 Good morning. Good to see you again committee and we have some new folks with us this morning. We're going to do this hearing in regards to our Farm to Plate program and this is the 10th year retro respective joint hearing of both committees to handle this and to hear your report and updates and all the good work that's been happening. To start with I guess we'll introduce ourselves. I'm Bobby Starr and I'm Senator from Essex and Orleans County, Chris. Good morning Chris Pearson from Chittenden. Ryan Caldwell more representing the Rutland County Senate District. Corey Parrott I represent Franklin County and Albert. And Anthony Senator Polina is at a doctor's appointment but hopefully will be with us. Carolyn would you like to introduce your committee please? Sure. We'll go to the table. We'll start with Tom. I'm Representative Tom Bach. I represent the Towns of Chester and over Baltimore and part of North Springfield. Representative Terry Norris, I represent Benson Orwell-Schoram and Whitey. Representative Heather Sipna, Representative Towns of Barnard, Pomford, Gweezy and West Hartford. Representative Rodney Graham, I represent Williamstown, Chelsea, Berge, here, Grant, Watson, and Orange. I'm Representative Hardridge, I represent the Towns of Athens, Brooklyn and Grafton, part of Northwest Minster, all of Rockingham and my hometown of Windham. I'm Representative Henry Pearl, I represent Cabot, Danville, and Peacham. And we also have Vicki Strong, who is not in the room at the moment. I'm not going to attempt to name all of her Towns, but she comes from down to Albany. So thank you very much. Yeah, did you have anything you wanted to say? Bobby, I forgot John because he's not in the room. John, you go ahead. Well, we'll get started. So, you know, the last meeting ran over because we didn't get going maybe as quickly as we could with our witnesses. And so I have a list of names. And I think we'll start right off with Jake, who's the director of the Sustainable Jobs Fund or of the program. Yeah, I'll give the directorship over to Ellen, who is the ED of VSJF. Yeah, I'm the program director. Yeah, the program director. Okay, did you want to lead off or you want to have Ellen lead off? Yeah, I'm lead off and then we'll have Ellen towards the end here. But yeah, thanks for that distinction, Bobby. I now was the director of the Jobs Fund for about five seconds. So that's great. Well, Linda's the one that moved you up. Well, it's always a pleasure. Thank you, Senator Starr and Representative Partridge. It's really a great privilege to always be able to present to both committees. And certainly, I think this might be the third time we're doing this virtually. I can say it's always better to do it in person, but it's nonetheless a privilege to be here. So we're very thankful for the opportunity. And so what I'm going to do is share a slide deck and kind of run through a lot of things. So let me just get that set up and then we'll be off and running. Okay. Did you want to introduce any of your guests, Jake? Yeah, so following me, we'll have Abby Willard from the Agency of Agriculture Food Markets. And then after Abby, Abby Kors from the Kors family dairy and the co-chair of the Ag and Ecosystem Subcommittee of the Climate Council will be presenting. She's on vacation in Florida, so I'm going to essentially text her when I need her to join. And we're very thankful that Abby Kors is taking that time out of her vacation to still present here today. And yeah, a well-deserved vacation for Abby Kors. And then Ellen will have a couple of closing remarks to close up, and we'll try to fit in questions throughout, questions and answers throughout that. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, so let me now get my slides going here. One second. This is always a tricky part of, I've got to share first and then I'll, this might seem odd to start, but here we go. All right, so can everyone see the slide? All right, awesome. So yeah, we are here today to present to you our retrospective of the first 10 years of Farm to Plate. And you may be wondering, why are we looking into the past? Why are we talking about the first strategic plan and the years that followed when only a year ago, around this time actually we released the state's most recent 10-year strategic plan that covers now the years of 2021 to 2030. So you might be thinking the past is the past, the future is now, but it is really important that we have a lot that we've learned over the first 10 years of Farm to Plate and a lot to share about that. That's really important to what we do to develop the food system in the next 10 years. So it's really important that we take this time to reflect and understand what occurred in the last 10 years. We want to take stock of what worked, what didn't, how we were effective and how we weren't in implementing the first plan and in doing so, we can build off and accelerate progress that we've made and avoid repeating maybe some similar or the same mistakes that we made in the first 10 years. And then the second thing that I think is really essential to today's presentation and this retrospective that we've done is that the trends over time that we've analyzed and featured really put into focus why the new strategic plan recommends what it does. So we now know more than we ever did about the food system as a whole food and agriculture and what you'll see in the retrospective we think really validates what the 2021-2030 Ag and Food System plan lays out for strengthening our food system in the next decade. And just to note that this document is in the final stages of fine-tuning our designers on vacation and so we will have the official release and availability of the actual report next week. So we do apologize for that, but I will be really covering the essentials of it today. So before diving into the results and analysis of the trends, I think it's really it's important to reiterate the history, process, and theory of change behind the farm-to-plate investment program and this the retrospective really takes the time to do this as well. So the approach taking the last 10 years, it matters and and this approach so taking a systems perspective, working as a network in a collaborative and mutually beneficial ways is really it's essential then and it's essential now. And so if we go back to 2009 there was a confluence of threats and opportunity opportunities facing food and agriculture in Vermont that in some ways may feel familiar to us today and in other ways it was different. So mainly we had a milk price crisis in 2009 juxtaposed with a lot of emergent excitement for local ag and local food development. In response to this we had representatives from the Vermont businesses for social responsibility in rural Vermont who collaborated with members of House Ag and Commerce Committees and Senate Ag and Economic Development Committees during the 2009 legislative session to craft the farm-to-plate investment program legislation. And this legislation was passed with strong tripartisan support and of course signed into law by Governor Jim Douglas in in May of 2009. And so this legislation cast us the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund in consultation with with what is what with what no longer exists the Vermont Sustainable Ag Council with developing a strategic plan for ag and food system development. And it was focused on the three intended outcomes that you see listed there on the left. So the investment program was really about you know the first two items being about focused on economic development in the in the farm food sector and creating jobs in in that sector and economy. And then the third was based around improving access to healthy local foods. And really what followed from that was the first is kind in agriculture plan that took on a full systems approach and examine all aspects of the supply chain and support system and that's represented in that diagram on the right. And in doing so what this did was demonstrate the true scale impact in importance of agriculture and food to Vermont's economy. And this in turn helps shift the narrative about the prospects of ag in Vermont and create a broad acceptance that you know agricultural development is also economic development. And this is a message I think we need to keep emphasizing as we move into this next decade. And we'll see from the results that this is absolutely true. Investments in agriculture and food have significant impacts on Vermont's economy and and and and Vermont's well being for that matter as well. So we then take the plan and the farm to plant network was created around that in 2011 and the network was shaped by by the framework of the plan. So it built itself around this soil to soil supply chain framework and just just kind of to note that diagram on the right is kind of the network diagram that we've used for a number of years that inner ring of sort of the blue circles were what we call working groups and those groups represented high leverage areas in the system that corresponded to the plan soil to soil framework and then outer rings or cross cutting teams and as their name suggests they corresponded to the cross cutting issues in the plan. And the important thing about this really to take away is that all of this was done with the idea that if we coordinate action around the leverage points and cross cutting issues we can drive systemic change and reach the plans 25 goals and make you know in turn strengthen our food system make Vermont better off. So that's the the the underlying approach and and reason