Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: Is John with us?

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes. Yeah. Hi, John. I'm sorry. I I forgotten that I put you at the top of the list of this section. And, Autumn, I'm gonna ask Yeah. If you don't mind, just because before we get into SNAP, we've got a slightly other topic to hear a little bit about. Thank you.

[John Ramsey]: You. And what would you like me to keep my comments to today in terms of time?

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, we want to give you enough opportunity to say what you have to say. So if you can introduce yourself, tell us why you're here, and then I'll cut you off if you're nervous. Great.

[John Ramsey]: Thank you for having me today. My name is John Ramsey. I'm the executive director of the Center for Higher Global Economy. We're a nonprofit in Hardwick. We're based there, but our work extends statewide. And some other things I wanted to focus on today was our work with over 150 farm and food businesses, how that's tied to our rural economy and what the loss of federal funding is doing to the work that we're doing with them. And also talk a little bit about some specific grants that the center has had with the USDA, where those grants stand and what some of the impacts could be if those funds do not come through. So first, let's talk about the USDA Rural Business Development Program. That's a grant program that USDA has had reliably year over year for many, many years. And it's a funding source that I think last fiscal year brought 1,300,000.0 into the state and helped communities like Rockingham and St. Johnsbury, but also nonprofits like ourselves. Green Mountain Farm to School, another local food system nonprofit based in Newport, is another organization that supports market access for producers and getting local food into schools. They also rely on a rural business development grant. We have not seen the funds that were spent on our last rural business loan grant for April, May and June of this year. So we're still waiting on those funds. That totals $54,000 In February 2025, CAE along with Greenmont Partners School applied for another rural business development grant. That grant was supposed to be acted upon by the June because the grant period starts in July and goes until July. There's been no action by the USDA on that grant program. So we've been essentially left literally in limbo without any sort of action or notice or any real information about where that stands. We're now coming up to the end of the year and we're going be coming up to when we would actually be reapplying again. So Center for Ag and Green Mountain Farm to School, we collaborate a lot. So we're working together to figure out how are we going to cover pots for keeping these programs going that farms rely on to get their products to market. So we're talking about resource sharing, we're talking about sharing funds with each other to pay for staff. These are sort of real time on the ground conversations that we're having. Through all of our programs and services, our local food system impact is north of $20,000,000 annually. So that is tied to hundreds of jobs. The producers we work with easily sustain well over 10,000 acres of working farmland in the state. So again, this has a really big economic impact on our rural communities if we are unable to sustain this work and receive those funds. CA also received a USDA grant for our farmer's market promotion program. In Hardwick, we're really proud of our farmer's market. It's something that's actually been growing and thriving over the last couple of years. We had, I think over 120,000

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: in sales at that market this year. It's also a really critical connection for folks who are receiving food access benefits and just bringing the community together. For

[John Ramsey]: things that we have spent money on since January 2025, have not been reimbursed for any of those activities. So that now totals north of $60,000 Lastly, we also received a grant through the National Association of Agricultural Districts. That grant was terminated early, didn't lose funds on it, but we're still out $48,000 that we have spent the funds on that we're waiting for reimbursements. So when you combine all of those things that for an organization like ourselves or other food hubs like Grapevine Farm to School or Food Connects in Brattleboro, we're all bringing local food to markets. We're connecting our communities to local food. And we're all struggling with getting reimbursements and getting these funds in the door. We also lost $350,000 of committed funds this year that would have further benefited our new facility, the Food Hub in Hardwick. So 250,000 of that 350,000 that was approved but then terminated by the EPA would have gone into direct infrastructure for local food systems, and that was terminated. And then another $100,000 that would have furthered our food access work with communities like up in Holland and Barton and other places, hundreds of thousands of dollars of those funds were terminated. So in total, we're pushing about a half $1,000,000 in total economic impact just in terms of either the grants we've lost or the grants that are still quote unquote alive, but we haven't received the funds for. And again, we're very fortunate to be in a situation where we can weather this for a period of time, but not forever, obviously. And it is putting an enormous amount of strain on ourselves, Green Mountain Farm to School. I'm not here to speak for those organizations, but I know that Food Connects in Brattleboro also moving a tremendous amount of local food to markets is also struggling with this. So I leave would saying anything that we can do to bolster this funding, get reimbursable funds back in the door as quickly as possible, work with our federal delegation to let them know the real impacts that this is having on the ground. Our working lands enterprise board is another funding opportunity that the state has control over. That is a place where a lot of these organizations and businesses are gonna be going to, to look for funding in replace of some of this other funding loss. So I think that might come up in front of this committee during the session and sort of where does that funding stand. And yeah, I was just saying, lastly, we've already kind of touched upon in other sessions about the loss of what local food purchasing assistance program. That program was the cornerstone of funding for us for our work with food pantries. And most of the dollars that we received in that grant actually ended up as direct income for the farms we were purchasing food from. So again, this ripple effect of economic impact, I think could be substantial if this isn't

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: addressed. Thank

[David Durfee (Chair)]: you. Dollar figures that you mentioned, are those exclusively funds that don't flow through the state? Or do some of them flow through the state budget and you're getting state grants?

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: None of

[John Ramsey]: those funds flow through the state.

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: Okay.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: So those are numbers that we often have trouble learning about because we're not usually hearing them the way that we're hearing about changes to our own budget.

[John Ramsey]: I'm happy to provide a summary, a concise summary of what those grants are, the amounts and the timing.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, don't know if you have and if you want to send in your comments, you can send them to the committee assistant who reached out before and then they will have them. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And before you leave, questions from the committee?

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: John? I just wanted to know your colleagues at the USDA, who you deal with a lot on these grants, what are you getting back from them? Are they just like, we don't know what's happening? At some level, is it just

[John Ramsey]: It's not a lot of information. And it's a lot of, please talk to this person. This person is now the person you should talk to. Stop talking to this person. This is the new person to talk to. So there has been a bit of that. And so we've been very diligent about, okay, this is the new person to talk to. We will then resend the information so that everybody, it's kind of like starting from square one, you resend it. So

[Joanna Doran (NOFA-VT)]: we've

[John Ramsey]: been getting definitely a bit of that. I know Katherine Cusack, who's the executive director at Three Mount Farm School, and I have talked about along with Liz Leeson from BHCB about getting the rural development director for New Hampshire and Vermont to visit us and really, again, sort of bring home the importance of those rural funds, especially because those funds flow through municipalities, businesses, nonprofits, and that is something that we would like to have a

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: lot of support on. Yeah, thank you.

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: All right,

[David Durfee (Chair)]: good, thank you. You.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: Say hi to Alan. And

[David Durfee (Chair)]: when we're back in January, there's been some discussion or some suggestion that we might have a field trip up to. Anytime,

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: We're coming in, I'll meet you there.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: We're going to make you come all the way in and then turn around. So now we're going to talk about Snap. And Hungry Free Vermont usually is our go to, I think, on this topic. So Autumn is going to share some thoughts. I also invited some retailers and others who are the folks who actually are the vendors here for when there's an exchange involving SNAP. So we've heard about, and I think we've all been thinking a lot about, the impact Vermonters who are receiving SNAP benefits and what it might mean to them not to have those. But the retailers who then are part of that transaction are also impacted. So we're going to have some conversation there. But Autumn, why don't you go ahead and start?

[Autumn Bowen (Hunger Free Vermont)]: Thank you. My name is Autumn Bowen. And like Sherjurka said,

[Joanna Doran (NOFA-VT)]: I work at Point of Tree Vermont.

[Autumn Bowen (Hunger Free Vermont)]: I just want to start by thanking you all for being here. I know you're off season. This is a lot to hear, but it's really important for all the work that you're going to be doing this session. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. And then also want to express our gratitude to House leaders, Joint Fiscal Committee, and the Emergency Board for their decision in October to use state contingency funds to replace Vermont or Three Squares Vermont benefits when USDA did not issue those during the federal government shutdown. This caused a lot of harm and fear amongst people who received Three Squares Vermont benefits, but the state's action brought a lot of relief and stability to these households. So it was really, really important that the state did that. So just expressing that gratitude there. But like we said, I'm here to talk about the changes made to SNAP in HR1. So this was the biggest ever cut to our nation's most effective and dignified federal nutrition program, SNAP, called Three Squares Vermont in our state. I'll probably use both of those. But it's important to remember that despite all of these harmful changes I'm going to go through, Three Vermont remains our most effective and efficient program to reduce hunger and poverty, especially in girl states and high cost of living states like Vermont. So Three Sports Vermont helps nearly 10% of our population buy groceries every month. This is nearly 64,000 people, mostly children, older adults, people with disabilities. So it supports our groceries like we spoke to, farmers and our entire economy. And in any given month, ThreeSquare Vermont keeps 12,000,000 federal dollars in our state's economy, making it not only an effective food security program, but really an essential economic stimulus program as well. So HR1 made staggering funding cuts as well as eligibility changes to the SNAP program, as well as Medicaid in order to fund tax breaks to the nation's most wealthy. Nothing about these changes were efficient or cost effective or dignified. I'm going to give a high level overview of the changes, but please, if you have any follow-up questions, we're always available by email, phone, anything to help clarify any of this, because it's quite complicated. I'll get into the funding structure first. Specifically, changes were made to how states have to operate the program, the funding changes for this. So in the whole history of the program, the federal government and the state government have split the cost to administer the program fifty-fifty. But starting on 10/01/2026, states will have to pay 75% of the administrative costs and the federal government will pay 25%. And DCF estimates that this will cost the state $8,400,000 annually. And I just wanna point out that because of the way that the state fiscal year and the federal fiscal year lineup, this will go into effect for the second quarter of state fiscal year 2027. So that will actually be approximately $6,300,000 in the first year that this goes into effect. If I can answer any questions on that, do I know that's kind of too So

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: it's gonna cost the state $6,300,000 more or Yes, more. More.

