Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Okay. I guess we can have you kick things off the job.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Great. Thank you. Thank you, committee, for having me today. My name is John Sales. I'm the CEO of the Vermont Food Bank, and I live right here in Montpelier.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Oh. Thank you. Thank you for joining. Yes. Pleasure to be here. So we're here to hear a little bit more about Vermont proceeding monitors in the context of the budget adjustment.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Thank you. So my understanding is, well, here's what I know, that the Food Bank last year, as we talked about in a hearing a few days ago, was appropriated $500,000 for a new grant program out of the agency of agriculture, Vermonters Feeding Vermonters. That was a program that the Vermont Food Bank had been operating independently, and is now in state statute and was funded with one time money at half $1,000,000. Between July 1 and August 6, the food bank was able to spend that $500,000 and has also used some of our philanthropic dollars, which we will consistently to continue the program. I think in 2023, we spent about 1,800,000 Vermonters in feeding Vermonters program. This year it's about 1,200,000.0 including that $500,000 We have the capacity to do much more. That's one of the reasons that we're here. We do have an operational plan to be able, as the food bank, to spend an additional $1,500,000 in grant money through VFE through the end of this fiscal year. So we're confident that we'd be able to get that money out by June 30 to farmers across the state. Of the challenges, and we do have a few farmers in committee, is the state when you're contracting with farmers, forward contracting to purchase crops, the state fiscal year isn't a good match, because farmers are planning their next year plantings January, February. And this is the time of year when we're talking to farmers and writing contracts. And so having a larger amount will give us, if we can get on a permanent cycle of being base budget, give us the ability to have the confidence to make those, to enter into those contracts during this time of year to be able to fulfill them throughout the summer and the harvest season. So this year, we would request respectfully that the committee include any communication to the House Appropriations Committee, a request for the additional $1,500,000 The original request by this committee in your budget memo last year was $2,000,000 for Vermonters feeding Vermonters. We're very grateful to have gotten the $500,000 and have been able to deploy that, And we'd like to do more. I just listened to the governor's budget address and obviously had been talking to members of the appropriations committee, the House Appropriations Committee. And the message is clearly that there's a lot of variables, lot of unknowns, and there's gonna be a lot of competition for scarce dollars. I think to the extent that there are challenges coming up in Vermont, I would just, I guess, kind of obviously make the case that making sure that people are fed and that our Vermont farmers and growers you know, have some steady income and some support from the state should be a very high priority. Just quickly, as we've gone through this before, the Vermonters feeding Vermonters program really has three main components. One is large scale direct purchasing, which I was mentioning. There were 17 farms that we purchased from with that $500,000 Mostly larger farms because that kind of made sense to spend that smaller amount of money in larger contracts and to be able to track that. We also do grants to our food shelf and meal site partners so that they can contract directly with smaller farms in their regions. For instance, a food shelf may buy half a dozen CSA shares from a local farm. It wouldn't make sense for the food bank to roll a truck or have that farm deliver that amount of food and then redistribute it. And so it makes a lot more sense. It's more cost efficient to have those direct relationships. And that lets us distribute the money more equitably throughout the state because there are parts of the state where we don't have those large farms that we can partner with. I think about the Rutland area where we work with a lot of smaller farms through the grant program. And then finally, the culturally responsive foods, making sure that our Afghan population and some of our folks from the African areas, mostly in the Burlington area, that we do contracts with local farms that grow the kinds of crops that those communities prefer. And so making sure that kind of everybody is getting what they want and need through our programs. Again, want to make sure we're equitably serving the whole state. The full $2,000,000 budget will support 200 to 300 farms throughout Vermont. I don't know what's in the governor's budget. I'm sure the budget's released now, but people haven't had a chance to look at it. It's possible. We've had conversations with the administration about there being money in the budget for Vermonters feeding Vermonters. So I'd be pleasantly surprised, but not shocked if we do get some money in there. But I'd love to the bar high and have a greater impact, throughout the state for this budget here. Be happy to answer any questions. Representative Nelson. Oh,

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: what is your total budget?

