to hear from him again uh because we heard from him last week or the week before and those numbers that michael was i was talking about were the numbers that he had reported to us at that moment so um so we can work this out um john o'brien's hand is up by the way so i'd like to call on him before we end here oh just while we have everybody on i i was wondering about agrit tourism and from what i think we heard in some of these hearings was that that commerce was running through their money and i was thinking with with fall foliage coming up um you know what happened say say rodney grams farm has bus tours they're not coming this fall um could he apply through these ag relief funds or would it all be have to go through commerce well working lands must handle stuff like that anybody know the answer to that question it's up it's up to the farmer slash agribusiness person to decide which bucket to go after i'm happy to provide some information on that that'd be helpful so an agrit tourism operator who's purely an agrit tourism operator who is not a farmer or qualifies under one of the other categories would not be eligible to apply under the agriculture and working lands grant program if they are a farmer for example um that may run like you were like you were stating if representative graham is a farmer and then also runs bus tours he could apply for the losses for the bus tours underneath his agricultural application but businesses that are have no connection to agricultural working lands art cannot um apply under that program so it would be and we ask those people to apply in commerce because that is the better fit for them and and laura let's say uh you have a small farm that um you know raises emus or sheep or something and they also do weddings on site so the wedding part of it wouldn't count it does count so we do not require a percentage of loss to come from agricultural sales versus some other kind of sales you have to if you are applying as a farmer for example there is the ten thousand dollars um in sales from ag products required so if you're a farmer and you meet that threshold you can claim six thousand dollars in loss from not being able to sell your zucchini and fifteen thousand dollars in loss from not being able to rent your farm out for weddings so as long as you're meeting the thresholds to be an eligible applicant the losses can come from a multiple um variety of enterprises that you may run under the same business tax identification number great and and can that tax identification number also be your social security number if you're a sole proprietor yes that's correct the application guides you into how to um how to put that in and so sole proprietors are completely eligible right now to apply using their social security number thanks you're welcome so uh the senate uh committee are you are you all agreeable to the language that we've gone over this morning and so we can let michael wrap that up yeah and michael um i guess at all everybody looks like with a thumbs up would would you want to make sure we all get a copy plus uh send a copy to jane in approach senator kitchell sure i'll get a copy to all the committee members uh senator kitchell stephanie barrett and and the agency yeah and probably sent one to uh tim ash as well uh sure so that we're all on the same page okay uh any chris well just in in terms of the bill so you're saying that the current plan is that the senate adds it to the budget well that's what we talked about yesterday and jane wasn't clear i guess she hadn't talked with kitty to see you know for sure what what the house was doing but tim and mitzi are working out some of those details as well but don't be surprised if it gets tacked on to the budget bill okay i mean i i'd be interested in it moving in the fastest moving vehicle right the budget obviously is a safe moving train in that sense so i'll leave that to you but uh if we keep an eye out in case there's something that's moving faster maybe we could go there just so farmers get some certainty uh as quickly as bills yeah but if you if you decide to do that make sure it's a vehicle that the house is going to be uh willing to pass and give me a heads up so i can alert people that that's what's happening yeah no no we'll we gotta keep everybody on the same page here so that's very important right good um how do you like the weed quacking are you talking to me yeah can you hear the weed quacker oh is that not really okay but there is some kind of noise behind you that's true i hadn't noticed it it's like when my windows are open the sheep start glatting and i'm going oh my gosh but people don't tend to hear them so you're muted bobby i thought i'd shy that um we're all sat i think we're all set i we're gonna uh steve has his hand up i think we're gonna go on till 10 30 so i'll get um i think uh well i'll i'll say it right now house members um with the thumbs up do you feel good about where we've gotten with this language okay terry um rodney yes synthia do you want to say i know you're new to this synthia but um if you'd like to say a word you're welcome to do i'm i'm good with where we are i think uh you're doing the best you can to design this so the money gets out in the best way possible i feel very strongly that it's really good if it can go in the budget because we know that's gonna move i understand what senator purison was saying about something moving faster but i don't want to take any chances of somehow this getting dropped so i i think it should be in the budget but that's up you guys yeah okay we'll we'll figure that out thank you synthia yeah so it looks like we're good with this language and we'll just look for the you know the final product and uh go from there um if you all are going to meet with michael snider on friday at 10 30 then you know feel free um i don't know that we need to um and i'm not know i don't know that we need to meet but um we'll we'll figure that out and we'll be talking to um you all meaning house members for the next little bit here so well uh thank you carolyn and your