[Autumn Bowen (Hunger Free Vermont)]: Yep, and that will be in state fiscal year '27 and then going forward, it will be 8,400,000.0 annually. But it's really critical to remember here too that this state investment allows us to continue to operate the program in an accessible and efficient way that allows us to bring $150,000,000 annually into our economy through Three Squares Vermont benefits that goes directly into our grocers and farmers' CBAB money as well. So it's a big increase for the state, but it allows us to continue to tap into that $150,000,000 in. And then additionally, there's potential change to the funding structure of the benefits themselves, so that the funding that goes on to the EBT cards that folks use at grocers and farm stands and farmer's markets. For the entire history of the program, the federal government has paid 100% of the benefit from EBT cards. This could change starting 10/01/2027. If states could see an increase, they'll have to pay either 5% to 15% of monthly benefit costs. And this is dependent on a state's payment error rate. And right now, Vermont is below the threshold, which is 6%. So if states are under 6%, they don't have to pitch in for these benefit costs. Right now, Vermont is under that, which is really good. But in order stay under that 6%, we need to really invest in that administrative funding because that's going to be incredibly important to make sure that our payment error rate stays low and we don't see an even higher cost of what the state has to pitch in to continue operating through Squares Vermont as normal. So in addition to funding structure changes, HR1 made eligibility changes as well for the SNAP program, and these went into effect on October 1. So first, there were changes to how households report monthly utility costs, which imposed additional paperwork burdens on participants and also administrative burden on state workers, and this impacted 2,600 households in Vermont. There were also changes to existing work reporting rules called the time limited benefit work requirement, which requires that adults report twenty hours of work per week or prove that they need an exemption. And if they don't, then they can only receive three months of benefits over a three year period. So the new law expands who has to meet this complex paperwork requirement to a much larger group of folks, and DCF estimates that 4,400 households will be impacted by this change. However, thanks to action taken by the legislature last session, no one in Vermont is at risk of losing benefits because of this change until March 2026. So we've got some buffer time there. And then there were also changes in eligibility for some non citizen community members. So immigrants granted official humanitarian status, so refugees, asylees, and others lost eligibility entirely on October 1. This was 119 households in Vermont, totaling more than three sixty people. So despite all these changes, I know that was a lot and there's more details to unpack too, but Squares Vermont still remains our most effective food security program. So I just really want to reiterate that. And this has been made even more clear in the last two weeks with the lapse in federal SNAP funding. Without Three Squares Vermont, many, many more watchers would have been facing really difficult decisions about how they're going to pay for their next round of groceries or whether they're going to be able to put gas in their car, like really tough decisions around basic needs, but because the state stepped up, they were able to have their grocery money on their EBT cards on last Friday, on the seventh. So just as state policymakers, I just want to lay out a few actions that we've thought of, kind of a three step plan that you all can consider as you're looking for how you can bolster the FreeSports Vermont program here and ensure that as many people as possible continue to access the program, that it stays strong and that it continues to be there for the tens of thousands of Vermonters who use it. So, we're going to go through these three steps quickly here. So the first is to maximize and leverage federal funding wherever possible. This is through funding SNAP administration at $6,300,000 for the state fiscal year 2027 to continue to administer the Three Squares Vermont program. It's really essential to maximize that 150,000,000 that continues to flow through our economy through Three Squares Vermont. And then in addition to this, we need to expand our benefits navigation and outreach work. So through utilizing available federal funding and then increasing state resources for this, we can strengthen the work of service providing organizations who do this in between and help folks access public benefits. And this is through outreach, training, application assistance, really to navigate some of those changes I mentioned earlier with work reporting requirements or utilities. Folks need some extra support in making sure that they can continue to get benefits. And so this is one way that we can do that. Onto the next step would be providing concrete supports to the most vulnerable groups in Vermont so that they can have a fair minimum of health and family stability if there's an unexpected cost or dip in their income. And so this would be through flexible funding that can be provided to community service organizations to be used for tangible and essential needs of the people that they serve. So this might be gas cards so that people can drive to work and continue going to their job. Or it could be getting a grocery gift card to cover groceries for the end of the month or a paying utility bill, things like that. These essential basic needs. And then the last item on this list is to raise revenue. The highest earning 5% of Vermonters are set to receive a total federal tax cut of over $440,000,000 per year using funding pulled directly from SNAP and Medicaid, which are programs we all pay for with our federal tax dollars. But we know you all need resources to continue to provide the best outcomes for everyone living here. We know that no state can replace every single federal dollar lost, but we can really think creatively, innovatively, and continue to lead in designing policies that ensure the best outcomes for all of us living here. So throughout the 2026 session, we just urge you to keep focused on what Three Sports Vermont makes possible for all of us, not just the 63,000 people who use the program every month, but our farmers, our businesses, and our economy as a whole. Thank you.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Great, thank you, Autumn. Before you step aside,

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: questions?

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: Quick one. Is there any chance of applying any of the money back? Because it's not, I assume, was budgeted. Every state, the federal government said, we're paying month by month, and all of a sudden, they're like, no, we're not paying anything. And a lot of states stepped in.

[Autumn Bowen (Hunger Free Vermont)]: So the money that the state put in, is there any chance that the federal government will reimburse that? From what we've heard, no, they But the good news is that this means that families who use through Sport Vermont get an extra benefit for this month, which is already a huge food month. And we hear from our food bank partners, I'll let them speak later, but this is a huge food month for Thanksgiving and everything. And we've heard from Three Squares participants all across the state, like how much this really meant to them. It's been really emotional for us to all hear and we can share some of those words with you all too.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: Yeah, thank you, Drew. So essentially the way I understand it, they got 150% of their monthly health. Yes. And there's a governor said last night with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, he said, we can all say that's fine. Yeah. And, you know, I agree. I haven't heard anyone disagree that they do.

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: It's an extra what, 100 and

[Autumn Bowen (Hunger Free Vermont)]: For lots of folks, they're a monthly basis.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: $80.90 dollars extra. Yeah.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: I was just going to say I went over the summer to the CSG, Council of State Governments East Conference, which is Northeastern states essentially, and there was a presentation about these changes. I think Vermont was maybe the only state in the Northeast that has such a low error rate that we're not currently charged anything. So I think we should be acknowledging that the department is running things so efficiently, but also be aware of the risk of what would happen if our error rates were to increase. Why do some states have higher error rates? Staffing? I don't know what there's a correlation there.

[Autumn Bowen (Hunger Free Vermont)]: Yeah, it can be lots of different things. And the payment error rate can be because of on the caseworker side, and it can be the way they're asking questions or putting in information, or it can be on the sides of the client, like misunderstanding a question or providing information that just looks accurate. So it can come from lots of different ways, but you're right, there's not that many states that are under six percent. And I'll just add to that the amount, that five to 15% that the state would have to pitch in, by our calculations would be 7 to $22,000,000 annually. So just as that number.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: So much better to have that money go directly into benefits than paying a penalty. All right. Thank you, Autumn. And I think we need to move along. So are you going to be staying if we have questions later? Okay. Well, Zev Wirtz is here from Georgia. Georgia, Vermont, that is. And I understand that you own the Georgia market. Correct. So we're interested in hearing whatever you might have to tell us about being a grocer who handles SNAP benefits.

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: Thank you, Chairman Gurpi. Thank you, everyone. Actually, was it

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: John just left us in line?

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: Yeah, so I think really what I wanna focus on is what he mentioned, which is the ripple effect. So when, as a retail grocer, when we look at reduction or loss of SNAP benefits, it's not just that loss of revenue where people are shopping with us, but that doesn't go far enough, right? So they're spending their money as well, their income. So we're not just seeing a reduction in just those benefits, it's everything else they're spending at the same time. I know that So Ed has some great numbers from the social media groceries about what that number is, which is astronomical, but it's that ripple effect. What else are they not spending? And for us, my

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: wife and I,

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: we bought the store just over seven months ago, and we've lived there for twenty years. And it was important for us to be really a center for our community and to really be activists for our community. And since taking over, we've added 120 local vendors. 90 plus percent of all of our beef is within 15 miles of our store. We've gotten rid of a lot of commercial product, local. Anyone who does something local, we bring it into the store. We have an entire area in store dedicated to that. What that means is when we don't have those benefits, that is affecting people buying those local products. That means our local farmers aren't getting the revenue. We also, when we took over the store, had 31 employees. We have over 54 employees and we plan on continuing to grow. But if the business doesn't grow, what does that mean? What does that mean to the people that we may now

[David Durfee (Chair)]: have to get rid

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: of, that we may have to lay off?