that the network exists it's there to implement the plan. And so the network in turn directly implemented strategies from the plan it did stuff. It created new resources conducted workshops and trainings delivered technical and business assistance access greater funding for farms food business businesses and support organizations and the images there on the right is just kind of a sampling of some of the activities reports and various things that were produced over the 10 years. We have a full kind of sampling of all the activities that occurred over the 10 years in the in the retrospective document. So then the network did a lot of things directly and then also the network influenced actions of others through convening information sharing networking and relationship building. So in turn the plan was implemented also by others outside of network activities through enhanced coordination utilization of resources and strategic action by partners. And what's really incredible is that over 600 organizations have participated in network projects activities gatherings and more since 2011. So this is really you know this is involved a lot of people organizations businesses institutions agency staff you know over these 10 years and and that's something that we really value that those contributions and the time that people have taken to be a part of this network. And and I think it's just that's that's really an incredible feat in and of itself to have over 600 of these organizations be a part of this. And so just a quick kind of assessment of how how did how did the network do and how did VSGF how did VSGF do in administering the program and facilitating the network. Here are some results survey results that span the range of span results from 2014 to 2020. And as you can see you know the network was was highly valued for its ability to share information create relationships help organizations achieve their goals. And also that that VSGF itself was also effective in in its job of coordinating the network. And then I think the quote there from Richard Burkfield EDF food connects really encapsulates the sentiment of many people who participated. And so there you can see that Richard said you know farm to place provided an accessible venue. Let me move that an accessible venue for groups like food connects to engage in valuable cross sector relationships that have resulted in significant changes in how we work to accomplish our mission. Farm to plate has helped us build our own organizational capacity by asking better questions developing stronger relationships and delivering more relevant programming for a larger impact farm to plate makes us smarter. So that's how that's just a quick assessment of the network and and VSGF's role in this but let's now get to I think probably what you all are most interested in and that's more of the a deep dive into the results. You know what what has been accomplished over the first 10 years. And I mean we're going to get the retrospective breaks us down into two parts and I'm going to go over this in two parts. So so part one addresses how many of the 54 high priority strategies from the strategic plan were worked on and accomplished. And then part two which I'll get to evaluate data across food system categories to determine how things change for the better or worse over the first 10 years of the program's existence. So in other words, part one covers how well we did in implementing priority strategies from the plan and part two covers whether or not Vermonters are actually better off for it. So here looking at how well did we do in implementing strategies from the plan. So nearly 80% of high priority strategies were either fully completed or strategy still underway or partially completed at this time. So there were there were strategies that were very discreet and therefore kind of easy to say that you know they were fully completed either by the farm to plate network. So there's kind of two distinctions here. The strategies that are that were either completely completed or partially completed by the farm to plate network or by other entities. And so there are also strategies that were very complex or multifaceted and therefore in our assessment we we can't say that yes they have been completed in their entirety but there are really essential elements of those strategies that have in fact been accomplished. And so so looking at it near again nearly 80% of of high priority strategies 43 of the 54 fall into that distinction of either fully completed or partially completed. And and the partially completed strategies many of those have have now you know made their way into the new strategic plan and taken you know evolved and taken on new form. So that leaves 20% of high priority strategies that we were either not completed and that's because initial planning or research revealed the project to actually be infeasible or the strategy maybe to be irrelevant due to changing conditions. So just being open to the fact that strategies that may have been developed in 2000 over the course of you know from 2009 to the plans released in 2011 things change and those priority strategies may not have been actually as high priority as we had thought. And I think that's one of just the values to the network is that it's able to adapt to changing circumstances. And then there were so about 9% of the strategies fall into that bucket. And then there were some actions 11% or six of the 54 where no action was taken. But the strategy could still be valuable to implement. And this just came down to whether it was prioritization or inability to sort of coalesce organizations around implementing a certain strategy. So there were some that just simply were not acted on but only six of the 54 fell into that category. So I think to say that 43 of 54 high priority strategies have been either fully implemented or partially completed in some way. I think is a really good sign and impressive and shows the level of coordination and focus that has occurred over the last 10 years. And also the importance of just having this plan in place to guide that. So now let's go to the second part of the results is Vermont better off. And first just taking a quick snapshot at a macro level. If we were to look at the you know the three legislative outcomes around economic development and access to food, healthy food. Here are some key bullet points. So over the 10 years Vermont's food system economic output has expanded by 57.7%. So from 7.6 billion to 11.9 nearly 12 billion dollars of economic output coming from farms, food manufacturers, wholesaling and trade. So some really significant growth in economic output in the food system. And then I'll get into this a little later but so pre COVID food system employment. Just because you know COVID has definitely thrown some complications here as to how we assess things. So pre COVID food system employment 2011 to 2019 increased 11% 6189 net new jobs and that and and over that time then we also got to a point where more than 65,000 Vermonters are directly employed by over 11,500 farms and food related businesses. So again, just you know a tremendous amount of people are involved in food and agriculture in Vermont. It's it's a substantial industry of scale that impacts a lot of Vermonters directly and indirectly. And then I'll go into this further a little later to local food purchases. So the purchase of local products within Vermont rose from 114 million to 412 million from 2010 to 2020. And that's going from 5% to 17.8% of the total amount spent on food in the state annually. And remember our initial goal was actually to go from 5 to 10%. So we have far surpassed what we thought was possible in the first decade. And now we have set the the goal of getting that 17.8% to 25% by 2030. And then a note about household food insecurity. So in terms of access to local food and and just overall improvement of acts, you know of addressing hunger and food insecurity in the state. So food insecurity declined from 2010 to 2020. So now 8.6% of Vermont households face food insecurity down from 13.8% 2010. However, and again, I will go into this a little more later on. There is research that has been conducted by the National Food Access and Code Research team within Vermont that reveals substantially higher food insecurity rates over 2020 and 2021 due to the due to the pandemic that range from 27% to 29%. And yeah, there's some there's some nuance here. But I think what this shows is that a lot of efforts to address food insecurity in Vermont have been highly effective, you know, in our times of stability. And that clearly we still though have more work to do and how we prepare for disasters or pandemics or situations in which you know conditions change rapidly and food insecurity as has been revealed by that research increases rapidly. Okay, so let's start with land. If we look at land in agriculture over the course of 2007 to 2017, oftentimes this range 2007 to 2017 is used because that's the ag census. We're going off of ag census releases and the next one will not be until 2022. So yeah, it'll cover this year, but it actually won't come out until next year. So we saw a modest decrease in farmland in Vermont 3.2%. That's that's about 40,000 acres. And the primary driver of this has been loss of land and dairy. So dairy land decreased by nearly 20% or 105,000 acres over this period of time. And then if we look at things by acreage type, woodland acres on farms was the only category to increase. So this is the graphic to the right, while cropland pasture land and farmstead