committee and michael and steve and the ag agency for all their hard work um and uh so committee will plan to meet friday morning at 10 30 and hopefully um we'll have michael uh snider uh there linda can arrange that so if there's anything else you want to bring up for friday morning uh get hold of me or or call linda and we'll get on it so bobby bobby where are you i'm in newport vermont you're at the starbucks in north troy yeah yeah now i had a meeting out here and i didn't have time to get back to north troy before you guys wanted to start so i said well i'll i'll hop on out there and now we'll get headed back good bobby i'm so glad you were able to make this work and thank you to your committee members we're gonna we're gonna hang on a little bit because i want to talk about um farmers markets but and you're welcome to join us but um um so house members hang on and um and we'll uh we'll see you and thanks so much for being able to join us this morning really appreciate it yeah thank you thanks all right gang um so i just wanted i mentioned farmers markets uh when we last met and abby was on this call for a little while and and we don't need to get her back on but um i i did have a constituent who runs one of the larger uh markets winter markets and um she is really concerned about the uh you know the guidelines and what have you and i did i did get um a message from abby um saying that they are working with folks uh so i'm going to connect with my constituent to make sure that she's kind of in the loop but um at any rate i i just wanted you all to know that there is work being done i don't know if anybody on the call right now or on the meeting uh wants to comment about this um i know this is kind of abby's bailey wick but uh in terms of making sure that winter farmers markets can meet and um be an outlet for uh our farmers products um you know i think it's pretty important if we possibly can so um i don't know steve or laura um if you if you want to say a few words that you don't have to though you weren't you know asked to do this i i don't i don't want you to feel like you've been ambushed i well thank you and i and i don't and i appreciate the opportunity so the agency does obviously wants to have um farmers markets in the winter but there's an internal process with the administration and so we are working on an outreach and as you said abby is um principally responsible for it but we're working on an outreach with farmers markets and what we plan to do is develop a plan that then goes through a administrative review process which includes the department of health and ultimately obviously the the governor makes the decision but i think the governor relies or at least the governor's office but i think the governor's relies heavily on on the medical opinion so i think as far as i know everyone wants to have uh winter's markets this winter i think like everything with this virus some of the decisions will depend on the conditions on the ground at the time last spring obviously the all markets were ordered outside so we haven't been in the situation yet where we're having indoor markets we do hope to do that plan to do that but i think the the medical opinion will probably hold sway depending on how we're doing if we continue to do well then i'd be very optimistic i'm not sure if that's helpful but we are we are aware that farmers markets need to be planning for their winter's markets and to know the guidelines so it's it's definitely a priority and it is something that we're working on okay great steve thanks so much for that any questions for steve uh vicki your hand is up okay go ahead yeah well we have you steve and whoever else knows a lot more about this and me i'm wondering about the expenses of an actual farmers market um you know that we want to give them some money to help keep them going but obviously you have your vendors who bring their own uh wares and set up their tables whatnot but what are the expenses of a farmers market is it advertising or renting a space could you elaborate a little bit on what they're dealing with well laura probably knows more than i do about the specifics but i think they're what you stated i mean a lot a lot of the direct expenses came from ppe potentially setting up sinks potentially you know having all of the reducing their vendors they lost fees is not necessarily expense but because it especially markets they were confined to a smaller space given the six foot there was never a there was never a quota on how many how on a farmers markets they were there were some vendors initially that couldn't come that weren't involved in essential activities but farmers markets were never restricted by an occupancy rate but they did have distance requirements so if you have a small farmers market and you have to have at least six foot between all the tables and obviously you're limited in what you can produce but the one i think they've also had reduced um guests because of the because of some of the requirements because of some of the lines because of the single file but i think primarily the expenses that are the additional expenses because of the coronavirus have been related to protecting the employees protecting customers have probably they have more people on on staff including the health safety officer to make sure that people are following the guidelines but laura may have a bit more specifics that she could add as well thanks steve i'm actually looking at a application from one of the farmers markets for what they're applying for and it looks like their income comes primarily from rental of space for the vendors to vend and then their expenses include advertising compensation for the market manager equipment which would be to process ebt or other kinds of payments or if they're doing electronic payments to support their the vendors that are there and then insurance music and supplies and then this particular farmers market added as steve alluded to in their other economic harm section hand washing station rentals that are portable um sneeze guards for the market