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: That's enormous. And that means that's more strain back on the benefits that are already being neglected or aren't there. And in addition to that too, we do a lot of, again, we don't just try to say we're about putting the community first, but we have programs like our Serving Sunday, where we put on meals for the community and we donate money to local charities and organizations, raised over $26,000 in 11 events, more than $13,000 for Food Show Friday in Georgia. When those dollars aren't coming in for revenue, we can't donate back out, right? So that means that's meals, that's money not going directly back to our food shelf. Those are meals when we have our leftovers that we're not feeding people in the community who eat those meals. And lastly, the other thing that we don't consider too is when people are desperate, they do things that they know they probably shouldn't do. Like stealing, retail theft. Retail theft is up tremendously. I mean, it's insane. And again, it's death by a thousand cuts. If our profits are down because there aren't benefits, if our sales are down because people can't afford to buy groceries, our local vendors can't support them. And then we have more retail Fed, prices go up, prices go up, plus we can afford to shop. It's cyclical

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: problem.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: That's a lot. A lot, yeah.

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: Is it? Yeah, good. Any questions? Georgia. I live down in Rodeo Mills. Okay, great.

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: Stop by for our Sherman Summies.

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: I go by there a lot of stuff in often. You used to cut up deer, well, you don't. But you used to cut deer. We used to bring deer in there. Do you still do that?

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: We don't anymore, I can't find people to do it.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: So you're selling local beef in Wagyu?

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: Yeah, we have two farms, we sell local American Wagyu from Sheldon, and then we sell the rest of our local beef from St. Alden's. And bread, raised, butchered, it's not pretty brought in from Massachusetts and then killed, it's right there, Franklin County local. Where is it cut? Is it cut in Franklin County or down in Ferris, Berkeley? It depends, it's that, we leave that up to the, because we go straight to the farmers, so we leave it to them what's best for them economically to do. We prefer it, Steve's, like we're trying to act very, very openly with everything and we like our partners to do that as well, but they have to do what's best for them.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: What

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: percentage of your sales are coming through SNAP?

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: Do you know? Is it So Georgia is unique, right? Like people move here for the same reason they moved there twenty years ago, right? It's a better community at Burlington. When my wife and I, before we both retired and came out of retirement, we commuted to the Burlington area. So Georgia is a relatively affluent part of Franklin Cal, right? We have the highest income, household income in there. So our percentages are really low. We're under 2%, although all of our sales are our staff. And we didn't see much of a reduction like some of the other stores did because of that, but also because of kind of a niche market. But even that 2%, it's not chump change, it's for a small business like ours, it still makes a big difference. So I shouldn't downplay that 2%. If it was a change under a percent, you can say, well, that doesn't really matter, but 2% is still there.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Good, Thank you. Yeah. Very well. Appreciate it, Sarah. Yeah. Can you hear us? Hello.

[Mary Malali (General Manager, Hunger Mountain Co-op)]: I can. I can. Hello.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: I know you've been listening in. Thank you very much for being patient. You heard the prompts, I think, and know why we asked you here. If you want to introduce yourself, then some of us may think you look familiar.

[Mary Malali (General Manager, Hunger Mountain Co-op)]: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. My name is Mary Malali, and I'm the general manager of the Hungry Mountain Co op, which is actually what you see behind me right at the moment. I really appreciate being asked to speak today about the direct impacts of the changes to SNAP funding and share firsthand our experience as a community owned grocery store and what that has meant for us. So the Hunger Mountain Co op offers high quality local, organic, and specialty foods. And we are known as an access point for alternative foods. People with a variety of health issues rely on us to purchase items that help them to heal and eat and eat within their dietary restrictions. And reductions in SNAP benefits put people at risk for health complications based on their economic ability to access foods that they need. Our SNAP and EBT sales are roughly 1.2% of our total sales, so similar to Zeb, it sounds like. And this may sound like a small percentage, but in an industry where a net income of 1.2% is considered good, the sudden loss of such sales could have an impact on our bottom line and mean the difference between making money and not. And in fact, we have already seen an impact to our sales, not surprisingly, but unfortunately. In the October, we saw a 52% decline in sales from Snap and EBT purchases. The November was a 78% drop, and the November was a 57% drop. So like Zeb, we also have a high percentage of our sales coming from local products, about 40%, And a reduction in our sales directly impacts our four twenty nine local vendors and the Vermont economy as well. So not only are we seeing a significant decrease in sales, we're also seeing a significant increase in requests from our community for food assistance donations. It's just clear that there's not enough to go around and the need is just ever increasing at this point. We're currently holding our annual Neighbors Helping Neighbors campaign, which is a food and fund drive that will directly benefit the Vermont Food Bank with the goal of raising $20,000 by the December. We're grateful for the robust response and support and participation from our community and community partners in this campaign. And while we recognize the value of community involvement, addressing Food Security Act adequately requires support from the federal government. And even more so now as we anticipate additional impact as people are preparing for skyrocketing insurance costs, leaving many with the impossible choice between medical care and the ability to eat. So I would just like to close with appreciation for our elected officials, both at state and national levels who are working to effect positive change in this situation. Thank you very much for having me today.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you, Mary. And you didn't say, and I just want to say in case it's not clear that you're speaking to us from the other side of town, right? The co op is here in Mount Gilier?

[Mary Malali (General Manager, Hunger Mountain Co-op)]: Yes, that is correct.

[John Ramsey]: Yeah.

[Mary Malali (General Manager, Hunger Mountain Co-op)]: I am sorry. I couldn't be there in person. I had things that required my presence here today.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. No, I wasn't faulting you for not being here in person. So wanted to call it out. Call out that you were in Montpelier.

[Mary Malali (General Manager, Hunger Mountain Co-op)]: Yes. Right here in Montpelier.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Great. Anybody have any questions? And it was interesting that you began noticing some fall off even in October.

[Mary Malali (General Manager, Hunger Mountain Co-op)]: Yes. I think people were preparing, probably pulling back because of the uncertainty.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: One thing that we noticed that our Food Shield partners reminded us of

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: was that October was a five week month.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: So that means that the same monthly benefit needs to stretch five weeks instead of four. So a lot of them saw an uptick in October because people's benefits ran out and there wasn't anything they could do to stock up. They had to

[Autumn Bowen (Hunger Free Vermont)]: be switched out instead of closure. It's a shift. Yes.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: Good point.

[Autumn Bowen (Hunger Free Vermont)]: Can I add something to that

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: comment you just made? Is that okay? Sure, Jeff.

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: So we noticed when we look at our trends and if we can look at the beginning of the month and end of the month, and I'm sure Mary, you see the same thing, but the majority of the EDT benefits are in the first two weeks and then they trail off, but that's because there's not enough money to go around. So I think that's, I'm sure you've seen the same thing. So that's important just to note that they don't just trail off because there's no money left for them.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: So it's a general, the curve is

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: The general curve is you see right at the beginning of the month, check, or the money gets slowed down the part, sales go way up, then they start declining and by the end of the month, the sales very, very few percentage wise of the sales are at the end of the month, just because there's no money left for them to use. Just

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: to follow-up, does anybody in this room know, I guess, how much of three square eligible families are paying for their food with three square or, you know, like you were bringing up, is it 50%? I mean, it's all over the map, I suppose, but there must be sort of a certain percentage of families have to cover their food without SNAP benefits.

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: It's an excellent question. I don't think I can give you a good answer only because the only way I could track that is if on a single transaction, they bought some things with their EBT and then the rest with whatever their payment is. But if they're coming in at another time using that other form of payment, there's no way for me to track it in So I can look up those numbers and I can get you the numbers associated with EDT, what percentage that is, but

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: I don't know if that

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: would be a realistic number.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: Right, yeah. It's like 160 something dollars a month.

[Autumn Bowen (Hunger Free Vermont)]: It really depends on the household. I think that's about the average, but what I was just going to say is we can look into some research and see, because I know UBM has done lots of research on SNAP participants versus folks who are food insecure or maybe not using SNAP. So we can look into that and see if I can give you a better number, but I will just say that being a supplemental nutrition assistance program, it's really meant to supplement people's other budgets. So kind of like you're speaking to that it's really, it's pretty rare, I think, for a family to use only or not at all to use only their SNAP benefits to use But we can get you some protection.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah, $6

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: a day, it's less that. It's a, I eat pretty cheap, but

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: I can't eat that cheap.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, Mary, thank you.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: Thank you

[Mary Malali (General Manager, Hunger Mountain Co-op)]: very much for your time.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Yep. I'll let you get back to work, and we'll ask Joanna to come up then and speak on the same theme here, but talking about farmers markets.