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: So the operating budget for the food bank is about $20,000,000. Our full budget, including the value of donated food is about $35,000,000.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Oh, 35,000,000? Yeah. And I was a state chairman, that's unlimited, previous life. And we always said we'd put 85% of our money into the mud. And I did a little Google check. You seem to run very

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: efficient. We do, and food banks do in general. If we were just purchasing food and distributing it, our financials will look different. But we're leveraging a lot of donated food, both from Vermont farms. A lot of the farms that we purchase from also donate to the food bank. And then distributors and manufacturers around Vermont and then nationally. And that doesn't include the two federal programs we run. So it really is that being able to leverage donated food.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: So are you running it

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: does it cost the organization about 15% of your 35,000,000 to operate? Or that's what it that's what I deducted when I looked at it.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yep. I think that sounds about right.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: That's a

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: that's a worthy cause. Thank you. And so I brought this forward so we could talk about it and so people understood that this isn't going to pay peoples.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: And I'll I'll I'll I will add that we did grow tremendously during COVID like a lot of nonprofits did. And in the last six months, we did a restructuring and went actually from, we were at about 85 FTEs down to 75 and eliminated a couple of programs. Because we could see that with all the money that was flowing through both philanthropic dollars and federal dollars to the state that the food bank was able to utilize to make some progress, that it just wasn't sustainable in long term. So we've kind of refocused on our core work and try to realign to I don't like to live within our means because means is a variable concept, but to make sure that we're able to continue adding value we need to in the community.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Representative O'Brien and then for Representative Bob. Thank you, Chair. John, can

[Rep. John O’Brien]: you expand on just how your menu works? Because we've been to your warehouses. With this Vermonters family, Vermonters, do you look at what you have on hand and you say, we're coming in the next year and you're like, we could really use protein or we could really use apples. How does that work with, because you're getting a certain amount from federal programs, you're getting a certain amount from donations, the Hannafords of the world. So how do you just sit down and you say, well, Burtt's Orchard's got apples, they're a willing partner with us, we get a good

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: price, everybody's happy. How does that all work? Yeah, so we we use a lot of the Vermonters feeding Vermonters produce. Actually, it's split about fifty-fifty, about half of it goes to our veggie van go produce distributions, which happen all over the state. And about half of it goes to food shelves through distribution. So just from historical knowledge from past years, we have an idea of how much we can move. And so we know generally how much we're gonna be able to move through veggie van Goghs in a year. And also what can our partners handle? Because there's a lot of variation in capabilities. Literally some food shelves are a little room in the church basement, and then some of them are like the Upper Valley Haven or feeding Champlain Valley, where they have warehouses and freezers and coolers and trucks. And so at this time of year, we're looking, we're actually looking at our budget for Vermonters feeding Vermonters and saying, okay, here's what we have. Here's what we know we need. We wanna spread it around because we wanna have a variety of vegetables and fruits. And we've been doing a lot less protein. We really ramped up our protein purchases during COVID because we had the resources. And the folks that are producing protein, the beef and poultry and to some extent, dairy and eggs also needed that support. And so we ended up buying a lot of protein. We've really scaled that back because it is so much more expensive. And we want to make sure we're getting the most value for the dollars. The one thing that we've really consistently purchased was eggs. It's more shelf stable and people love eggs. And we got a great Vermont producer in Maple Meadow Farms where we buy most of our eggs. So it really is a kind of a forecast based on demand and available budget. For instance, if we had $2,000,000 in base budget this time of year, we would be planning for being able to spend that money within this fiscal year.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Okay, I

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: have two questions. So the first one is, I know you try and be as efficient as possible and you get some donations and you make some purchases. I was just wondering, I recall in the past hearing about some very intensive gleaning operations in my part of the county, but I don't know in in Windham County, but I don't know organizationally. Is that part of your process that you contact farmers and are able to glean things that they aren't going to utilize squash that are the wrong size and that kind of thing in terms of trying to increase the volume of produce that you have to distribute?