acres all decreased to varying degrees cropland marginally. Pasture land is the category that showed the largest decline. So pasture land dropped by about almost 67,000 acres. And we attribute some of this loss to be, you know, so use of cropland for grazing fell nearly 25,000 acres from from this over this period of time, which accounts for 37% of that drop. And we think that this represents both the loss of dairy farms and also some of the changes in, you know, feed practices of the existing dairy farms. So you know, less utilization of grazing in the dairy industry. And this is so I would say this is actually something really important to watch for in the in the next decade now with new emphasis through the through the Dairy Business Innovation Center, you know, putting an emphasis on technical assistance for grazing. I think also the opportunities for grass based products that we see, you know, strong market demand for. So there could there could be a potential, I think, for that trend to actually change over the next decade. And I think that's, yeah, that that will be something I think we should pay a lot of attention to, to see if grazing gets reintroduced in the dairy sort of in the dairy industry and also just if grazing practices increased over time as market demand signals, you know, a desire for those types of practices on farms, both both dairy and livestock in general. So, you know, really, I think land land, you know, some of this 3.2% decreases. This could also just be a statistical anomaly over the course of the census. So I think there's a lot of stability here that we can read into this trend, which is a good sign, you know, our conservation programs are working. We have not seen drastic declines in farmland due to development. So there's a lot of, you know, I think indications here that policies and practices in the state have helped keep keep farmland in farmland and we need to reinforce those policies. And there's also new ways in which I think we can address issues of access and land conservation. So Jake, do we ask questions just at the end there? Yeah, if you want to, because I'll, it depends on how I guess how burning the question is. Well, your last slide where it shows, like, you know, cropline and knot pastures down a little, but the next one where it says woodland knot pasture, that looks up. Yes, that is, yep. And, you know, there's some people that tell us, well, we're losing a lot of farmland to other usages. And, you know, those slides there don't quite show that. Yeah, a lot, yeah. Yeah, it's overall, I would say the trend has been pretty stable. And that there are, there have been changes of land practices, sort of on farmland parcels. And so that's like where, you know, so some farmland has just reverted back to woodland. But it's still primarily, you know, it's still designated as agricultural land. And so there's just changes happening, yeah, within the agricultural landscape. And I think that's, yeah, I think you're absolutely right that sort of, that's more of, I think, the way to read some of these changes. Although, you know, I definitely think development pressure is real. And I think we'll only become more of an issue as we're seeing potential, you know, the pandemic migration, and then we're going to see climate migration as well. So there's going to be new pressures that could still decrease that total amount. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And then so just also, I think another kind of a positive trend to pay attention to is that sort of land and agriculture for other types of productions or the non-dairy categories have been increasing. So vegetable acreage has increased by 17%. Oil seeding grain acreage has increased 49%. Beef farm acreage has increased 9%. Hog and pig farm acreage has expanded 25%. And sheep and goat farm acreage has increased 8%. So we've seen steady increases over time in all of those categories. I think the thing sort of to be mindful of though, is still the scale of change, you know, doesn't quite doesn't quite match the scale of change happening in dairy. So this is where, how do we accelerate, you know, the growth of these various types of production so that, you know, any kind of decrease in dairy land or stabilization in dairy land can be offset by higher rates of growth in these other categories. And yeah, so that's that's all there is to say there. Now let's so kind of shifting now to kind of getting into looking at any more detail specific industry level trends. I mean, I think this is one probably you all are very familiar with. Most, you know, Vermonters, obviously this is a point of discussion a lot these days is just, you know, the relative stagnation of dairy sales over time. And I think another piece of this too is is to see that, you know, average milk prices in the last decade have in all but two two instances have cost of production have outpaced the average milk price. So a lot of stress here in the industry, but I think it's still important to look at this graph and say, you know, dairy sales are still $505 million. This is still a a significant industry and significantly larger than any any other agricultural industry in Vermont. That's so 505 million is nothing to sort of scoff at. And also that there's bright spots here. So 133% increase in the number of dairy processing plants from 2010 to 2020. So, you know, more than double the number of plants and those plants have have increased both on farm processing plants and also commercial off farm dairy processing as well. So I think, you know, there's definitely shifts happening in the industry, there's transitions, there's evolution and value added production is certainly a place of opportunity. And it's one that Vermont is, you know, has has a long history with and is well positioned to take advantage of. But there's, you know, there's clearly, whether it's new, new investments or, you know, modernizing older facilities. So there's, there's things that we can do to really help stimulate this value added growth and increase kind of the values, the attributes of the milk that's being produced here in Vermont. And just taking a quick look at kind of three significant, you know, three other significant industries. So clear positive trends across other industries of importance to the ag economy in Vermont. Maple sales increased by 21 million in the last decade, vegetable sales increased by 10.6. And then meat sales, excluding dairy beef, which I just, we wanted to do that just in order to understand the scale of farms, whose business is primarily dedicated to beef is not tied to dairy. So meat sales, non-dairy meat sales, if that makes sense, increased by 10.9 million from 2007 to 2017. So we've got, you know, we've got some industries here that are that are clearly experiencing growth positive trends. And again, I think the key message here is how do we, how do we scale these industries further? They need significant levels of capital, you know, infrastructure investment, technical assistance and product development and marketing to really see, you know, large kind of scale growth beyond the growth that we've seen in the first 10 years. So these are, these are real strong points, I think, in our ag economy right now. And the question is, is, you know, how do we continue these curves? And it's, yeah, I just, I think that the marketplace now to where they've reached is very competitive and is going to require intentional investment and just kind of, you know, upping the game of producers, processors and the infrastructure that's available to them. So those are, you know, three real positives. And then on the processing side, we've seen corresponding growth in meat processing, 17% increase, that's about a net of 10 new facilities from 2010 2020. And we also know we're, we're sort of back in a phase of though that we need to see more growth here. It's, you know, processing is a bottleneck again, because supply has kind of caught up to the processing capacity. And we need to relieve some of the stress now that's that exists in these facilities. Some of that can come through investment in the facilities we have. So that's equipment, infrastructure, you know, modernizing facilities so that they can take on more, more animals, more throughput, storage is a frozen storage is a big issue amongst our existing facilities, and also investment in potentially new facilities that just increase, you know, increase the access to slaughter processing for our producers. And yeah, thinking about access just also across the state. So that's, you know, another positive trend. And then additionally, with manufacturing, you know, beverage manufacturing has seen significant growth over the last 10 years, and it's not just beer. So 139% increase from 2007 to 2017 and beverage manufacturing. So other beverage production outside of beer, which includes wine spirits, hard cider, non alcoholic beverages grew by $93 million over this period. So this is, this is an industry that has a really strong presence in Vermont. And one in which, you know, there's there's a lot more connections that we can make between the beverages that are being made, and the inputs that are produced here in Vermont. So certainly a lot of companies, you know, in based in Vermont making beverages or using products made here, but there's given the size and scale of this industry and the sales that they're doing, there's there's a lot more opportunity to make connections between, you know, our beverage manufacturers and our working landscape. So now, so we're going from production to markets. So