managers booth face shields and then hand sanitizers and hand sanitizing service station so those would be the portable areas where you can put a hand sanitizer machine that they can move around and put in place during the market and that's what we would anticipate to see from a number of markets is a reduction in the income from vendor fees and then additional expenses to ensure safety of the folks who are vending their staff and the people who are coming to purchase at the market so one of one of the concerns um that i've got her email up here and i'll just be candid that this is uh sherry mar from uh athens i don't think she'd mind if i shared this with you she said we typically have 40 plus applications and then have to determine who is fortunate enough to secure one of the 30 spots we have available this year only about a dozen of my previous vendors are currently prepared to make that commitment and his vendor fees are what cover market operation costs we along with many other markets both indoors and out are quite concerned about making ends meet for this season and surviving the pandemic um so um at any rate she created quite an extensive draft outline which um i i i don't think she would mind if i forwarded to you all but um should i forward that to abby do you think and she may have already sent it i'm not exactly sure um but um you know and maybe i'm making more of a big um deal of this than i should but it seems like a planning ahead might be a good thing and i i'm sure you are all are planning ahead but we'd be happy to see it um madam chair we we're happy we uh i don't know whether abby has seen that yet or not but we are responsible for at least developing a plan and then it will be subject to subsequent approval but or or not hopefully approval but it is an important issue but it is it is something that we need to um addressed in the near future there's a there's an additional point that i would love to raise if you would if you would allow me yeah sure go ahead thanks so that first of all i really appreciate all the work all of you are doing to give us more flexibility to get this money to farmers hands there is one thing we briefly touched upon yesterday that i think could really help and that's and this is this relates to the potential congressional extension of the coronavirus relief fund deadlines and i think mike said yesterday that the general assembly is thinking about doing that broadly for all coronavirus relief fund dollars and what i mean is if congress extends the december 30th deadline then we could then also extend our deadlines so i i think that would be incredibly helpful because if it is extended then we there's no question that there's more harm than we have money the question is whether we can get everyone in the door and can get people to spend it so one thing would be extending the deadlines as we discussed yesterday and if people are interested in this i'd be happy to work with mike on proposed language and i wanted to raise this when the senate was still with us and i'm sorry that i didn't but the other piece of that is not only extending the deadlines but if we had more time we could potentially raise the caps and allow the same people who have already shown their losses to come back in the door so for instance if congress extended the deadline for crf's expenditures until june then we could create arguably a whole new application that allowed people to come in for their new losses so people are continuing to accumulate losses as we go we don't have the time to do that because the time frame is too short right now we have lfo's that might have a million dollars in losses that were capped out at a hundred thousand dollars so it would be very easy to spend this money and get it to people who need it if we had that time and flexibility so all i'm suggesting is if we had a contingency plan for congressional change it might also include giving the agency the flexibility to do something with the caps maybe it's double them maybe it's maybe make make them 50% bigger and to because right now people are restricted to one one application but that's something that's done by state law not by federal law except for the dairy addendum but we could also allow people who've already received a grant to come back in to apply for subsequent losses so we could have this kind of catchall provision if congress acts that would make i think getting all of this money into agriculture farmers and others hands fairly easy to do just a suggestion well i think you're right it would have been good if you had mentioned this was and it was still alive i tried i'm sorry okay um and i i'm sorry if i neglected to call on you um and i'm also noticing that john bartholomew's hand is up and i wonder michael if you wanted to say anything about this uh you know uh potential language um i think that's possible but it may not be as easy as um you may think uh in addition you will be back or many of you will be back in january so if the the deadline is extended beyond december 30th you will have opportunity in the next session to amend caps amounts eligibility etc at that time and instead of delegating that to the agency in a kind of vague grant so that's that's you have options you can try to do it as steve summarized or you can do it when you come back in january okay all right i i think that the the next conversation would be with with bobby potentially steve if you want to reach out to senator star to see if that's something he thinks that could be um pulled off at this point i think it's too late to include it in our budget on the you know on the house side so um understood thank you not trying to cut off conversation but john why don't you go ahead and char and also has her end up i wanted to go back to the topic of farmers markets okay i am i'm pleased that the governor and the agency are are really looking at scientific evidence and and medical advice and making decisions but i'm still concerned that farmers markets might be held to a higher standard than supermarkets and i don't know about the rest of