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: So great question. For many years, the Food Bank did have a gleaning program. And the Food Bank itself was actively coordinating gleaning in Windham County area, Harlow Farm, H1. And then in Chittenden County. So that was one of the areas of work that we decided to stop doing when we did our restructuring. But we did that very thoughtfully because we were able to hand over all that work to other nonprofits that were already doing that. So for instance, in Windham County, all the gleaning operations are now being run by Willing Hands, which is a well kind of an Upper Valley, but they've been growing and spreading out and they have the capacity and the skill set to do that. In Chittenden County, we've handed it over actually to Feeding Chittenden, to Feeding Champlain Valley. And the Intervale has always been a partner. And then in other parts of the state, there were already other groups that were taking care of the cleaning.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: But none of that food comes to you, then that gets to people through other channels?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: That to

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: our same partners that we work with, but directly from those other nonprofits. So the food isn't being left in the field. It's still getting captured. We're just not touching it.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Got it. The other question I have actually springs from a conversation we had here last week. There were some questions among our committee just in terms of the idea with Vermonters feeding Vermonters, as we understand it, is that there's no kind of assessment or requirement that you need to fill out. You go, access the food from the food shelves. Could you speak a little bit about that? Because there was some concern that people might like, how could you prohibit people from taking advantage of that if they didn't have a need and then utilizing these resources that are supposed to be for people who have

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Right, a

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: so unsurprisingly is a question I get a lot. The way in a kind of a big picture, the way we look at it at the food bank is, even if it were, it's kind of the eightytwenty rule, right? Although I think with food security, I think it's more like the 90 fivefive rule. If folks have been to a food shelf or a food distribution, It's frankly not the kind of thing that people go to if they don't need it or have the feeling that they need it. And sometimes I think there's can be gray areas. I've talked to folks who had relatives that went to veggie van Goghs. Those are really their drive through events. There are no questions asked. Some of our food shop partners do have they don't have requirements for income, but sometimes it's you have to live in, you have to show proof that you live in these certain towns, that they only serve those towns. So there are folks who I think maybe feel they need it and somebody else could look at their situation and say, I don't understand why you feel you

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: need this.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: But from my perspective, that's such a low percentage of what we do that it's kind of the, that's okay. And the trade off is that more people who really do need it will show up because there's such low barriers. I think a good example is universal school meals, where pointing to a Noor Horton in Hunger Free Vermont who really were instrumental in having universal school meals in Vermont. And we knew and know that there were a lot of kids who were eligible, but because of stigma weren't utilizing those school meals. And when you make them universal, the governor has made the arguments, I don't think that taxpayers should be paying for meals for kids whose parents can afford it. But we do that to make sure that we're getting all of the kids that really do need it. And I think I'll make the argument and more can scowl at me if I'm wrong. But I think even a lot of those kids whose families maybe could afford that maybe are eating better food, getting fed at school, where you have nutritionists and the cooks preparing delicious fresh local food. A lot of that is from our farms too.

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: What I

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: like about what you do and this organization does is you're bringing real food to people. It's not processed and it's not hydrogenated seed oils and potato chips and candy bars, soda pop. It's real foods. And that's the value. And then a lot of these dollars are recirculated back through our farming economy. So that has great value. And and, yeah, $95.10, $90.10, it's like that with everything, John. It's like that with everything. You know? 10% of the people or 5% of the people, as you're thinking, just can't do it right. It just and and maybe perhaps and maybe the instance you're talking about, maybe I know about, because maybe I've heard about it, is maybe they, you know, are elderly and maybe, you know, they've come from a time when they did run out of food going up. May see an opportunity to get food, good food.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: So I will, with the Vermonters feeding Vermonters, it is all fresh local, very high quality food. The food bank does get a lot of donations from the grocery industry and we get what's called salvage. So we do get a little bit of that processed food, but it's actually not a huge percentage of the amount of food we distribute. And we don't do soda. We don't source it at all anymore. In fact, we used to have it in our warehouses because the Pepsi bottler would, when they had extra stuff going close to code, they would bring it to us and they stopped bringing it to us. So we don't really have that anymore at all. I watched a program last night about the movement and the changes in the food pyramid. There were some nutrition experts and folks that work in SNAP. And I agree with them that I love the new focus on whole foods, fresh foods, and making sure that those are available to more people. There can be challenges, right? You have to be able to cook, not with an apple, luckily an apple you can just eat. But a lot of fresher foods you need to be able to have the facilities to cook you know have the right foods that your kids are going to eat. That more available makes that easier to have.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We just

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: lost our screen.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Oh, there we go.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: This