[Joanna Doran (NOFA-VT)]: Thank you so much for having us all here today, Chair Dortion Committee members. I'm Joanna Doran, I'm the Local Food Access Director with NOVA Vermont. And I am here today to talk with you about the federal impacts on local food security in the realm of farmers markets and farms. Autumn gave a great overview of SNAP and how that program works in Vermont. And at NOFA, we worked hard to funnel as much of those SNAP dollars into our local farming's autonomy as possible. We know that farmers are vital to a viable food system, and so we do what we can to support them through all of our food security programs. You might remember from earlier this year, I talked about the PropCash, PropCash Plus, and FarmCare programs. I won't give a full refresher on what those programs are. You can look at my written testimony if you do need a refresher. But essentially those programs are set up to support low income Vermonters with accessing food from farmers markets, farm stands, and community supported agriculture shares so that they can afford food from a local farmer and farmers in turn get back income so they're not at a loss. Thanks to this committee support and the state of Vermont's FY26 appropriation, we were able to support those programs this year and bring back the Crop Cache Plus program, which, as you might remember, extends the federal Crop Cache program to almost any agricultural product at farmer's markets so that low income Vermonters have been able to access a wider variety of food at the farmer's markets this summer and fall. Almost all agricultural vendors at those markets have been able to get proc cash Plus income this summer and fall. Over the summer and fall seasons, this year customers have spent about $200,000 in Crop Cash and Crop Cash Plus at farmers markets and over $160,000 in SNAP at markets. So all of those dollars, dollars 360,000, is being directly reinvested into the local agricultural economy. Similarly, through our farm share program, which is the CSA cost assistance program, we've supported over five sixty families in 2025. And through the help of state funding, community contributions, and philanthropy, we have leveraged through that program over 3 and $28,000 in GSA purchases at local farms. So that's just to give a picture of how impactful state funding is for leveraging federal and philanthropic funds, ensuring that Vermonters can access the food that they need and support their drug partners at the same time. So now I'll talk a little bit about the impacts of the delay of November benefits and the changes in SNAP benefits that Autumn outlined in HR1. So you've heard already the ripple effect of what that will do when folks don't have the money that they have budgeted to spend on food. We've seen immediate impacts such as some farmers markets that were open in the November before the state funded SNAP benefits went out. Farmers market managers shared that that was a rough day. SNAP customers were coming early, spending the bare minimum, really rationing out if they had any EBT funds left on their card, rationing that out and buying cheaper food. Sherry on Zoom is going to tell how the Brown Girl market experienced those first couple of weekends in November and the impact that the shutdown and the delay in November benefits had on customers. And we're also hearing from farm share participants that were planning to spend SNAP dollars to buy their portion of their CSA share, that they are asking to back out of the program. They can't afford the food anymore. And of course, we're working with them to try to fill in the gaps and see if we can support them more. And a lot of farmers are doing the same. But it just shows how difficult, especially this time of year, for making decisions between affording food for your family, affording heat costs, rent, and of course, the drastically increasing healthcare costs. And as you know, if a CSA customer backs out because they can't pay for a share, that means a loss of income for our Vermont farmers. And then as you've also heard a bit this afternoon, changes made to SNAP in HR1 reduced the benefit amount or excluded folks entirely from the SNAP program. So even beyond the impacts of the federal government shutdown, more Vermonters are going to be struggling to put some dollar tables and often hitting the most vulnerable community members the hardest. I just want to flag for you that yesterday at the Joint Postal Committee hearing, USCRI, ECDC, the BAA testified about the impacts on immigrants and refugees in this country and how changes to SNAP and other programs will impact them or already are impacting them. So I want to take a moment to just say that how NOFA has been pivoting and using state funding that we received in FY twenty six to support folks in this difficult time. We felt it was important that because we have funding for Prop Cappy Plus that we would make sure that benefit continued, even when folks didn't have money in their SNAP accounts yet. So especially in that November, we were able to say that anyone who came to a farmland's market could get a flat $20 of PropCash Plus, even if they didn't have any SNAP benefits. That really helped folks get through that first week, have money to spend at the market. As I've been saying, that's also income that's continuing to flow to farmers during that interim period. That's part of painting this picture that the state of Vermont has shown that it's investing in local food security. And we know that these programs, Crop Cache, Crock Cash Plus Farm Share, and other programs you're hearing about today are more critical than ever in helping to meet the needs of low income Vermonters amidst uncertainty, helping sustain income to Vermont farmers. Vermont has been a leader in that. So I will preview the fact that NOFA will be requesting $500,000 in ongoing funding for Crop Trash Plus and Farm Share in the FY27 budget. And we look forward to sharing more about the impact that the FY26 allocation has had in the coming months. So again, I just want to thank you for your support of these programs. And I'm excited to share how we've been able to use them to help fill in the gaps during really challenging times. I know that we're going to have to continue working together to do that, to get the best possible outcomes for Vermonters and for mouth farmers. So before I'm hoping that Sherry can go next to paint the picture of Brattleboro, but I will answer any questions before passing.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: All right. I think just because we're running a few minutes behind, we should probably then go right to Sherry. So thank you for that. Sherry,

[John Ramsey]: welcome.

[Sheri Maher (Manager, Brattleboro Winter Farmers Market)]: Hello, and thank you.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: If you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself telling us where you are. And you've been listening to the conversation. So what else would you like to add?

[Sheri Maher (Manager, Brattleboro Winter Farmers Market)]: Oh, goodness. Well, thank you so much, Chair Durfee, and to the committee members. My name's Sheri Maher. I am in Athens, Vermont at the moment, but I've been managing the Brattleboro Winter Farmers Market for since it started in 2006. I also serve on the Vermont Farmers Market Association Board. I have been on that for a few quite a few years at this point. And I am very happy to share with you today some of the impacts that our market community has experienced during this uncertainty because of the disruption to SNAP and ThreeSquare's benefits. As Joanna mentioned, our market season was set to begin on November 1. It was opening our twentieth season. And that's the day that SNAP benefit would typically be deposited into the recipient's accounts. As you might remember, there was a lot of uncertainty and there were at least two court cases pending with regards to all of that. But by the day before, it was pretty clear to us that we would possibly be seeing very few, if any, SNAP customers. Because even though the state of Vermont did a wonderful thing in approving benefits to be delivered to them, they weren't going to be there by the first of month. We began to scramble as a market organization along with our nonprofit sponsor because we felt it was really critical to try and fill that gap. We started a fundraising campaign right away, calculated what we expected it might cost to fill that gap on that day, and began running with that campaign. So thus, we had a new market match that we were calling the SnapGap that day. And we learned also that NOFA had directed us to provide $20 in PropCash Plus because that was also primarily state funds or other funds not tied to SNAP as tightly. And so we were able to at least promise that to folks that were arriving at the market. With what we did, we matched that with $40 of our new coupons so that any of those snap customers that came who in in a previous week had turned $20 from their snap benefits into $60 for shopping at the food shopping for food at the farmer's market, they were able to do that still. It was not only a huge boost to those customers that came, but it was also really important to us to be supporting our farmers and producers. You've heard already from another retailer about how important the impact of that is. These farmers brought all of the wonderful food that they have to the market and they rely on that income. Since the pandemic, we've seen quite a rise in SNAP customers at the market each week. The combination of their dollars along with the match programs that we have like Crop Cash and Crop Cash Plus serves to incentivize many of these folks to spend their benefits with local producers rather than going off to big box stores. The results are healthier benefits for those families with healthier food. It keeps that vital income flowing into the local producers and it serves to keep those dollars circulating in the local economy. I often call this a win win win scenario. So on that November 1, we saw two thirds less than what we would typically see in Snap shoppers. Quite a few few of them didn't know that they were gonna be able to still buy food even though they didn't have any benefits that day. The gratitude and relief that we saw in their faces was overwhelming. Surprisingly, there were a number of them who did still have $20 remaining on their cards. And I just want to comment on that because relative to something that you were just hearing from the fellow from the Georgia market, I think at the farmers market, we see how important that is to them and they budget. The folks who are shopping at farmers markets will budget their benefits out in a way to be sure that when that last week of the month comes, still have $10 or $20 that they can go to the market and they can multiply that with these incentives. Anyway, we had hugs and tears of gratitude. We had folks who had come with some of their own cash because they didn't know that they would be able to get some assistance at the market. And they were so overwhelmed with gratitude that they then turned around and used some of that cash as a donation to the fundraising that we had just begun and were able to go and shop as they had been at the week before at the outdoor summer farmers market. While the major alarms that were suddenly blaring because of that shutdown are mostly behind us now, we all know that the food security crisis isn't. And in addition to the changes that are coming in SNAP, I also expect that there are many folks across the state who rely on the ACA for their health coverage and are gonna suddenly find themselves in the camp of food insecure, even though they won't necessarily qualify for SNAP benefits. I know that from past experience when somebody's budget is squeezed beyond capacity, money for food is usually one of the first things that they feel that they can cut back on and sacrifice. And with that down goes their health and up goes the costs of Medicare for them. These folks may very well be some of the likely next wave of folks that we'll see in what we're calling the SNAP gap. They don't qualify for food benefits, but they may not have enough money for food, in addition to those folks who are having benefits cut or losing benefits. So we'll be continuing our fundraising efforts because that's just who we are and what we do. But we are really grateful to the state of Vermont and hope that the state can also make policy choices that can ensure everyone in Vermont can access the food that they need, supporting the $500,000 in ongoing funds for the Crop Cash Plus and the Farm Share programs in fiscal year twenty twenty seven state budget is an integral piece of this puzzle. Thank you so much for hearing our story.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Alright. Thank you, Sherry. Does the winter the indoor winter farmers market in Brattleboro every week?