you but that's where i feel at greatest risk at supermarkets but um i i i think it's in many cases farmers markets are safest places safer places to be so i really want i'm i really urged the agency when looking at the regulations for winners farmers markets to look at making sure that they aren't being held to a higher standard thanks john uh charon thanks i i i heard the little tornado of conversation about um being able to respond as a general assembly if the feds do extend the deadlines and um is is that i'm just trying to imagine if the if the feds extended the deadline by 30 days when the session the new session starts you know it's it's into the beginning of january and by the time everything said and done it might not actually provide a whole lot of opportunity um you know if it takes three weeks to to get that done and then the governor to sign it might only actually provide an additional week of of opportunity to to get those monies to the people who and businesses who need them i'm wondering i'm wondering if there's any way to tack into this just saying if the federal if if if the feds extended that we would extend our deadline by the same number of days that the feds extend the deadline i mean just to match it exactly with whatever the feds do instead of dictating i mean i'm not a lawyer but i'm just wondering if that might be a nice little piece of data to have in there so that the agency could continue to work without a hiccup i don't know the answer to that i would look to neither michael or steve that's that's the concept we're thinking about um of extending any deadline for application um payment or reversion by the same number of days that the federal government under whatever act extends deadlines for award of corona virus relief funds originally appropriated under the care side so that's that's basically what we're looking at steve is asking for in addition that says if the federal government extends the deadlines for reversion or expenditure of uh the crf funds that the agency shall have the discretion to change the amounts and potentially even the eligibility criteria for awards from corona virus uh relief funds awarded to the agency under act 138 or otherwise so i that's that's possible um i just back to the you you will likely have more than 30 days i would think and so you're still going to have that i think that option in january or february to to amend it and you know the budget adjustment bill gets passed in like 35 days so and i've seen you pass the entire body pass a bill in one day from introduction in the house to signature by the governor um yes i've seen that too can't remember what when it was michael but chronic wasting wow chronic wasting disease yep so it can be done yeah so it's it's a i see your concerns are real representative fagard but i'm just you have opportunity if you don't if you're anxious about exercising that opportunity under a limited time frame you could probably give the agency some discretion but but michael you're talking about more of a blanket it sounds like uh there's a blanket um proposal being uh thought about so is that is that something that will show up at some place in some place or way yeah i i floated the idea to jfo and to the ledge council attorneys that are kind of the point people for crf funding it's out there um we're we're aware of it and uh it's either going to be included in the appropriations bill or if for some reason it breaks down it can be included in individual bills as well so it's it's being worked on okay thanks um so john i see your hand up john john bartholomew is it still up or or do you have another okay john o'brien's hand is up also john what happens to any new monies available between now and and the next by any i mean probably not likely but if the the congress say came up with a new you know corona relief fund in in the sort of lame duck session now or some of the monies set aside here in the state that was corona money uh corona relief money was made available how how do we weigh in on that um i i think that depends on how the money is moved from the feds uh for example um some of the programs have moved the money to the governor and and not to to the general assembly or the state as a whole so if that happened then the governor and depending on how the money was moved the governor might have significant discretion and you might not have much to say um and that has happened in some states but uh there's also a constitutional issue with that in vermont because no money can be expended from the state treasury without an act of the general assembly so where does the money go if it's appropriated to the governor does it just like you put it in people's union bank and you know or or you put it in the treasury so there's a question constitutionally about that um there is some authority for joint fiscal committee to expend money when the general assembly is not in session uh so you would probably look at that but ultimately um and the governor has the ability to call you back into session you know whenever if you want to come back around Thanksgiving or Christmas but there's that possibility but ultimately I think there will probably be enough time built in for a legislature to act in order to move the money the new money um just as you know the cares act gave nine months effectively from past and March and the reversions December 30th so I think you'd see something like that right thanks Michael we are so fortunate to have you Michael working for us and with us thank goodness yeah um any other questions uh gang it's uh about 10 o'clock we have another half hour I don't need to know that we need to to um use it um I did hear back from Michael Snyder he is going to meet with the senate at 1030 and he says that he's available for us as well um we heard from him at some point and uh but I'm happy to have him in on Friday if if you would like another update it's sort of up to you uh I see Rodney's hand is up Rodney why don't you go ahead think about my question um I know myself I got plenty to do if we're just you know go