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: one's blinking. No. It's breaking down here. Oh, okay.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: People were complaining in the cafeteria about the live fire over there.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: I think a lot of people in the building. What she said.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: We're good, we're live and we got a white light.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Let's keep going then. Representative Burtt.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thanks John.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: One of the farmers that gets a good state

[Unidentified Committee Member]: in the Vermont community

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: and we're definitely grateful for it. We've also had this year, were able to donate quite a bit to Glean, I mean, Central Vermont Harvest.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yes, yep, Allison does a great job.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: The King

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: got thousands of pounds of athletes with a whole crew of volunteers, And I think I was talking to Michelle and others the other day about that, wanting to make sure obviously that the wrong tax dollars are being utilized as best they can. I know you run a great program that just try to do

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the best you can with our tax dollars. I

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: think that part of where I was coming from in this discussion was not so much a concern about who might be coming to get the food in terms of within our state, but it's the more I'm here and learning the different hoops that we jump through at the state. If a state like New Hampshire decides they're not gonna find

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: their food bank like Vermont does,

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: and Vermont becomes, if

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: I were in New Hampshire, that's the case, I'd start to look

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: at Vermont, say there are more opportunities for me to be there and live affordably and live within my needs. So that's where, that's really not, that's not in your purview, but it's a challenge, think. It'd be nice if all the states came together and said, This is how we're gonna

[Unidentified Committee Member]: take care of people,

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: so that we're not fighting each other, right? And somebody's gonna be taking advantage that's actually more generous. That's a tragedy. So that was part of the discussion I was having. Looked like it It's just concerning, and maybe you some information on it. Maybe you can reassure taxpayers that we're not being taken advantage of. That's kind of what I'm looking for.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah, actually, we do have some knowledge about that. So we work very closely with the New Hampshire Food Bank. And as we do with food banks across the network. But Western Mass, which is based in Springfield and serves that part of the state that's on the border, the New Hampshire Food Bank, and to some extent in New York, but very small in way from the regional food bank, And in Maine too, where they've got a great food bank. And so Northern New England really works together very closely. We know that there's some border crossover. We actually help serve the Keene food shelf because it's more convenient from our Brattleboro location than from the New Hampshire food banks warehouse in Manchester. We don't send Vermonters feeding Vermonters over there. We distribute that. But we know that there are, particularly for like the Upper Valley Haven and some locations, some of our food shelves in Brattleboro are in the Brattleboro area. Frankly, Bellows Falls is right over the bridge. There is some cross border stuff. We actually have a federal agreement for the TFAP program, which is the Emergency Food Assistance Program. And there's restrictions on if food comes to Vermont, only Vermont citizens are supposed to be accessing that. So we have agreements with the Western Mass Food Bank and the New Hampshire Food Bank to allow both sides. And that's really the point is it happens both ways. So we have Vermonters going over to the food shelves in New Hampshire also, and to some extent down in Massachusetts. So I think to the extent it happens, I don't think it's a large amount. And I think it's kind of a wash with people going both ways.

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: Appreciate that.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you, John. Do you see anything from the commodity credit

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: group, you know, the federal group, like

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: milk where we went up 4% in production last year and milk prices crashing, and I heard they're starting to buy butter and cheese. Is that does that come back through you folks?

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Yeah, absolutely. The the TFAP program that I just mentioned actually started with the great cheese giveaway many, many years ago.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: More Give away more. Yeah.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: So when USDA goes out and purchases bulk commodities to stabilize prices, food banks are, and the TFAP program is the outlet for that product. So there is a I think it's 250,000 is the TFAP authorized spend in the budget. I'm looking at Carrie Staler. For Vermont? No, for nationally. $250,000,000.

[Carrie Stahler (Government Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: It's $250,000,000.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Million. So the USDA goes out and purchases food and then distributes it mostly through food banks. And then there's the CCC Commodity Credit Corporation Funds, which the Secretary of Ag uses to make those purchases to balance Ag markets. And most of that food that's purchased does get processed and then distributed through the TPAP program. So and we take advantage of that as much as possible. We call that bonus TFAP.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Oh, well, more. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: I apologize,

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: but TFAP. The emergency food assistance program.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I got the last three, but I didn't know what the t was. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: It's that's a federal program that's been in place for some time. For decades. Yes. Yep. And it's been more or less stable. Has that been affected by any?