[Sheri Maher (Manager, Brattleboro Winter Farmers Market)]: Every Saturday, November through March. So we're we're the only regional market in that corner of the state that is open. The only the only month in is April down here in the Southeastern corner where there is no farmer's market.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Alright. Thank you. And I think we're gonna we're gonna turn now we we also invited the folks in the food bank to come in and provide your thoughts. So, John, welcome back.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Thank you, thank you. Good to see the committee again. I'm John Sales, CEO of Vermont Food Bank. I'm a peer of Vermont Junior. I'm not gonna repeat anything others have said. They all said it very well and I agree with it all. So what I will talk about a little bit just so that you understand some of the details is what just happened. Again, we are very grateful too to the governor and the emergency board and the legislature for supporting Vermonters in this hard time. Couldn't agree more that a little extra over this holiday season is a welcome thing and nothing to hover over. With the federal government reopened now and SNAP benefits loaded onto EBT cards, it's good news, it's time for celebration. As Autumn said, there are still a lot of changes to the Through Squares Vermont program that are going to be problematic for people. We're not out of the woods here. And we need to remember that it wasn't necessary ever to not pay SNAP benefits. And so I'm hoping that going forward, we don't find ourselves in this situation yet. So what happened, the process I'll go through quickly, the emergency board on November 29 approved the two weeks of SNAP benefits. The emergency board, just

[David Durfee (Chair)]: for folks who might not know who's on that.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: The emergency board, it's the governor and the chairs of the money committees, quote unquote, in the house and the senate. And they have the authority to make budgetary decisions when the legislature is out.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: We've given them that authority.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yes, you have given them that authority. So on the twenty ninth, they approved two weeks of Three Squares Vermont benefits using state dollars, federal dollars. And they also approved $250,000 to the Vermont Food Bank to try and get extra food out in our food shelves in the community until that half month of benefits could be loaded onto cards. So as the state said it was going to be probably until November 7 and it turned out to be November 7 when those benefits actually got loaded. So there was a little over a week in between there. The 250,000 in state funding was intended to be distributed and spent on food within days to make sure that there was something for folks filling that gap. So the food bank, we knew about this maybe a couple of days before and had some conversations with Department of Children and Families and created a formula to distribute that fund based on some factors including the population, the different counties, what what are the poverty rates, what are the SNAP eligibility levels, and the number of individuals served in different areas so that we could try and have some equity to make sure that we're at least to some extent getting the money where it needed to go and getting the food where it needed to go. So within each county, and this was all 14 counties, the money was directed to a subset of partners, of food shelf partners. We wanted to make sure that those partners could respond within one day to make purchasing decisions. So they have the capacity to do that and they could acquire the food quickly, just go out and purchase food right in their community. We're open regularly so that they would be open during this week and served, we looked at the places where the need was the greatest, so the numbers of people in the highest need. And then making sure we were filling all the geographic gaps so that there was a distribution around state so that most people could find a place. The funds were allocated, I said in every county and it was 56 out of 136 food shelves that our partners with Vermont Food Life Network. The state had a requirement, these funds could be solely used for food and we had to have our partners agree to that beforehand before we could distribute the dollars. So by November 31, then two days later, the food bank had, it's kind of an all hands on deck efforts. We called all 56 of those, we got verbal, they agreed to the terms, they sent us back a form that they agreed to the terms, and we got their account information so we could do an electronically transfer of the funds. So by November 31, by that Friday, all $250,000 had been distributed to those 56 food shelves and they went out and were able to purchase food and get it, have it on the shelves for our partners. We're really proud of the work that they did. The food banks, I say this a lot, we cannot do this work alone. It is a symbiotic relationship with all of our partners in the community. And since then, because of some very generous donors to the food bank who are responding to this crisis, we were able to take another $150,000 of philanthropic money and that is currently being distributed to the food shelves that did not get some of the state dollars to make sure that, because everyone got hit, And I mean, there's no place in the state that SNAP gap didn't appear and so we wanted to make sure that all of our partners are getting some extra support during this time. What we have also seen is in our direct distribution program Veggie Van Gogh which we've talked about. In the first Veggie Van Goghs that we've held in November during that gap, we saw in some places a really dramatic increase in the number of people showing up. For instance, in Rutland, at the Rutland Regional Medical Center, there was an almost a doubling of the number of people that showed up. At the Academy Elementary School was a 27% increase number of people. We did see a couple where it was not much of an increase or even a little decrease and that happens seasonally in month to month. But overall, our average distribution in the November compared to a four year average was about 45% higher. And our partners are reporting more people coming in. Overall, our expectation, you've heard this is based on our experience with the food bank and other disasters, natural and manmade, that this event is going to have a tail. The people who were, this income was disrupted by not getting SNAP benefits are spending down other reserves that they may have as small as they may be and it takes a long time to build that back up. So we expect to see this increase demand continue on probably through the winter. And have really since the last couple of years, two or three years, we've seen this slow, steady increase in demand. This was another bump up and we expect that trend probably to continue until really the macro economic conditions change and there's less uncertainty about what the federal government is going to do or not do that's going to cause hardship. And we've heard about the things that are still coming down the pike that are going to cause financial hardship. So we expect to continue to see increased to be. I wanted to, if we still

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: have a few minutes turn it over

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: to Carrie and let her do another little piece of this.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, we're running very behind, I will say. Please, come on up, Carrie. And it's nobody's fault but mine that we're running behind.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Hi, I'm Carrie Stahler.

[Joanna Doran (NOFA-VT)]: I work for Birmingham.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Thanks for having me back. Just to briefly follow-up on a couple of points that John just made. In the written testimony I submitted that you can all look at, I linked to a study that Doctor. Meredith Niles from UDF shared with you last January that tells you exactly what John was just talking about, about the experiences of people who have food insecurity or experience financial disruptions. All of that is still true, and it's even more true because of the past few weeks. So I encourage you to go take a peek at that to remind yourself what that says, but it's really helpful to see data around what the experiences of food insecure households are when they have been. And then to speak to your question about how much people get every month, it varies wildly, but I shared a story with the House Human Rights Committee a few weeks ago, and I'll just briefly share it here. There's a community member who allowed me to share her story with the legislature because she's been a SNAP recipient for a long time. She's an adult who's living with disabilities. She recently, about a year ago, found out she also has brain cancer and cannot work even her time, which is what she was trying to work back to. Last year in 2024, she got $38 per month as a non working social security disability individual household. Part of that is because she receives other benefits. She lives in subsidized housing. She gets LIHEAP, right? All of those things impact how much you're eligible to receive each month. This year, because she moved and had other things changed, she receives just $24 a month. And during this month, she only had $12 to work with the first mutual month. So I think that is a really good example of how people are really spinning all the plates to make their life work together, and how hard it is to maintain adequate nutrition in a lot of situations for people. I'm going to skip ahead a little bit in my testimony. I just want to highlight for you a couple of more recent federal changes that this committee should be aware of. In the early fall, the USDA canceled the Household Food Security Report. That is the report that we have all relied on nationally for years to tell us how many people in our states are experiencing food insecurity based on a standardized set of questions from the USDA. They are no longer measuring that. We do not have a way to measure that in our state without the USDA. So we don't know. We don't have twenty twenty four's data, and we don't know for 2025 that study is not going to be done. I think that that is going to create a huge challenge for all of us who are working towards a Food Secure Vermont, because in many ways, we are at the end of the tail that the dog wags. When things change, the food bank sees those dramatic changes, but we don't always know why. We are subject to a lot of outside forces. This USDA study helped to provide some sort of real regularity and some trends that we could all count on to see if things were headed in the right direction, if policy choices that were being made were impacting health needs positively. So I share that to encourage you to consider what other ways the legislature in the state of Vermont may be able to create a data collection function that would help all of us better understand what is going on in our communities. And I would encourage you to talk to Doctor. Niles about it. She's actually our state expert in food security data collection, so maybe a good partner in there for food. The other, I was going to call it a highlight, it's a low light. The other update I have for you is the commodity supplemental food program, which we've talked to you about before. The Food Bank operates, it's a food box program for older adults. The eligibility was folks who make 130% of the federal poverty level. At the end of the Biden administration, they raised that to 150% of the federal poverty level. And then several months later, a few months into the Trump administration, the USDA reduced Vermont's caseload. So now more people are eligible, but we have a smaller allowance of food boxes each month that we are allowed to hand out. So the Food Bank has had to create a wait list for folks. The food box number went from about sixteen twenty four, so sixteen twenty four per month to fifteen twenty two per month, about 100 people. We had to really restrict who was able to receive those. We were operating in a space that was a little bit more flexible for folks. We know it's sometimes difficult for older adults to show up in the space where those boxes are delivered in or near their community each month at whatever time they show up. And we have now had to enact a requirement that when people miss two months in a row, they are no longer eligible for the program, and if they would like to reapply, are put on the waitlist. We have over 300 people on the waitlist at this point, and have asked the USDA for the next fiscal year when they adjust those numbers again to give an allowance to Vermont so we can add people back. What happens with this program is it essentially creates a downward spiral where our caseload shrinks and shrinks and shrinks. And we are hopeful that that is not what will happen. And our partner at Dale, who helps us manage this program, has requested an increase, and we'll see what happens with that. But right now, that's three hundred people who would have been

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: able to otherwise receive the food vaccine. What's in that food box? That way, the commodity?