I touched upon this in the opening. Here is sales of local food, or purchases of local food is kind of another way to look at this graphic. So this is, you know, of the food purchases being made in Vermont, how much how much of those how many of those dollars are being used to buy Vermont products. And so this number has gone from 5% of total in state food purchases in 2010, we're local to now 17.8% in 2020. And that's a $298 million increase. So some some really incredible growth here in in that, you know, clearly Vermont products are available across market channels and more and more Vermonters are demanding and buying local food since 2010. And this is the result of, you know, so so many different entities and organizations, both from a kind of a communication education standpoint, but also market development standpoint, ensuring that, you know, we're getting Vermont products into various market channels for Vermonters to purchase. So great success here. And I'll just dive into, you know, by market channel, we see growth across across market channels. So direct to consumer sales, 179% increase. And this is this is also just to note that this is farm and food processor direct sales. So this is not just only what the census reports, but some figures that we've collected from food manufacturers as well. So direct markets clearly a really important base for our producers still and an important way in which they reach consumers. Institutions, 193% increase from 2010 to 2020. And, you know, we've seen across the boards, hospitals, higher ed, K through 12 schools have all increased their purchasing. So this is indicative of, you know, the success and the results of all the hard work that those in farm to school, farm to institution, farm to hospital, healthcare without harm, you know, all these entities, working to increase purchasing of local in our institutions. And clearly, there's success there. The 2020 figure is very clearly affected by COVID in in that higher ed did see a decline in purchases from 2017 to 2020. That's because their overall food purchasing decreased over this time, as we know, you know, when institutions closed, that, you know, our producers look to other markets to sell their food to. And so, you know, things did not ramp up to normal levels. And they still aren't quite at normal levels. And so the higher ed purchasing amount declined to decline from 2017 to 2020. But I think we expect to see a rebound here as things continue to normalize and schools and institutions continue to navigate just the pandemic. So but I think the takeaway here is though that, you know, that the the work that that many have done to increase purchasing in institutions has been a success. And then local food retail sales 32%, but that's $31 million increase for 20 from 2014 to 2020. And we started doing independent grocers work around direct technical assistance around 2016. We started doing research around this in 2014. So really great to see that as we've focused on the retail market channel, we have we have seen results we have seen growth in local purchasing by food retailers. And so this includes co ops, supermarkets and independent grocers. And now to put to put this into perspective, right, if we compare the 2020 purchasing by these different market channels, you know, retail grocery stores are buying by a large number, still the largest purchaser of local food. And we have yet to, you know, we've we've dedicated attention to this market channel, but not to the extent that we may have dedicated to other market channels. And so there's still a lot of opportunity to impact the the retail grocery marketplace. And I and you'll see restaurants is in here too, we didn't have a trend line for restaurants just because of the the inconsistency and sort of how data has been collected over time. But now we have a good, I think we have a good method of doing it. So we'll we should be able to report on trends there in the coming years. So, you know, thinking about retail grocery, that is a market channel. This again is where, you know, infrastructure investment, investment distribution and logistics, and just and and and then also marketing becomes a really big factor in in having access to the retail grocery marketplace and and growing sales here, not only in state, but also out of state, you know, the the retail grocery marketplace is huge in Vermont. And it's it's really big in, you know, the metro, the metro areas that surround us. So this is an area where, you know, the strategic plan has recommendations of focus on retail. And I think we can there's a lot of progress to be made. Okay, I'm going to we're we're almost we're almost there. I appreciate kind of hanging in through all these slides and a lot of data. But, you know, this, yeah, we're almost we're almost to the finish line. So if we look at education workforce, this speaks to, you know, the graphic on the left, the blue pins indicate schools that received state farm to school funding. So nearly approximately half of the schools in Vermont have received support to date. And that spans really, you know, the full geography of Vermont. And there's still, you know, many more that can can be impacted by farm to school investments. But I think that's really, again, an incredible achievement that we've already reached half the schools in Vermont through those through that funding. And additionally, 2018 survey results. So 65% of schools connect with local farmers or farms and 61% have already integrated farm school into the curriculum. And this is, you know, where we're developing, you know, kind of enlighten consumers and food citizens and really integral to what the next generation, you know, how the next generation interacts with with the working landscape and what they think about local food and local food production. So really essential from an educational standpoint, but also from a consumer standpoint, and then also from a workforce standpoint, you know, we need people to have a connection to the land in order to want to work on it. And then also, I think it's important to highlight that CareerTech Ed has also increased offerings that relate to food and agriculture. So forestry and natural resource programs increased as did ag programs and as did culinary arts. So our CareerTech Ed centers are responding to this demand and preparing students to enter the workforce in these fields. And yeah, there's more to be done in there that actually I'll get to at the end here. A little more employment. So and I'll talk about kind of the COVID piece here. So as I mentioned, the job growth, pre COVID, 6,189 net new jobs. And the big driver of growth over this period was food manufacturing, which increased 32.5%. For 1,600, it's almost 1700 net new jobs in food manufacturing. And now food manufacturing comprises approximately almost 11% of all food system related employment. So that's, you know, a very strong industry, not only in the food system, but also in Vermont in general. And it's a big part of Vermont manufacturing now. So unsurprisingly, due to COVID, you know, food system employment did decline by an estimated 6,500 jobs. And but 95% of those losses occurred in food service and retail. So that's the yellow, the yellow band. Basically the drop 95% of the drop that you see in total in that graphic is due to that yellow band food and retail. And we would expect that while, you know, food and retail employment might not fully return to pre COVID levels that it's going to, you know, it's going to rebound. And so a lot of those jobs are going to come back. And actually, what we saw in some of these other industries, some of these other sectors of the food economy is that there actually was some job growth over the period of COVID. So I think, you know, a lot of, a lot of the employment in the sector has actually had remained resilient over the pandemic. And yeah, and retail was obviously, you know, our restaurants and grocery stores as well were obviously hit very hard by the pandemic and continue to, you know, continue to struggle. And so in turn, a lot of the employment losses, that's where they occurred. So I would use the 65,000, that's I think the benchmark that we're looking for the numbers to return to, either in the next, in the 2021 data or the 2022 data. And then, you know, I think the question is, can we grow beyond the 65,000 in the next decade? Quick note about wages. So hourly wages, this is probably hard for you to read. So I apologize for that. But just know that wages across different food system occupations, they are above, many of them are above the state hourly level wage for a single person. However, if you adjust the 2009 wages for some of these occupations to $2019, they are higher than current wages. So that reflects that wages have not kept up with inflation. And this is, you know, following, not only just, you know, in Vermont, but that's a trend of decades of depressed wage growth across the United States. So still work to be done here in terms of wage growth and wages in the food system. But I think, you know, there's some good signs here to build off of. And then lastly, so we get to food access. So I mentioned this. So from 2010 to 2020, the food insecurity rate of households in Vermont did decline from 13.8% to 8.6%. However, there are questions about how food security has been measured by USDA during the pandemic. And USDA is actually looking to refine its approach for sort of pandemics and crises to adjust to adjust their figures. And focus research by what I mentioned earlier, the national food access COVID