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: No, it fluctuates a lot based on what's happening in Washington. Through our national organization, Feeding America, we're really the only advocates for the TFAP program. And this year, we've actually been trying to raise that congressional appropriation to $400,000,000 nationally to give the USDA more purchasing power to bring that in. I think particularly now with US farmers getting squeezed with exports. In the last Trump administration, did a huge farm support program and there was a huge surge in TFAP food. And then that kind of faded away. This time, it looks like they're focusing more on cash payments to farmers. And so we don't really know what that's going to mean, but there's a lot of variation in how TFAP comes in.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: Just a follow-up. Does it break down by per capita? Or can Vermont leverage somehow again? So More TFAP than other states.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: No, there's a formula, and it's based on poverty levels and unemployment. So it's a federal formula. So we get our allocation of TFAP. And then we actually allocate that out to, there's 80 to 85 of our food shelf partners, because in order to distribute TFAP, you have to agree to keep a bunch of records because people have to self certify that they qualify for TFAP foods. And a lot of our partners don't wanna do that. But the bonus that I was talking about, the CCC purchases, those are offered and we can take our allocation. And then if others don't take theirs, we can take extra. So we keep a really close eye on that. Sometimes it depends on how much room we have in our distribution centers. But if you get five truckloads of walnut pieces, which has happened, sometimes it gets challenging to move it fast enough to be able to fill that up with something different.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: You you had alligator once, right?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: That was the most

[Rep. John O’Brien]: interesting. Truckload of alligator. Fresh?

[Carrie Stahler (Government Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: Half a truckload of frozen alligator. It was awkward. I don't think we took it. People in the North are not good alligators.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: You should have sold

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: it and you could

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: have put more money in your stuff. Not

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: like a representative.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: You ever get a cut on a lobster, what? You and I know. Well, after the birthday, the vegetables and other things.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: That's okay. Representative Brad.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: Has there ever been talk in, say, even New England of states sort of doing many barter, TFAP type things where we do a lot of milk, for example, and we could trade with a state like Maine that has more potatoes.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: So there are states that have purchased programs. In fact, has MEFAP, the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program. And that's basically a legislative allocation that goes out to the food banks, and they have to purchase Massachusetts produced food. We talk a lot about kind of balancing. Maine had a project for a while, which is actually closing down because it wasn't economically viable, to grow and then process and freeze broccoli. And we were purchasing their broccoli at a really good price, frozen broccoli. But again, as I said, they ran the program for about four years, and they didn't see any path to breaking even. And so they're closing it down. But it's interesting with things like milk, it's really challenging because of the federal milk policies. So we can't really just shift milk over. But we do a lot of trading. So for instance, for national donations, we actually have a, we call it a cluster in the Northeast. So all the food banks in New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island. And we consolidate. So if there's a couple of truckloads of something and one food bank can't use it all, we'll divide it up between us. And we do share things in between each other.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Ted? We were talking earlier, I think maybe there's a question that representative O'Brien had asked about eggs and planning, forecasting and working ahead with growers and producers. And I'm wondering, would you be ever in an instance where you're talking with Maple Meadow, for example, and saying, you know, we're we we would like to, you know, for next year, plan on purchasing this many eggs. Are they gonna go out and invest in more production in order to meet what the food bank is asking for? Or is the food bank's part so small compared with their total volume that it's not really gonna have an impact, that kind of impact?

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: I don't know for Maple Meadow. I do know that there have been other farmers, sometimes the smaller ones, that because of the, I'm thinking of Laughing Child Farm, think is one.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Bob's here from Chappelle Latino.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Bob's here, well he could talk about it directly. But I have heard about that happening and I know it has happened. When we're contracting with Maple Meadow, we're letting them know the amount of money we have to spend over the next period of time. And so I'm sure they're always trying to balance their production versus their demand.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: I jump in?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Hi, Carrie, yes. You

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: just roll up. Bye. Carrie Sailor, Vermonter Bank. There have been instances, particularly with Vermonters feeding Vermonters, where we worked with a farm that was a smaller scale. And in order to meet capacity that we were hoping to get from them, the money we've given them has gone to purchase equipment.