[David Durfee (Chair)]: The commodity

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: box, yep. That's cheese.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Yep, full variety of food. Yep, cheese, often there's some kind of starch, rice or pasta, there's often chews, canned fruits, canned vegetables.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: Well, you realize we don't have an abundance of that stacked up anywhere in the country because we're just export made everywhere because no one's pissed off at food tariffs.

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: Excuse me, I I say

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: have a rant today. Sorry, chair there. I feel

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: like I often bring those on, sorry.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: I was gonna say something I won't, but I will let John say something.

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: I was just wondering, those are boxes with real food, right? Is there ever an option if we had budget for it to essentially buy a certain percentage? If we said to the federal government, you're giving us 1,000 of these boxes, can we buy two fifty more, 300 more if we had that many?

[Joanna Doran (NOFA-VT)]: That is a great question.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: I don't know that I've answered that question. Most USDA programs do not have a purchasing option when they commodities, but not that you're aware of, no, not that I'm aware of either, no.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: They've already stolen it from us, John.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: That I is

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: mean, they were giving it to people that need it.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: That food comes to us for free from the federal government. It is subject to their ordering processes. So it would be doing something like crop cash, right? Where there's a parallel state version of that program.

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: Right, yeah.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah, I'm all for solutions if you

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: want to put the money up for them.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: The last update I have, well, last two updates, I just want to give you a quick Vermonturs feeding Vermonturs update. We were recently able to work out all the kinks and sign our contract with the Etsy agency at Diet Food and Markets. Abby Willard was very helpful in that process. It was a new process for us, so it had a little bit of process to have worked out. We have requested reimbursement for 200,000 of that for purchases made over the summer. And all of those purchases, because the $500,000 was not enough to fund the program, all of those purchases are direct purchases that we as an organization make with large scale farms. It does not help to fund the grant program portion of that or the farm shared portion of that. And it was very helpful in providing critically, locally grown foods to food shelves over the summer. And I don't have the data collected on that yet, but I will soon hopefully have that information ready to share with you in January or February about the impact of that portion of it. We'll still be spending the rest when we show up in the winter. And I do want to preview for you that we will be here in January requesting a budget adjustment allocation for $1,500,000 for the rest of the Vermattress feeding Vermattress funding. We feel that having that funding available would have helped with the flexibility that John was talking about in that urgent moment. It would have, in combination with the other funding that we asked for that this committee supported last year for ready response money in emergencies, manufacturing emergencies, flood emergencies, drought emergencies, PIC emergency. Having that funding would have made food boxes available in many of our partners that could have been drawn on, and it would not have been a forty eight hour scramble to get dollars out as quickly as possible, we would have been prepared and ready for something to happen. So we'll be back to talk about all of that for FY27, but the urgent thing will be the budget adjustment request that will come to this committee first thing. Thank you so much for your time.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you, Carrie. And I think I was going to acknowledge the forty eight hour scramble. It sounds impressive how that was turned around with everybody's cooperation in a short time. Also wanted to acknowledge, we heard both from Food Bank and then from Sherry at the Farmers Market how Vermonters stepped in to help fill a gap with their own money. So that was something we hear, of course, all the time, but we should all be grateful for that too.

[Carrie Stahler (Vermont Foodbank)]: All right, thank you all.

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: Thank you.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Thanks.

[Oliver Pearson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Well,

[David Durfee (Chair)]: in the few remaining minutes we have, since we are the Agriculture, Food, and Forestry Committee, Dana Turan has joined us remotely with the professional logging contractors. And Dana, I don't know how much you wanted to share with us. And we also have FPRs here for your presentation. I'm gonna let you kick it off, Dana.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Okay. Sounds good. And and representative Durfee, and it's good to see all of you. It's been a long time. I just wanna be respectful of your time. I know you were scheduled until four. You're obviously twenty five minutes behind schedule, and I I I guess I also wanna take your temperature. I know there was a request to talk about, the impact of the big beautiful bill, to talk about drought, federal policy, markets. So maybe just if you can, just let me know. Do you want me to go through all of those, or do you want me to be a little bit more surgical at this point in the interest of time?

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. I think maybe being surgical and recognizing that we'll it will be just a wink of an eye before we're back in January. But anything that you think we ought to be thinking about between now and then. And if you have got information you want to share with us to read also, first we can do that.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Okay, that sounds good. Well, will skip over the big beautiful bill. I can provide the committee with just a summary of how it benefits the logging community and let you read that. And that's probably time well spent rather than belaboring that at this point. But again, representative Durfee, ranking member Morgan, members of the House Committee on Ag Food Resiliency and Forestry. I'm Dana Duran, executive director of the professional logging contractors of the northeast. We're a membership nonprofit that represents timber harvesting and hauling companies in the state of Vermont. So why don't I just focus on, I know you wanted to know about the drought and how it it has impacted contractors. Contractors. I'll I'll focus focus on on what's happening with markets, currently the impact of tariffs, and then, I'll just go to one outstanding carryover bill that we still, need vitally and and really just try to to summarize all of this. So first, let me talk about the drought. So you would think that drought would have been the greatest thing since sliced bread with respect to the logging community. Unfortunately, if we had markets to sell wood, it would have been. No pun intended there. But unfortunately, because of the situation with markets, while it has been a very dry summer and fall, and there's a drought throughout the Northeast, Logging contractors, especially this summer and fall, stayed out of the woods unless they absolutely had to because of the situation of markets and did other things. We know that because the slow camp program, which I know you'll hear from Oliver Pearson probably regarding that program that was provided from funding from this committee back in 2024 to help with help logging contractors with compliance with AMPs in the state of Vermont. That grant program kicked off at the July. We would have thought it would have been an exceptional opportunity for logging contractors to take advantage of. The uptake was slow just because of the number of contractors that were actually taking advantage.

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: We

[David Durfee (Chair)]: muted you by mistake, Dana, go ahead.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Okay, no problem. So that program has now moved forward and there are a lot of contractors who are starting to take advantage of it as we head into winter, but the the drought situation, albeit it would have been helpful, was not because of the situation with markets. So let me turn to what's happening with markets and why. Low grade markets are probably in the Northeast, and especially for Vermont, are probably as bad as they have ever been in the last hundred and twenty five years. The international paper facility in Ticonderoga, stopped purchasing wood, around November 1, and they are not taking much, if any, of low grade pulpwood. Finch paper is is doing the exact same thing. Domtar in Quebec announced to Vermont contractors last week that they would take no low grade pulpwood into the Domtar facility. Nine Dragons in Rumford, Maine only has one of three chip plants operating and is taking no long distance wood. Sappi is basically not taking any wood except from one fiber supply agreement with Weyerhaeuser on their land base in Maine, and the Woodland Pulp facility in Far Eastern Maine announced last week they were shutting down pulp operations for thirty days, and they were not buying wood for sixty days. So that's on the low grade side of the house. The sawlog market, yes, things are still moving, but moving very slowly. Interest rates, and I talked to this committee about interest rates back in the wintertime, are still impeding building construction, renovation projects, And so while some sawmills are operating, they are not operating at full capacity, nor are they buying at full capacity. Most are operating on one shift because they just can't saw and sell enough wood. Know, that why is this happening? And and before I get into that, I'll also mention if the True Temper mill in Southern Vermont actually closed its doors, and that was a major purchaser of ash. So you're still seeing markets that are going away in Vermont as well. So why is this happening? It's happening for a multitude of reasons. That global retraction that we saw started back in 2023 has continued, but tariffs have exemplified that. The pulp markets are effectively taking a hiatus right now because they can't sell their product and won't sell their product for a loss. And they can sell it domestically, but those mills have excess capacity and don't just sell, domestically. There's no pulp and paper facility in the Northeast that sells only domestically. They export somewhere between 25 to 50% of whatever they create. So that is impeding what they are doing. So that effect is real and it's now hitting home. Also with respect to tariffs, there's now a 20% tariff on all imported logging equipment. There are many contractors in Vermont who use cut to length equipment. I know chair Durfee were able to go to our harvest tour in in October. That was not a cut to length operation, but there are many contractors who use cut to length equipment, and they will not purchase new equipment. Also, parts that come in from foreign countries are also a 20% tariff right now. So you can see why we go back to that drought situation. Contractors are just not taking the risk. They're not reinvesting. They're not running. Many of you know Sam Lincoln. Sam, right now has pulled out of the woods because he can't sell, pulpwood and is now looking at trying to diversify into into earthwork, over the wintertime just to sustain his business, and that's just one small example of of what's happening out there. So that's the reality of what's happening with markets, how things have transcended with with the drought, and as we look into winter, I will tell you that wintertime, as as all of you know, is is go time when it comes to timber harvesting contractors when the ground freezes. And going into this winter in this situation with what is happening with mills is not a positive situation. There are many contractors in Vermont who are have stopped operations, may not restart this winter, and we don't know how long this is going to last. But this is not a good situation to be in because, again, winter is when you really can try to maximize your wood operations because you minimize your environmental impact. Lastly, I'll just mention, you know, we had two bills last year having to do with a truck and trailer tax exemption wasn't germane to this committee. One bill moved through the Senate and over to the House Transportation Committee. One bill is still on the wall on House Ways and Means, and that would be to provide a tax exemption for purchase and use and the sales and use taxes on new new and used trucks, but also parts. And I I can tell you right now that that exemption is absolutely needed because I don't like to say the sky is falling, but the sky is falling right now when it comes to timber harvesting in the markets in the Northeast. So why don't I just stop there? Because I've certainly probably given you enough to be dangerous at this point.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Thanks, Kate. Any questions? Okay.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah, I'm curious to know how the local sawmills are faring for what price they're fetching