research team has revealed that 29% of Vermont households were food insecure at some point between March and September of 2020. And then the most recent sample in the spring of 2021 found that 27% of households in Vermont were food insecure. So I mentioned this, but this again, this really speaks to the need for, I think, better planning and coordination of how we address food insecurity, not only in the time of a pandemic or a crisis or a climate event, but how do we prepare communities in advance and put the systems in place at the state level, at the municipal level, at the community level, at the household level. To respond to these events and not be food insecure, because clearly having more than a quarter of households food insecure right now is a startling figure to think about. All right, and in closing. So next steps. So what do we do with this? What do we look to in the new plan? And what will Farm to Plate be focused on in the next decade? So if we talk about dairy, you can look at priority strategies 5, 7, 8 and 11 from the new plan, which offer ways to stabilize and revitalize the industry. And that's in really in a way that is inclusive of growing segments in cheese and value added products, increasing capital investment in processing storage, co-packing, marketing and product differentiation and supply chain development, and then also with that technical assistance. So that I think those are areas that are going to be really key to turning some of the curve in dairy in the next decade and also building off of strengths that that you know exist and have been here and in the dairy industry for decades. And then in terms of other ag industry development, the plan has a lot to say about how to diversify our production and support robust industry and supply chain development. So those, you know, there's 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 29, 30 all speak to that in the strategic plan, in the new strategic plan. So if you're, if you're curious about whether it's a specific industry or just, you know, kind of large scale investment opportunities that would benefit many industries, those are the priority strategies to draw your attention to. And then food access and security. So I alluded to this, but so priority strategies 21, 22 and 24. So there's kind of a three pronged approach here where the plan recommends appropriating funds for a new program and then also increasing the funding for proven ways to alleviate food insecurity. So there's a lot of programs in place that are doing amazing work that could do even more amazing things with with increased investment. And then the thing I was alluding to is also the development of a state food security plan, which is happening. My colleague Becca Warren is is project managing this. And, and yet we still need more more funding to make this happen. And this plan would ensure that households, communities, markets and the state as a whole, you know, is prepared to effectively and efficiently respond to global or national food supply chain disruptions, due to whether it's pandemic climate, or something else. And then just speaking to some other areas, you know, so the environment is and resiliency, you know, climate resiliency is going to be a huge part of not only the next decade, but, you know, many decades to come in Vermont. So we have priority strategies there to enhance climate resilience and the environmental performance of agriculture and food education and workforce. There's there's priority strategies 18, 19, 31 and 32, which are focused around career and tech ed centers, supporting and expanding existing farm and food education programming, looking at how do we increase or provide livable wages for and improve workforce workplace conditions through policy shared workforce programs and market incentives, and technical assistance, and then also sort of more at the federal level is looking at reforms for immigration and labor laws. And then, you know, racial equity here is an essential addition to the new plan that was not explicitly addressed in the first plan. And so all of our shared goals, economic development, that span economic development, environmental sustainability, and food access and security cannot be achieved without creating a food system that is that isn't just equitable, inclusive, and diverse. And, and so, you know, we, we need to deliberately focus on equity, racial equity in what we're doing in the food system. And so priority strategies, you know, 239 1332 3334 of the plan directly speak to this addressing systemic racism, racial equity in the food system. And that spans financing, funding, land access, trainings, immigration reform, and support and allyship to BIPOC representation, leadership, and organizations. And so I, I, this is, yeah, I really would encourage all of you to, to spend the time to look at those priority strategies in depth and the racial equity brief as well. And there's there's legislation also, you know, moving that that speaks to these strategies as well. So, you know, our collaborative efforts through farm to plate are needed now more than ever. So we have 10 years of impressive changes in our food system to build upon. And we also, you know, we have a clear vision, we have goals and priorities and strategies to guide us over the next 10 years as detailed in the new Vermont ag and food systems strategic plan. So now, now is the time to take stock in all we have accomplished to date and forge ahead and double down on investing in our food system to create a more equitable and thriving future for not only agriculture, but all of Vermont. And we can do that through food system investment. So thank you for, for the support that you all have provided to this point and for your time today. And we'll now questions and thanks before we go to Abby Willard. Yeah, well, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Jake. There's a very good presentation and well delivered. Do we have questions from any of the members and I can't really see you. Can we get the folks back on the screen? Carolyn, did you have any questions from your crew? Does anyone have a question in my committee? I can't see John. There's John. John has a question. John, go ahead. Okay. Jake, I, watching your PowerPoint, I was, I guess, first I should say I love Farm to Play support. I think you should, you know, probably get more money than you do. At the same time to be just a devil's advocate because PowerPoints sometimes drive me crazy. You know, have, have, has Farm to Play and Vermont's Sustainable Jobs Fund and the, and the Agency of Ag ever, ever looked at the data and said, well, you know, here, here's where we are, but we never really had an experimental group, which is Vermont with Farm to Play and, and, and the control group of Vermont without it. So, you know, it makes me think of things like would, would Lawson's have, have become a success without Farm to Play or Bar Hill or whatever. And, and, you know, what, what food systems clearly, you know, thrive because of, of your help or, you know, whether technical or financial or, or networking, whatever. And so that, that I would suspect there, there's some things that are really concrete, you can say, like we've made a huge difference. Others are, you know, I'm thinking of things like not, not in food systems, but if it was a good year for the ski industry, was it because ACCD did something or was it because we just had really good snow? So, so have you reflected on that, you know, as a team and said, can we separate some of this stuff out because it's a, it's a success story, but you wonder what other elements were involved in that, maybe just the economy grows in that, in that way. Some of it anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I see also Ellen leaning forward, but I'll take a quick crack. I mean, to answer, yeah, very directly, we think about that every day. And I think, you know, the thing for us is to remind ourselves and also to remind others is, yeah, we are not, we are not the sole entity that's driving this change. And, and so it's, it's, you know, the point of the program is not to take credit for, but oftentimes it's, it's here to actually elevate the success and make sure that we don't lose sight of, you know, what made those things possible, and, and kind of, you know, have a backslide of sorts. So, so there's, yeah, a little bit of, there's, there's things that clearly are, you know, external factors and conditions of the economy, structural things that we do not have control over that influence, you know, influence this change. Absolutely. And then they're, yeah, there are the things where we have made intentional actions and choices and help coordinate activity that, you know, either have amplified the change or have protected, you know, protected Vermont in ways against those external forces that are detrimental, that are detrimental elsewhere and to other food systems and businesses. So it's, yeah, it's, it's complex. It's, we are, we are in interaction with a complex system and we are just one, you know, one part of that. And so, you know, as much as sort of the, the part of me that would love to see that experimental control, I also, you know, I know that those that have been a part of the network and, and have, you know, benefited from it and seen the results would say, you know, I, I can't think of why we would want to do that or why we want to see a, you know, Vermont without farm to plate, you know, and, and so it's, yeah, I think part of this is just having the understanding that things at the