talk about what ifs or just see Michael Snyder if just the fact to see him but anyway we're really stand on the you know the on-farm slaughter we just put it in nor that or we could talk about that or I think that's a difficult one Rodney I know we've heard that there's there's a feeling that there's a need for increased numbers the the unfortunate thing is that when the survey was done um the question about whether they report to the agency or not was um not included on their survey and it's hard to make the argument that you need more slaughter um if we don't know what the numbers are so um so this is and it's a tough one it's um I had encouraged the advocates to weigh in with the speaker because we are supposed to be dealing with only budget and COVID related issues you might make an argument that it's um it's a COVID related issue uh but it it's also interesting about the um you know the number of animals that are um you know that are being raised so um Rodney do you have any feelings about that? Well I don't I can't understand how you can claim it to be a COVID related issue because uh the slaughterhouse is being backed up as people getting their animals in to be slaughtered for themselves or some have licenses to have the animal slaughtered to sell but that doesn't that's not the case on on farm slaughter I mean you can't take I can't take my animal to some other farm and have them slaughter so that I can sell to me I mean that that's just not doable um and uh so I I'm the fact that they won't report or haven't reported I I'm not in favor of raising the numbers at all um I just want to know where if we're if that's the case then you know that's fine I don't want to I don't want to raise the numbers but if the community was going to talk about it sometime we should talk about it I mean if we're not going to talk about it that's fine okay thanks Rodney uh Sharon's hand is up Sharon go ahead um I've on the on farm slaughter thing you know we um we had been using uh the local USDA slaughter facility here and um it was going to be mid to late January before we could get our lambs into them so uh we because we sell whole animals and not cuts uh we're we're using a different operation and um the the father you know runs the the cutting and everything the sun comes out and and flatters the animals and and does the basics and takes them but but if for some reason that falls through for us um you know if we were maybe a larger operation that had a fair number of on farm slaughter lambs and then we were planning to to um to sell cuts from a certain number of our animals and we couldn't get in because the slaughterhouse said you know what we're not doing lambs anymore that could create a problem that's not the situation we're in though I'm a little bit nervous um about um you know the new the new operation that we're trying has a good reputation but um so it's not it is a it is a real potential issue I think especially for those who are maybe doing lambs or or goats where there's uh not the same profit margin for those slaughter facilities or the processing facilities but um but I do think it's hard to make the argument without the numbers but how many people are going to fill out that survey honestly and say oh no I I do on farm slaughter but I don't report to the agency when they're supposed to be reporting to the agency it's it's kind of a catch 22 but it goes back to what I said I don't if you if you're doing on farm slaughter without inspection I don't think you can sell to me oh no you sell the whole animal yeah you sell the whole animal um you yeah you can't sell cuts but yep Mike do you want to weigh in here you unmuted yourself yeah um so the federal meat inspection act regulates uh the slaughter and sale of meat but it has some exceptions to the requirement for inspection of the slaughter prior to sale and one of those exceptions is what's called the personal slaughter exception is that the owner of the animal can slaughter it themselves and then provide it to the friends and family or unpaying guests and so what the on farm slaughter law in Vermont does it allows a person to purchase an animal from a farm and then slaughter that animal themselves or arrange for an itinerant slaughter to slaughter that animal themselves on the farm where the animal is purchased that according to USDA when we did it would qualify provided that the slaughter occurred in sanitary conditions which is an overall requirement for slaughter under the federal meat inspection act so you have to work with the on farm slaughter law underneath the umbrella of personal slaughter um and under the federal meat inspection act and so it's it does allow you to to half or quarter the animal and Vermont's on farm law does that so you don't need to sell it whole you can cut the animal now when the on farm slaughter law was enacted there were serious concerns raised by the agency about um about sanitation about maintaining uh the product so that it's not adulterated so that the Vermont brand is not impaired in any way plus because Vermont runs an equal to slaughter program which just became the first in the country to my knowledge that will allow state inspection for interstate sale so the agency was very concerned about how on farm slaughter might affect their equal to status so it hasn't affected their equal to status as of yet but they're still very cautious about it so it's it's not hey let's let all the farmers do more and let the farmers do the slaughter and sell it's that's not how it works it's about the person buying the animal and slaughtering the animal themselves or arranging for itinerant slaughter the law actually says that the farmer cannot conduct the slaughter and so that that you have to work within those kind of parameters for on farm slaughter underneath the federal meat inspection act and we we your committee and the senate committee did that in consultation with with a high-ranking USDA official so it was not done lightly and it wasn't done without consultation with the USDA uh an approval from the USDA so I just want to