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: in particular.

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Yeah, mean, again, I don't represent the local sawmills, but I will tell you that wood deliveries have been are slow because they just don't want the wood. They can't move the product and their pricing, depending what commodity they are making has been depressed. That while they're trying to continue, it's it's at a very reduced rate. And I did mention that TrueTemper facility that that bought white ash. I mean, they closed their doors. TrueTemper, you know, was a major mill along with alloyed lumber. Alloyed lumber is still continuing for white ash, but TrueTemper bought a lot of it to make axe handles, PV handles, anything that required white ash in physical tool, shovels. If you bought those at true value, that was a TrueTemper product And they've stopped manufacturing those handles in the state of Vermont.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, I did reach out to the Forest Products Association to ask if they wanted to come in, and they weren't able to. So we'll have to check-in with them in January. One question.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: Dana, what's your forecast on the higher value timber? The good pine, the good hardwood stuff. Is there gonna be any market for that stuff or I realize that's a small percentage of what someone harvests when they go into a log job. I just wonder if that market is still viable out there or is that?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: Yeah. It's a good it's a great question, representative Nelson. You know, are those markets still viable as long as they can kinda curb their operations? If if they can go to a single shift, if they can produce and sell locally, lowering their transportation costs, there there is the opportunity that they will continue. I think it depends upon how much wood they're flooded by. You know, we we can't do good forestry and good silviculture by literally just taking the high grade. Know you've got to have an opportunity to sell that low grade and you just kind of alluded to it and simple percentages in any harvest you have about 60% low grade, that's pulpwood or biomass, and 40% is your high grade. If you just turn completely to high grade markets, you're not doing good forestry, you're not doing good good sipiculture, and you're certainly not helping the landowners out in the long run. So I think it will trickle along my long range forecast. It really depends on what happens with interest rates. The Fed certainly did adjust them in October, but it doesn't look like they're going to. We may be headed towards a stagflation situation because of tariffs, and that doesn't bode well for what the Fed's going to do on interest rates. So it's really I don't have a crystal ball. I can't tell you that housing starts are going to go up in the next six months or a year. I doubt it based upon what we're seeing now. I think mills are going to plot along, and I think landowners are going to probably take a little bit of a bath if they expect they're going get a return on their investment with just selling sawlogs right now.

[Leland Morgan (Ranking Member)]: Dana, you didn't get too much into tariffs, but is it similar to what we heard at the end of last session where it was more the uncertainty than the actual teeth of the tariffs that was causing all sorts of problems?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: The teeth of the tariffs are having an impact right now, Representative The pulp and paper facilities that do export are not that's why you're seeing them all kind of go into that kind of hibernation mode right now. They can't they won't sell their product at a loss. And with the retaliatory tariffs that are happening, they just they will not sell that product, and so it's not moving. So we're seeing that right now. And as I mentioned on equipment, you know any logging equipment. There's a lot of logging equipment that comes into The United States from Canada, from Scandinavian countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland. You know, all John Deere, surprisingly enough, all John Deere cut to length equipment, while Deere is a US based company, that is actually manufactured in Sweden, and it comes through the Port Of Montreal and all that equipment is at a 20% tariff right now and parts are at a 20% tariff. And so you've got equipment dealers that aren't moving equipment. So this is having tangential impacts all the way down the supply chain.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: Dana, are any of those manufacturers, Deere or others thinking of or have started retooling so that they might have domestic or domestic capacity?

[Dana Duran (Executive Director, Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast)]: It's a great question, Representative Durfee. You know, not unless there's certainty on the marketplace. If, you know, contractors are not going to use the equipment, if they don't know if they can sell the wood, you're not going to see those manufacturers basically move that operation to The United States without a major incentive from whether it's the state based government or from the federal government to do so. So I think the, you know, the the jury is out on on whether or not that's gonna happen or not.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: We will look online for your full testimony of that data. Thank you. So you mentioned it. You went through a list of things at the beginning that we didn't get to cover. So just ask the committee to make sure that you look at that. And then we'll check back in January to hear more. And then maybe we'll ask Oliver to come up and wrap things up for us. You're to need a stretch? I I think I'm gonna not even allow that. Yeah. Because if if we stand up, we might not sit down for a while and then so but thanks for being patient with the timing here, and thanks for coming in. You know that we're already a little bit late. Yeah,

[Oliver Pearson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: I'll be brief. I only have four slides, so I'll take this quickly. Oliver Pearson, the director of forests, then the Department of Forest Products and Recreation, great to see everyone. Look forward to working closely with you in the upcoming session. Looking at your agenda, you've had a long day, so I'll get right to the point. So yeah, I'll speak to some similar things that Dana spoke about, but speak to some different points as well, so I can get my slide to advance here. So more on the federal side, I'll start with that. So federal issues, we have a real change, as everyone is aware, in approach and policy and funding. So the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation works very closely with the USDA Forest Service, and about a third of our budget is from federal sources, largely the US Forest Service. Since the inauguration, it's just been a very different environment in DC. So what does that mean? Earlier this year, there was some doubt that the Forest Service would make appropriated federal fiscal year twenty five funds available to states, that this '25 was CR, continuing resolution, and the Forest Service was able to not always follow the congressional intent. But at the end of the day, through a lot of advocacy work, most of the funding that was intended to go to states through the Division of State, Private, and Tribal Forestry and the Forest Service was awarded. Some of it was reduced as they paid for all the involuntary departures from the federal service and all the leave costs associated with that. But we didn't get most of our awards. There was one key award that supports the implementation of the state's forest action plan and funds three staff members that we don't have yet. Before the shutdown, was told we'd get that before the end of the calendar year, which probably means we'll get it by the February year. So not the end of the year. We think we can carry those costs until that award is hopefully executed. For '26, funding is really up in the air. So the president's budget zeroed out US Forest Service support to states, which is a real change of about forty years of how the Forest Service had operated in states, working in partnership with states through the cooperative for under the Cooperative Forestry Act and through the state private and tribal forestry partner of the Forest Service. That didn't get very far in in congress. Really states nationwide and lobby representatives and senators from both sides of the aisle, and the funding to states was reinstated at federal fiscal 24 levels prior to the shutdown in committee. The continuing resolution that was passed does envision that funding to states would continue at federal fiscal 24 levels, so that's good. So we're anticipating that we'll receive a similar amount of funding that we've had in '25, but we have to watch that very carefully. And then what the administration does with those funds, even if they are appropriated, is anyone's guess. They showed with the '25 funds that they were able to move things around and see what balance Congress puts on them where it doesn't. Other federal funding we're anticipating is just delayed, where we have an award we might receive from the Northern Borders Regional Commission to support some more urban and community forestry work. We'll see what happens with that. And then the state of Vermont will be receiving, and you may already be aware of this on this committee, dollars 31,000,000 from US Department of Agriculture to support disaster recovery from

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: 'twenty three and 'twenty four

[Oliver Pearson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: disasters, largely oriented toward farmers, but some for the forest sector as well.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: So that was going to be