population level, you know, no, no, one of us has absolute control or influence over it. But we can, you know, what we've shown in the retrospective, and I think through the program is that we are, we are effective in what we do do. And, and we are one contributing factor, you know, to the successes that we've, we've seen and that have been shown in the presentation today. Yep. Thank you, Jake. Are there other questions on Jake's report? Jake, I have one or a couple your report kind of in John, John and I were on a committee all summer. And it kind of tracks a little bit about what we found out in the dairy industry, where we used to transport about 85% of our milk exported out of Vermont. And now 65 or 8% of it stays home and is in manufacturing here, creating jobs here, cutting down on the transportation cost to go out of state. So, I mean, your, your presentation and that presentation kind of supports each other and what has happened. But the question I have is, if did you use your red meat group? You said, and it didn't include non-dairy. So if you included dairy animals into that meat sales business, wouldn't that even be a lot higher? Yeah, it would. Yeah. So I should have said that the dairy beef sales is about $45 million. So the dairy industry is also the predominant, has greater sales, beef sales than other beef farms. And that is actually something we are currently working to with a project that's funded through working lands is actually to increase sort of the coordination between dairy beef and non-dairy beef industries and improve animal genetics. Because, yeah, that is both a supplemental income for dairy farms, but also a potential diversification strategy that we see a lot of opportunity for them because they already are participants in that market and are already producing significant beef sales through coal animals and also in some cases just smaller enterprises. So yeah, it's a huge part of beef sales in total. Yeah, that would take it from up to $18 million up to about $60 million if you added the dairy beef there, which is $60 million in sales of big business. Yeah. Any other questions from anyone? If not, we'll move right on to Abby Willard. Morning, Abby. Welcome. Good morning. Hi, everybody. Abby Willard, Agency of Agriculture. Jake, thanks so much for that kind of 10-year travel through time. Jake and Ellen asked if the agency would share some of the examples of how we've been involved in the process and then how we found the 2030 Ag and Food Systems Strategic Plan useful to our work. But I just have to make just a few comments on what I saw in Jake's presentation first, if you don't mind. I'm so proud of this state to have exceeded our goals around local food procurement, growth in economic output, and even the completion of the majority of the original farm-to-plate goals. I think Jake did a nice job answering your question, Representative O'Brien. But the only thing I would add is that other states are the envy of Vermont having a farm-to-plate network and a mechanism that tracks this type of data can share these trends and can demonstrate growth in all these areas. Not every state across the country or even in the Northeast has the same accomplishments and growth. So while we may not have a ability to kind of do a direct comparison of what life would have been like in Vermont's ag economy without farm-to-plate, I think we can compare ourselves to our neighbors and feel really prideful of the growth that's happened here. And it also explains, I think, why we're also exhausted. This is an amazing amount of growth and work and accomplishments over the past 10 years. And I can speak to the original position that I started in at the Agency of Agriculture, which was a position that your bodies established, which was a local foods administrator at the Agency of Agriculture, which was designed to sort of work in part with the farm-to-plate process. At that time, when I joined the agency, I joined in 2011, the position was created the year prior. I think there were three positions, three programs of significance within the Ag Development Division, and we now have over a dozen. I think I was joining a team of maybe four, maybe three other people. We now have a staff of 18 and 19 staff within the Ag Development Division. So that associated growth in the industries and the markets and the businesses that we've seen is also, I think, organizations are trying to keep pace and continue to grow and provide the support and services and funding that we know the industries and the markets need. And I just feel that it's really powerful to see the accomplishments of this work. And when we invest time and attention to support various markets and industries, we make an impact. And when we create the space and prioritize discussions and collaboration and alignment around our goals, we change trends. And those are really powerful accomplishments of the past decade that has not all been accomplished by Farm to Plate, but very much been led by the leadership of Ellen and Jake and their team. So just really grateful for being able to share this data. It's really important. We don't have any other entity that can do or does do what Farm to Plate does about showing us this type of data that we can utilize in our messaging and help determine where to focus our work going forward. So I love the trends. I really appreciate the data as well as just the progress that's been made. So I wanted to just mostly talk about the 2030 Ag and Food Systems Strategic Plan and ways that we at the agency thought it would be valuable. And from the beginning, we always knew that it would guide the actions and the efforts of our program development, of our Ag policy suggestions and the areas that we made investment. And we were so confident in looking to this plan since it had been such a thorough and thoughtful and inclusive process that the industry members and the food system specialists and all the research experts were engaged in the process and they contributed to meaningful pieces of this plan and the end result being this comprehensive approach in how we're going to make Ag and food system community change over the next 10 years. I hope Abby and her family are having a really great time in Florida. Maybe you should have gone along. I know that I would have liked to. That is so true. So a few of the ways that we really value the plan and utilize it, the first being that just acknowledging this is a really important time for investment in the priority recommendations that are outlined in that plan. And sort of as we were discussing earlier, just the network has worked so hard over the past 10 years to build a group of people that can have conversations, articulate needs and share accomplishments. That doesn't exist in every food system and in every state where you can engage with people that you disagree with, people that you have had little opportunity for partnership and now sort of spending time together developing strategy. And having a plan for the next 10 years that's in one place where you can go to for recommendations and industry context is such a valuable resource. And most importantly to me, having the food systems efforts be aligned and focused in a series of directions that we've all kind of contributed towards and agreed make sense and where the trends sort of show prospect and with industries that feel supported and heard is a really valuable strategy for the next 10 years. I also wanted to share the plan as a really powerful planning tool and as an educational resource. So this work of sustaining our ag community and the working landscape in Vermont's food system is not new and we've worked on it for decades and the last 10 years of data really shows the progress that's been made. And it's really helpful to have a plan that includes really bite-sized market and sector and issue-based information that we can use and reference when we have questions, when we're making decisions around where to focus and what's important. It's also great to have data that speaks to the economic output and the local food purchasing values. Otherwise that data wouldn't be aggregated in one location, otherwise. So at the agency, because there was so much interest in the ag and food system strategic plan as an example, we hold monthly lunch round tables where each session, it's only 30 minutes during lunch hour, people, there's a schedule for different briefs being on the agenda. And there's one person that sort of reviews the brief or maybe was an author of that brief and leads a discussion on that topic for the lunch half hour. And it's amazing to see the different conversations that come up around what current research and data is available, what firsthand knowledge folks have having worked in a particular sector with an industry and really start to hone in on where the opportunities that exist, whether that's from the work that we know that we're engaged in or what was outlined in the brief. And it feels just such an important foundational kind of set of information for anyone who takes the time to read it. I also have had experience over the past, you know, a few months since the plan's been finalized of how it can be an informative planning effort and lead many action and advise many action plans. So the vision was that the 54 individual briefs in the plan would serve as a reference point for where to start who to call and what to focus on for targeting funding. And knowing that there were so many subject matter experts who understood the food system and were engaged in the process sort of validates those