put that out there and say that it has to work within those parameters so just to be clear um a farmer can sell an animal on the hoof to another individual or individuals if they're going to have a quarter those people have to engage an itinerant slaughterer to come to the farm to do the slaughter or do the slaughter themselves or do the slaughter themselves right and then they they take the part and they um either hire somebody to do the cut up or they do the cut up themselves yes they can they can they can half or quarter the animal on the farm yeah and then take it someplace else for the the the rest of the cut up well the the laws is fairly silent on what happens after the the slaughtered animal leaves the farm okay um so is everybody clear on that yeah um vicki your hand is up so thank you mike that was helpful that explanation so my question is with the backlog of people not being able to have animal slaughtered is is really the big issue that we don't have enough itinerant slaughterers who can do this from farm to farm and I remember a couple um meetings ago we talked about it and bobby was saying how we have this program at vtc and yet no we really don't so is is there a backlog because we're not getting enough certified licensed slaughterers I just wondered michael do you know more about that or how do we talk about that issue I think the backlog is in um the capacity at slaughterhouses um it's it's uh there have been challenges that the slaughterhouses have faced over the years whether it's getting a site um permanent um or functioning properly uh meeting the usda requirements for for slaughter which are specific under the federal meat inspection act getting people to staff the slaughterhouse because it's not the easiest job um and it's a job you need some some knowledge of how to do uh so that is probably where the backlog comes in the most the the um the difficulties in establishing a commercial slaughter facility but that said you are your leaps and bounds ahead of where you were like 10 years ago 10 years ago they were shutting down and there was real concern about where to go um now there are places to go it's just that the demand for their services are are much higher because of the certain situation um I don't know if that answered your question sufficiently but could there be more itinerant slaughters probably um uh uh I would add I would add that you should ask the agency their interpretation or or opinion of how itinerant slaughter is working and I would say that um as we we we ship our our lambs to um a usd inspected uh facility but our cattle are done here by an itinerant slaughterer who is really amazing um but he's older and I would say you know this is a place where there could be more younger people coming in to learn the trade um but it's a tough one I want to follow up Michael didn't we uh when we did the um at some point when we did one of the iterations of on farm slaughter didn't we put caps on the number of animals that could be done yes uh and that is purely a state that was a state policy decision um to to partly address the concerns of the agency and partly address the committee's concerns about how it would work um so uh do you put caps you can change those caps those those caps are not in any way federally based those are okay state based okay thank you uh John Bartholomew and then Terry your hands are up and then Cynthia I hope I didn't misunderstand after Mike's explanation but if you're using itinerant salt slaughter or you can't just sell that meat in the open market right that that's correct yes that's correct so I think that's part of the answer to um what uh Vicki was asking is um just because there aren't enough itinerant slaughters does not solve the problem if I have a small farm and some of my people are buying the whole animal I might be able to sell it using an itinerant slaughter but if I want to be able to sell animals and have them inspected it really comes down to inspected slaughter houses that are you know the the capacity there uh yes if you if you want to sell in commerce yes now a couple of years ago you amended the on farm slaughter law to clarify that the animal could be owned by an individual or a number of individuals so so if you're creative you could probably you and your friends could go in on buying an animal yourselves four of your friends or more and then slaughter the animal yourselves or buy an itinerant slaughter and then and then take the the meat and divide it among the owners of the animal so you're basically moving the transaction up the up the supply chain right from from a grocery store purchase to actually you're getting your meat at the farm and slaughtering at the farm for a number of different individuals it's it's not sale that's still personal slaughter but that there there's some flexibility there to understand what I'm saying like if you are proactive and you really wanted to to get your meat at a very local source you could use the on farm slaughter law you and your friends or neighbors could do that to to get your meat very locally instead of having to buy it at the store but but I'm thinking more of the farmer who's trying to sell and and we had this issue on our farm where yes we would have a certain number of people who might want to buy a whole animal and it would work fine but if you got 40 lambs to sell and you managed to sell 10 that way you've got 30 animals you need to be able to sell in the open market you can't use an itinerant slaughterer in that case you've got to use an inspected facility and I think that's where we're running into the problem is people who want to be able to sell their meat by whoever comes or at their farm stand or whatnot they've got to have they've got to have an inspected facility yes yes all right terry's hand was up but it's now down uh terry was there something that you wanted to ask or was your question answered uh I was just going to say we we can talk about the raising the numbers and such but I remember two years ago we took a lot of testimony when we originally talked about