[Oliver Pearson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: signed in October prior to the shutdown, and USDA just reached out yesterday through the Farm Service Agency to pick up the thread on that, hopefully get that award signed. So that'll be a big boom, again, mostly for farmers, but also for forestry producers and forest landowners to help recover from this from the damage from those twenty three and twenty four floods. On the policy side, I think that there's been a real focus on increased production from federal lands. You may have heard about an executive order ramping up production on forest lands by 25%. Thinking about what Dana said about markets, where does all that go, how is it gonna be processed, sold, etcetera, is a pretty open question. But what we've been focused on is the Fix Our Forest Act, which is bipartisan legislation to speed up how forests are managed at the federal level, was voted out of committee and Senator Welch ended up supporting that bill, which was the National Association of State Foresters, including NPR, supported. So that's a positive step. Not so positive, the USDA is reorganizing, and other than the Green Mountain National Forest and other national forests would pull all Forest Service staff out of the Northeast. Currently, there's Forest Service staff at three regional offices that work really closely with states. They would all be moved to one of five USDA hubs, which are really across the central band of The US, none in the Northeast, or to Georgia. We have some concerns about that type of consolidation because we really benefit from having Forest Service colleagues as opposed to New Hampshire, we work closely with on things like Forest Stewardship, Forest Health, etcetera. So we formally expressed our concerns about that consolidation. And then really interestingly, there's forest service, there's legislation that allows forest service to partner with states to manage federal lands called Good Neighbor Authority. And the current chief of the forest really wants to ramp that up and is asking states directly to take on management of parts of federal lands. And some states are doing that already, mostly out west, like Idaho and Montana. So the Green Mountain National Forest has approached Vermont Forest Parks and Rec with the possibility of our staff taking out timber sales on federal lands, which we haven't done before. That'd be a real change. I think that's largely been done because the current vision of the chief is that the states should take a greater role in managing federal lands and they've also lost a lot of staff. I think it's pragmatic as well. We don't have the capacity to do that today, so it's not something that we'll do easily. Just moving on into some quick thoughts on markets. I will spend a lot of time on this because Dana really covered this very well. I knew Dana was coming to come, sorry, didn't focus too much on the low grade side because Dana's the expert there. Some of what we're hearing from the actors in the forced economy that we're working with is that a lot of experts, some of what you're asking are representative Nelson, had been really slow because of trade wars and tariffs, but they have picked up a bit lately. Some of the wood that used to go to China, it's going to Vietnam as a workaround, but Vietnam has limited milling capacity and it's hard to set up new mills quickly, so they're only interested in a few kind of hot species, ash, some of the hard maple, oak. And then we've really lost direct access to the Chinese market. We used to send a lot of hardwoods and there's some concern about the outlay of the tariffs. Exports to Europe are slow. Europe overbought in advance of potential tariffs. There's not a lot of demand there. And then sort of the last point on this slide, steel and aluminum import tariffs have impacted all levels of the supply chain, increasing costs and reducing availability for parts and equipment. That really echoes what Dana said.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: They're logs from New Zealand and Chile all the way into The US. How can they do that and compete against our domestic qualifier?

[Oliver Pearson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Are certain parts of the country where it's more cost effective, believe it or not, to load up containers from the Southern Hemisphere and get them into port to move the wood across from, say, the Southeast where there's a lot of industrial pine that's available across the country to the West. There are buyers who are trying to get more cost effective to import certain species of pine from New Zealand and Chile as opposed to getting it from The US. There's also limited supply The US to meet certain types of demand. So this species, which used to come up from Brazil because Brazil has such a high tariff rate, isn't cost effective there, has been replaced by imports from from some pretty far distances.

[David Durfee (Chair)]: So so the point here is that we we have a a tariff on imports from Brazil that was perhaps intended to help our domestic market. And and and, in fact, unexpectedly or maybe could have been foreseen. Instead, another country Other import subsidies. Doesn't have a tariff the way that Brazil we haven't applied the tariff on imports of Chile or New Zealand.

[Oliver Pearson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks and Recreation)]: Yeah. The tariffs on Brazil are much higher, so the market has found workarounds. I think there's probably been some increase in supply from US buying sources, but there's also been increases in imports from other parts of the world that don't have such high tariffs. The point is, there's workarounds and that's not leading to the surge in domestic demand or processing that I think the Trump administration had envisioned might be a result of tariffs. Very briefly, first point is that the housing market in Canada is taking a real plummet. That was source of demand for wood, but there isn't a lot of new construction going right now because the existing inventories and selling and costs have almost been cut in half from right after the pandemic for square footage of completed real estate. And we're seeing that in markets like Toronto and Montreal, where there were some exports of wood in the past. And then The US domestic market, I think Dana's correct that the tariffs are starting to bite, but the uncertainty is also still a huge issue. We have less demand for our timber overseas. Our mills are therefore downsizing, reducing production. They probably did that to keep prices up, limit supply and you hopefully aren't taking as much of the back on the sale price because domestic demand has not really increased in the way I think the Trump administration hoped it would get. There are some species of hardware that are still moving, but buyers remain picky. Relatively low price of lumber plus increasing cost of production, electricity, healthcare is a real challenge. And there is a potential of shortage driven price increase, particularly as some of these tariff situations dissipate, but production levels are lower right now, so some mills will struggle to respond to an increase. As Dana pointed out, a number of mills have either closed or cut off, accepting certain types of wood, low grade in particular. So even if there is a spike in demand due to a sudden shortage, it might not lead to increased production of mills quickly. So big picture takeaway, what we're seeing is the uncertainty created by the federal picture is still a huge issue. There's been some workarounds found, but it's, as Dana mentioned, it's still causing a lot of difficulty for the market. My last slide, to mention a few other things, sort of a teaser for what's some of the work we've been doing or what's coming up in the session. FPR is working on some reforms to the forest fire and the fire prevention statute that can really consolidate authorities for fire suppression under fire chiefs and fire departments and sort of take that in some situations, rather, away from the fire wardens who are very effective in issuing permits to kindle fires that don't have this oppression experience or equipment. So that's something that will be bringing to this committee and legislature in the upcoming session. And we hope to also work with this committee on some of the recommendations coming out of wood products permitting before. Dana mentioned some of the effects of the drought on the industry. What we saw from the drought was a very busy fire season. There were over 80 fires that were the wildland fires that sprung up. We responded to over 15 and for the first time in Vermont and Williston at Brown Oak Mountain used a helicopter that was based in New Hampshire to support fire suppression and initial attack. You may have seen that, some use coverage of that and it's a pretty effective way to kind of contain a fire that was on a very steep slope with high wind and some infrastructure nearby. The job really stretched our capacity, so we're looking at how to get more individuals who are trained to respond to wildland fire certified and on call and on premon. That's both the folks that go out and do the actual work as well as bosses, SWAT bosses who can oversee their work. And there's a couple of things that we've been working on. One thing that Dan didn't mention but alluded to, with the high cost of finance for interest rates still being high, the high cost of finance for logging equipment, we have used half $1,000,000 of clean water money to partner with Vermont Economic Development Authority to allow for interest rates to drop down to 2% or 2.5% for eligible logging equipment that has a positive impact on clean water. So that'll be equipment with flotation wheels, that'll be equipment that reduces the number of trips, equipment on tracks, forwarders, cut the length harvesters with a processor ahead. So that's up and running. We actually just signed that with Vita last week and they have their first We approved the first loan application yesterday. So that's going to make it easier for industry to obtain low impact logging equipment at an interest rate that's affordable. We continue to implement the supporting loggers to comply with the A and P programs. As Dana mentioned, there was a slow start to that. But of the 700,000 or so that's available to support practices, bed loggers, I think we're getting close to receiving application for somewhere between 300 and $400,000 of that. That's moving on well. It's a pilot. We'll have a report to committee by December 15. Thank you for the extension on that. And we'll look at what are the possibilities are to continue that pilot into the next year. Just real briefly, we're working on, for those that are involved in current use, we're working on updating the standards that guide forest management on the current use. And our online portal for current use document submission will be up and running no later than April 1. We have a planner. You've heard us come in here and say that only thirty one third of our state lands have actual active long range management plans. We brought on board a second planner. Well, we really have our first focused planner that she is working on four different plans right now. So we're trying to increase the pace of forests and management units that have complete plans. I understood there was some interest in this committee about our woodworms initiatives. So wanted to detail on that, but maybe I'll save that chair for a future date. But suffice to say, we're really committed to getting wood from State Lands timber sales and then offering that free of charge to wood banks, make it available to protect wood free of cost to low income providers. And then we're going to engage in rulemaking on our updating our primitive camping rule, opening that to both ICAR and initiative. So stop there, happy to take any questions. You

[David Durfee (Chair)]: crammed a lot into a short time. I think we can when you're back when we're back in January, we can have you in to tell us more about woodworms for among other things. But, yeah, that

[Zev Wirtz (Owner, Georgia Market)]: that's something we can Appreciate

[David Durfee (Chair)]: all of that. A lot to think about. And if we've got questions, we can reach out to you all in the meantime and then get an update again when we're back in January. But if any any questions while we're all still here? I wanna thank the committee for dropping what you were doing in your daily lives and making time to come in. I think it's been helpful. And before you all leave, the Farm Bureau left some handouts here. And I think there's three of them, so I will pass them around this way.

[Richard Nelson (Member)]: How do we fill out a contemplation?

[David Durfee (Chair)]: I will try and answer that.

[John Sales (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: What do you mean compensation?

[David Durfee (Chair)]: I think we're all set.