recommendations and those opportunities in each of those briefs. In the plan, if you recall, there's 34 priority strategies that were designed to offer the direction to our work and form the foundation of what we offer as approaches to achieve the economic development and racial equity in the food system that we're aiming to achieve, while also ensuring the environmental sustainability and access to healthy food for all Vermonters. So you've heard from the Agency of Agriculture over the past few months about our priorities in investing in meat slaughter and processing, as well as supply chain infrastructure. And both of those strategies and needs have been identified, both in the data that Jake shared over the past decade, but also in the future plan as where we need to make significant investments going forward. We also used some of the marketing briefs and research that was done that really focused on major metro markets as potential expansion opportunities. So reaching consumers outside of Vermont. And that was referenced in a funding opportunity through the Northern Borders Regional Commission that ended up being a successful grant application that's providing infrastructure growth opportunities for food hubs to reach those markets outside of the state. There's a priority recommendation around supporting producer associations. So an initiative that we engaged and Jake actually led years ago and sort of has reemerged as a priority and showed up as a funding priority for both the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative and for the specialty crop law grant program. So both programs have made targeted investments in producer associations based upon it being a priority recommendation in the plan and demonstrated as a way to really influence and impact businesses through the associations. And then Jake mentioned and Ellen and Becca Warren and others at Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund have taken the lead on the food security planning efforts that, you know, the experience through the pandemic has really demonstrated the opportunity and the need that exists there. And that was identified as a priority strategy in the plan. And it's really great to see that those efforts are moving forward and being conducted in collaboration with so many other food security and food and feeding organizations across the state. I also just want to note a couple just two more points here. One that when you look at the goals outlined in the Ag and Food System Strategic Plan for 2030, they really identify the focus of so many collaborative projects that we've seen throughout recent time. So one being there were many organizations that participated on a federal application through EDA called Build Back Better Regional Challenge. And those eight different Ag based projects that were outlined in that grant opportunity spoke to the economic viability and access to local food goals outlined in this plan. The project wasn't funded, but we're going to talk about it this week with Senator Leahy when he's in Vermont to see if there's alternative funding sources that we can access to support those really important Ag viability projects. Agency of Commerce Community Development has their capital investment grant program that was hugely oversubscribed from the pilot funding that the legislature appropriated. And many of those applications from the Ag sector that the agency was at least privy to spoke to addressing the accessibility of two Vermont Ag products and the use of agricultural land and workforce development. And again, all of those goals being quoted from and referenced from this plan. And then so many conversations have happened throughout the Vermont Climate Council action plan development and the payment for ecosystem services working group and many other dairy conversations as well that have really looked at farm stewardship and carbon sequestration. Again, referencing goals from this plan. The one very direct experience that I wanted to offer as sort of my parting point here was the work of the Future of Ag Commission. So everyone was aware that the governor kind of through executive order established that commission and gave a really tight timeline for that group to start meeting in April and have a plan by November. So those really wise and expert commissioners recognize that there's no need to start from the beginning of creating a plan for the viability and resiliency of agriculture. So instead they relied upon the existing expertise and the plan that was developed to help guide the establishment of their priority strategies and their action plan that was then presented to the governor last November. And it's amazing to see both the action plan priorities as well as the governor's proposed recommend for FY23 that brought legitimacy to the program and priorities outlined in this plan. So looking at a marketing campaign, the support for purchasing local food incentives at schools, investing in the payment for ecosystem services working group, investing in the working lands enterprise program, the value of apprenticeship and mentorship programs for the next generation of farmers, the value of investing in the farm and forest viability program through VHCB, the importance of climate smart strategies to be implemented on farm, and the value of a navigator position to help businesses support through permit challenges and struggles. So I just want to note that that this plan and the work of the network has really guided ongoing planning processes within other efforts across the state. And then note that the agency that really also embraced the racial equity focus of the food system and something that I admittedly will say that we haven't put enough insufficient attention towards but the essential goal to eradicate structural racism in the food system has driven the agency of agriculture to make an investment, commit the time and hire a consultant to guide us in some diversity, equity and inclusion work over the next year around how we engage as internally as an agency and then how we support our stakeholders. So I just have so much confidence in this plan and so much appreciation for the work that's gone into creating this really unified vision and process for how we can make the most impact as well as kind of continue to work in all the directions that that we've set forth for ourselves. So thanks for listening to answer any questions that you have as well. Well thank you very much Abby. I know you folks have all been working real hard and you did have accomplished things which many times doesn't happen even if you work real hard. So that's great. So for Abby for many of the committee members I don't you have any Carolyn? No I don't want to answer up. Well that's good not good that we don't have any questions. Must be you're doing good enough job so there aren't any questions and thank you Abby and we'll move on to Abby Kors who who's getting rested up like some of you others should be. Are you with us Abby? I am Senator Starr. Good morning. Can you guys hear me okay? Yeah come you aren't showing us where you live in Florida. Hold on. I wonder if she said Disney World. I'm gonna stop I'm gonna stop video because it's all foggy from my sunscreen face. Sunshine was painful to see that. I'm I'm so sorry I just want to clarify that this is the benefit of marrying a man who works the hours of a farmer but doesn't farm. He makes money. That's what I mean yes. A novel concept. Thank you so much for having me in. I think I'm here today to speak in my capacity as the co-chair of the Agriculture and Ecosystem Subcommittee for the Vermont Climate Council and as the Farm and Forest Sector Representative to similar to how the the governor's future what was it called commission on the future of agriculture you know why reinvent the wheel and this plan is such a powerful manifestation of expertise and gives such a clear directive to how we might move forward and so when we were developing the climate action plan that was the tactic that we took with regarding certain aspects of of how we brought in thinking about particularly food security and how that integrated into the climate action plan. I want to say here again that I was honestly continually shocked by the pushback and the reticence to understand the immense importance of investments in food security in the face of a changing climate and was just really happy to have sort of the added level of credibility of this amazing plan to pull in and know that so many other people were working from the same plan I I don't think in this moment we can under underestimate the power of all of us working from information and and this plan to and how powerful that is I think one of the things that we hear from farmers a lot and other folks in the food system is that some of our efforts are being recreated in too many places and so the power of this is the more of us that are using this as a kind of an orientation point as to how we move forward I think the more effective overall we're going to be with efficiencies not only in how we're thinking about the infrastructure necessary to deliver food to our people but also the efficiencies within organizations and how they're talking to one another which is a component of the climate action plan that we brought forward as well that you know we want to be really strategic about how we're thinking about these things how we're building out our food system to ensure that our people are fed because as we all know Vermont is a little player in the national and global food industry and so it's going to be