[Carrie Stahler (Government Affairs, Vermont Foodbank)]: There was a carrot farm where people ended up getting a cleaner and a bagger so that they could scale up and more efficiently meet that need. So it's not that folks are necessarily gonna count on the food bank and the funding that we have available to generate scale, but they will use that in a business sense to often generate efficiencies so that the scale they're working at is a better price model for them. I think that's maybe a better way to parse that. Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: I know that we had also invited a Noor Horton from Angry Free Vermont to speak to this subject, she wanted to. Before we let John go, were there any other questions, anything you wanted to say

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: in

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: conclusion? Just thank you. I really do appreciate all the support and the time that this committee takes to understand the food bank's impact on local ag.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: Jed, do have a question? John, finally, you were talking about egg supply. And in the last year, we dealt with a lot of the crisis of avian flu and impact on poultry and eggs. So is there any update? Has that stabilized? Things are getting better. Egg prices are coming down. And when that happens, what

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: we do is just buy more because we have a budget. We budget for items like that. When more is available, eggs are very much in demand. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you all.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Hello, Nora. Thanks

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: for having me in. I'm Nora Horton. I'm the executive director of Hunger Free Vermont. And I'll just start by saying that Hunger Free Vermont strongly supports the appropriation in the Budget Adjustment Act of the full $2,000,000 that the Vermont Food Bank is requesting to fund Vermonters feeding Vermonters. And, you know, our vision is ultimately that we have a system that makes it possible for everybody in our state to meet all of their basic needs at the same time, to actually end hunger and to dramatically reduce the dependence that we have on the charitable food network to not just operate as an emergency food support system for people, but as it's operating now, an everyday way of helping people respond to hunger. But we're not in that situation right now. The situation that we're in is that hunger has been increasing in Vermont and around the country every year for the past three years. And under the current policy approach being taken by the federal administration, I don't see that really appalling trend changing anytime soon. And where hunger is increasing significantly is in all different kinds of households are facing an increase in the challenge of creating food security for themselves. But one of the really striking places where that's increasing the fastest is among households that are over the income limits for 3Squares Vermont, the SNAP program nationally. So over 185% of the federal poverty level. And that's because, as Representative Lipsky just was talking about, the dramatic increase in the cost of food and many other basic necessities is driving food security, I mean, driving hunger, and being at risk of hunger, higher up the income levels in our state and in our country. And so, you all were having a conversation with John Sales just a minute ago about this question about how we structure these programs to best use taxpayer dollars. And the thing is that we need a way for people who don't fit the very restrictive means testing of some of these federal programs to still be able to address the fact that they are facing hunger on monthly basis. And that's one really critical function that the charitable food system provides in our state. It's also really important to understand that the way that we've structured our charitable food system, our Universal School Meals Program is another great example, to eliminate administrative barriers is not only making it possible for more people who really need to access these programs to do so without stigma and shame, But also the cost of implementing and maintaining those barriers is very high. So we could be spending our taxpayer dollars to make sure that food is getting to people, or we could be spending them on paperwork. And happily, we're choosing more and more in this state to not go the paperwork and barriers route that I think is really a very inefficient use of a lot of our funding. Vermont or speeding Vermonters, on the other hand, is a highly efficient use of our funding and it creates a dramatic economic multiplier effect in our state, which also other programs that hunger for Vermont supports and that this committee supports, like the farm to school efforts and the additional payments for schools to be able to purchase local food and an incentive program. Those those all create significant economic multiplier effects in our state where they're supporting farmers, they're supporting economic development and growth, while they're also ensuring that fewer people in our state are going hungry. So, you know, we're in a really challenging time right now because federal policy decisions are making it harder for people to meet all of their basic needs, and they're increasing hunger in our state. And so programs like Vermonters Feeding Vermonters are essential right now to really keep people healthy and being able to contribute to their communities here in Vermont, while some of the federal systems are failing more or less. So now, and I'm happy to answer other questions that you might have about kind of hunger statistics that we have access to or anything else you would want to know.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: That's a helpful context. We had, I think it was Representative Lipsky last week when we were having a conversation, it may have been this conversation, asked if we could have an update at some point on just clarifying what's happening federally. Went through associated with the shutdown, but it wasn't really because of the shutdown, but the status of the SNAP funding. And that was, I guess, was because of the shutdown at the time. But prior to that, there was a legislation passed. I don't know that anything has changed from Washington, but that was a question I think that Jed had. And I don't know if maybe there's another time, if there's more to say about that, or if you'd like to say anything now.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: I mean, I can speak to that briefly if you'd like. So in July, H. R. One was passed at the federal level, and that bill is actually what is making what are being called kind of cuts to snap to Medicaid and to a number of other programs that affect a lot of us in Vermont. A lot of what we are first kind of shorthand calling cuts in these programs are not cuts in the sense that they're just saying, well, these groups of people are no longer eligible in the same way for the most part. Rather, what they're doing is they're imposing a lot of additional paperwork requirements, more read more quicker turnarounds for having to recertify and reprove that you're eligible for the programs, a lot of those burdens, and they're cutting funding to states to administer those programs at the same time that they're requiring states to do a lot more work and and individuals to fill out a lot more additional paperwork and verifications on top of all the income verifications that were already required and working quite well to ensure that people were qualified and eligible for the programs. So that's the situation that that every state in the country, including Vermont is in right now, part of you know, we're calling on. You know, you all this session and governor's office this session to make sure that there is additional funding to meet those administrative costs to operating a program like SNAP. If we don't do that, then we will be facing a hunger crisis in this state that the likes of which we have never seen before. But also, what that means is that it is possible to make sure that almost everybody does stay connected to these programs that they're eligible for, for food support and health insurance. And in order to do that, we need to be really, really smart and strategic. I think the way that Vermonters beating Vermonters is a smart and strategic program with a lot of economic multipliers. I think that we can be smart and strategic as a state in thinking about how we can deploy small amount of state funding to make sure that people can navigate these new requirements and meet the new requirements in order to be able to stay connected to these programs. And just to remind you all, three Scores Vermont in Vermont, it brings over $150,000,000 a year for people to buy food here in Vermont. And, you know, for every one equivalent of a meal that Vermont Food Bank provides, Three Squares Vermont provides nine in our state. So the scale that we're talking about is enormous. And it's important that we keep that in mind. We need both, we need the charitable food system and we need Three Scores of Vermont and the other federal nutrition programs that operate in our state. We need all of that together. We need even more than what we have, but we absolutely have to keep that whole ecosystem alive and well and operating strongly for people in our state. And Vermonters feeding Vermonters is a critical component of that and fully funding our Three Squares Vermont program and making sure that people have the ability to navigate these new and very confusing requirements that are being imposed at the from the federal level. Both of those paths are critical. We have to walk them them both and Hunger Free Vermont would respectfully ask all of you to to support us walking both of those paths in this legislative session.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Moment, though, we're only looking at the food bank. Yes. Yes. As we get in