all this and it's not something we can do in this short little period of time to even come up with a solution but I think one of the the real problems is we don't have enough slaughterhouses in vermont and there's lots of reasons for it but one of the reasons is if you've ever been to a slaughterhouse it is not a pleasant job and it's just not something that somebody is going to say well you know they got out of high school I'm going to own a slaughterhouse because it's very it's a nasty job and it's not something that any anybody would really want to do I don't think yeah thanks terry um Cynthia is all right it's your turn and then Rodney has his hand up as well go ahead Cynthia thank you and always bearing in mind that um although I'm familiar with this issue over the years I'm new to the discussion but just looking at things from the perspective of an economist the situation of people having a product that customers want but they can't get processed is just an economic tragedy and that's what we heard the other day but what strikes me is the possibility that this is something that the producers who have this issue they need to band together into some kind of cooperative and create the slaughterhouse capacity that they need there might be a role for the state to facilitate that or to subsidize that but the problem that I'm hearing in order to solve it the producers need to get together and create the capacity so they know that they will have the capacity and that the facility could be run according to the most humane the most clean the most inspected standards and it would maintain their brand and the Vermont brand not something we're going to do right now obviously I just want to put that out there I think if the producers are waiting for the state to solve this problem the state is not going to be able to solve it I think the producers need to form a cooperative and see if they could get somewhere that way but again just looking at it from my perspective thanks thanks Cynthia I think you know when we offered our recommendations to approach one of the recommendations was that if money could be located that for working lands that money might be applied there for larger infrastructure projects such as slaughterhouses or forest products infrastructure so Rodney you're next and then John is your hand up again or did you okay great Rodney go ahead yeah so kind of add to Vicki's question about why it's such a shortage right now two or three things happen at once once it was you know it's been people that have so you'll get their animal butchered and sell it on the market and when a COVID hit a couple big slaughterhouses had to shut down because they got COVID in their plant and so that backlog uh how you could get rid of you know if you just wanted to sell your animal on the commercial market then all of a sudden that shut down you couldn't get them there so some people were you know and then all of a sudden there was a push for local meat because it was hired to find in the grocery store so then these people that had farm markets are CSAs or whatever all of a sudden they wanted to get more animals in because they had a bigger market and and then one other thing that happened in our area is a guy bought a farm brought in about 100 beef animals from Kansas and bought a slaughterhouse that's in the region so now his animals get preference um for slaughter and you know so it kind of backlogs us in this area into that so you know that's what you gotta compete with yeah but I don't think that you know I don't take reason to number for on-farm slaughter it's going to solve that problem and I think once the meat gets back in the supermarkets and stuff because it you know that I think that's going to ease up a little bit yeah I think one of the other challenges for slaughterhouses is the fact that it's extremely seasonal so you know especially in the fall there are a lot of animals that are ready to go so it creates a real it's it's not necessarily even sort of product flow so um yeah thanks Rodney uh John's hand is up if we have time we have about five minutes so after John um Michael if you want to say a word about the um the compact or whatever it's called that allows for uh state Vermont state inspected meat to be sold out of state um I think that would be interesting so John why don't you go ahead and then maybe we hear from Michael if we have enough time well I was just going to add two things just to re-emphasize what you just said and I was going to say the um seasonality is not just a minor bled but it's huge and and I think that we aren't really that as short of slaughterhouse capacity as we might think but the seasonality thing is so huge and um Cynthia's point about creating a consortium of of producers you would still have the seasonality issue and the other point I was going to make is starting up the slaughterhouse business is is extraordinarily expensive and um Terry mentioned uh finding workers well you can't just find any worker you you're under a considerable scrutiny in an inspected facility so not only do you have to find people willing to do the work they've got to be really trained and they've got to be willing to follow all the rules so you're going to get shut down it's not an easy business to just jump into it takes up not only finding labor but it's it's really expensive yeah all right thanks John um Mike do you want to just say a word or two about this new development sure so generally under the federal meat inspection act if you are going to ship your meat sell it across interstate lines it has to be inspected by USDA federal inspection there are state inspections uh state slaughter inspections but when that occurs the the state inspected meat usually has to be sold within the state and can't be sold across state lines however in august USDA and the state of Vermont the agency of agriculture finalized an agreement to allow state inspected meat from certain facilities um and processors to be shipped across state lines and so that's kind of a first in the nation um process uh it will it will