really important that we sort of continue to forge our own way and I just don't think that we can say enough about the power of the farm to play strategic plan in giving us all a singular starting point from which to work and we particularly focused on I'm trying to remember in the climate action plan like I said on food security and the food insecurity planning that Becca Warren already has well underway that is a component in the climate action plan additionally we focused on a lot of the meat infrastructure processing as that tends to be a real bottleneck that our farmers continue to talk about and of course as we're thinking more about transportation emissions and food miles having the processing and slaughterhouse infrastructure particularly to ensure that our farmers can process and get their food to markets is going to be really really important the other thing I can speak to is as we were the first mentor Grazer site for the dairy grazing apprenticeship program in Vermont and so I think to you know this push to invest in the mentorship and learning of the next generation of people who are going to be able to have the knowledge to interact with a landscape and then be able to produce food fiber and fuel out of it is going to be critical particularly in the face of a changing climate and so that is additionally in the climate action plan as well and I think I'll just sort of leave it there and then if anybody has specific questions we can go from there yeah are there questions for abbey well yeah real quiet group here today well uh our time our time is running really well so if there are no questions we'll go to ellen morning ellen good morning thank you abbey course for taking time out of your of your vacation thank you so much and thank you thank you ellen for your very kind words and the the partnership that we enjoy with the agency of agriculture really has never been stronger than it is today and that is in large part due to your leadership in that of secretary to tebbets and and deputy secretary eastman's and we're I know I speak for Jake and that we're continuously um so impressed with uh abbey your your team and and all the different ways in which they are working to strengthen the food system so um right back at ya and uh so for the record ellen caler executive director wants stable jobs fun um I don't really have much else to say I think Jake uh did a phenomenal job of covering the ground of of where we've been the last 10 years and setting things up for for additional context for the coming decade uh and and abbey and abbey both uh indicated why having that plan was so important going forward I really just want to end this conversation today by just thanking all of you because honestly none of this would have happened had you not uh launched it all in 2009 I mean it really was very um strategic very prescient very important and um and the continued funding uh of the program that that is received uh every year through the agency of agriculture is critical to making the work of the network work uh and in terms of implementation um we feel extremely accountable to all of you that you know we really understand that um but for uh your support and authorizing this but for the partnership with the agencies uh and state government and support that the governor has shown for this program um so much of this work would not happen and uh and I think as Jake mentioned and and as did abbey we are really the envy of of of other parts of the country they they look to us we are the we are the the gold star the goal posts that others are trying to um get to get to um and so our little state 629,000 people with our plan and uh you know 600 organizations participating on some level plus all the businesses that are engaged you know we have this giant ripple effect uh not just here in Vermont but throughout New England and the rest of the country and had it not been for COVID Jake would have spent nine days in Australia telling them all about it uh two years ago so um I I really I hope that you all can can feel a sense of pride in what has been achieved um over this last uh decade because it's not just the work that all of us have done that you've that we've shared with you but we really view you all as partners in this and uh and couldn't do it without you so we really hope that you also um feel a sense of pride um uh and an appreciation for the role that you have played in this you every year you make decisions strategic decisions about changes to policy changes to program where you decide to invest scarce resources um and we know that you've been guided in in many ways by what's in the plan and that is that's huge you know you could have just set this up and said here create a plan and then it sits on a shelf and we don't do anything with it and you don't make any any strategic decisions about funding but you chose not to do that over the last 10 years and I think that's really significant and then finally I'll just say that it is a real gift to be able to be given a 10-year window of time to act within right and and so as Jake started off saying we really felt important that it was really important to be able to do a retrospective of the last 10 years because I don't know of another uh plan in the state in any other agency where we've been given the gift of of of being able to to work on something for 10 years and then take stock in it and then plan for the next 10 years like that that's really pretty novel you might think it's pretty logical and like well duh like why aren't more people doing this but it really truly is novel and um and I think that the results that Jake shared of the trend lines are are all mostly in the positive direction and the ones that that are not as positive it it's largely because outside forces that we don't have a lot of control over and so then how do we pivot how do we adjust how do we try to go around those constraints to the benefit of of Vermont industries uh our ag and food sector uh industry you know as I was thinking about um that stat about the increase in milk uh processing that's happened in state and and senator star you you referenced that as well and that was one of the recommendations in the original plan was to shift and get make the investment in getting more milk dairy processing happening in the state and we did that and it's because we focused on it we invested in it we stayed together on that mission um and the private sector stepped up and and made those investments and and I think that's part of what we're what we're really about building here is that we all have a role to play and uh and if we're all doing that together in a collaborative way we can really make a significant change happen and make big things happen for a lot of people and for the state and so I just want to uh express just my incredible gratitude for all of you and for your partnership in all of this along the way and I'm really looking forward to actually what we can achieve in the next 10 years I think we're we uh we have the potential to go further and faster uh at achieving our our desired outcomes because we've got this really strong foundation of the last 10 years uh that we're standing on and that we can move forward with so thank you so very much for your time today for your ongoing support and uh really really do look forward to the time when we can all be in the same room again together yeah well thank you very much uh Ellen um yeah I I think over the years of the different programs that I've been part of just because maybe I've been there so long but if you think of you know current use uh was just for forestry and the dairy compact and uh VHCB organization there was you know no gaseelic or that and of course prime the plate wasn't wasn't around and but if you really think of the success of of those different programs it it was the people that were in place stuck with it um you know the continuity of of people that kept it all going and and you know the results uh the results have been super good I mean anybody I don't know how anyone could argue against um what we've been told this morning um you know it it's just so great that things have worked out the way they have because we in the legislature you know we set up new programs and at times and two or three years later they're dead um these of all you know from the the plate has has really done a a super good job and you you guys that are on the front lines that are running this um you know deserve deserve the credit um so are there questions for for any of our panelists that we've had on uh this morning questions anyone in my committee you you've done such a good job you put everybody right out of the questioning uh mode um but um you know anytime you know I should say anytime you want to come before the committees or if you need uh help with something that we can help you with uh you know we we carry that from the plate book around like it's a bible and uh so and it's amazing how we'll pull that out from time to time to see if we're getting you know staying on track but um again I think it's pushing toward noontime some of us have meetings during lunch hour and it it'll just be so darn good if we ever get back to Montpelier to be able to sit around the table and and have a good visit like we have to do now on zoom it's um yeah I really miss not not seeing everybody and and uh so that'll be great if we get back and so keep up to the good work and and again you know don't be strangers if there's something we can help with please let us know so if there are no other comments we'll we'll adjourn the meeting