allow um greater markets for the state inspected meat um it could drive more demand to those state inspected establishments because they would then be able to push the meat across state lines um you know i'm looking at a press release and center late he says something the governor says something but it it um it would be i think for Vermont the first maybe not in the nation probably on the east coast first on the east coast to allow for that to happen yeah thanks mike uh this is something that the state agriculture and rural leaders uh group was working on for years and years um i remember attending a conference up near mount washington where uh we were working hard for this so i'm really glad this is something that's occurred i think the original concept was to make it more of a northeast uh compact but um just this first step is i think a real plus so thanks for that michael so john bartholomew and rodney your hands are still up and i'm wondering if you have more questions or if you just forgot to lower your hands they're down all right i think we need to wrap this up um does anyone on the committee feel that they want to hear from um michael snyder on friday um i'm seeing shaking of heads no anybody nodding their heads no okay i always like to hear from michael snyder well i do too i just i i don't know that he has anything to add to his last report but um so the question is then sharon's chatting with me and asking if we're meeting tomorrow uh typically we would not have a committee meeting on thursday however we're on the floor with the budget um and our typically our next meeting would be friday from 8 30 to 10 30 and i'm wondering if there's anything that we need to meet for michael um do you feel that it's going to be necessary for us to officially meet to approve the language that you're uh working on um well i can send that out to you today and you can then make that decision um i don't think the changes are significant and i will highlight where the changes are made and then i guess it's up to you yeah and we did have a a thumbs up uh exercise earlier when we talked about this so uh potentially we don't need to meet on friday which means that you can all sleep in wouldn't that be nice not that any of you do um so anybody feel that we need on we need to meet on friday i'm i'm not seeing anybody yeah john oh brian have you heard anything about the tree warden bell what's that i i have not um i know that was a priority um uh and last i knew it was in natural resources so um i have not had any update on that um michael grady do you have any ideas about that no i haven't i haven't heard anything about i can i can email tucker and get an update if he would like okay that would be good um we have senate senate natural resources yes yeah so we'll we'll find out i'll i'll do a little scouting around and michael will ask tucker and um we'll we'll get a word on that was that the only really outstanding bill that's come to our committee that uh it was way back in on it was the only one that made the list of priorities for the speaker there we had the humane officer definition i think there was another one but um we had agrit agrit tourism bill that passed the house agrit tourism was down is down in senate judiciary uh last i knew i don't know that um anything has happened with that so um so the tree warden bill is the one that we worked on that made the list um the speaker's list of priority so uh but i'll i'll scout around see what's going on with that and michael will too john bartholomew your hand is up yes do you at un know whatever happened with that tax department thing with the identifying lands out of current use that whole thing with the yeah last time i touched base with and coming um i thought everybody was pretty much on board with it but they i don't know that they got it across the line i don't know michael if you know anything about that i don't know about that one either yeah i don't think that was one of your bills anyway it was such a simple thing that the tax department agreed with so it's i know i know they actually came up with the language yeah um yeah was was abbey the drafter of that um was this for solar arrays or for the the this was uh this was the cottages thing land out of current use if you yeah doug farnham was in total agreement with that they worked together we came up with perfect language um and i'm trying to think of who drafted that um just to look up in the board yeah we should have taken a picture of the board i should have before we left that's what we should have done um all right so that one is still hanging out there that was instead at finance last i knew Cynthia your hand is up i was just wondering if you have those tax provisions in a separate bill i can't remember the status of the miscellaneous tax bill which might be 954 if it's still moving that might be an opportunity i i don't know i just don't remember if it's passed already or not um but definitely you need to check on the status but if that bill is moving that might be a place to put a provision that everybody supported okay yeah that went through um ways and means um and ended up over in senate finance so so that's a good idea Cynthia thanks so much it was that h 954 you said my recollection is that miscellaneous tax was h 954 i just don't remember whether it's already gone all the way through or what um so we should check on that okay all right good enough thank you Cynthia any other thoughts right now do we need to meet on friday all right i'm not hearing anybody clamoring for a meeting on friday so why don't we say that we will not meet on friday and our next official meeting will be next wednesday all right all right i want to thank everybody um for all of your help and your input thank you michael as always couldn't do it without you and um same with steve and the agency of the ag folks that were with us today and of course linda liman our assistant so uh linda why don't you take us off live and um we wish you all a really great weekend and well it's only wednesday so see you tomorrow for the budget