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Just trying to provide a little broad context.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Yeah, you know, think that was a very good use of five minutes. So thank you. Yeah, representative Nelson and representative Burtt. I have three questions. I'll try to keep brief.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So the required paperwork you've had to do for the feds, which we don't have any control over federal policy or Vermont policy here. But you you've always last year, you reported to us that you're really accurate, and you had very few people slipping through the cracks. So when the feds called for that report, I wasn't concerned. Did they take 10% of your money away that was going toward doing the paperwork? I I saw the the shift in numbers, and I can't remember what it was.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Right. Well, Hunger Free Vermont, we don't administer the SNAP program in Vermont. It's the state of Vermont, the Department for Children and Families that does. And state agencies that administer that program are being required to pay rather than there being a 5050% cost share to administer the snap program, which is all historically been what it's been a state government puts up 50% of the money to operate the program according to the federal rules, and the feds put up the other half. Now it's shifting to a the feds are only going to provide 25% of the cost and state has to cover 75%. So it's a pretty significant increase. And that also does apply to the out funding to carry out outreach on the SNAP program, public education, so people know it exists and they know where to go to apply. And that's also part of the federal rules that states need to do that work. And that cost share is also changing from fiftyfifty to 25% federal, 75% nonfederal dollars. So in Vermont, the state contracts with a range of nonprofits to carry out that outreach work and including hunger free Vermont and Vermont Food Bank. So we raise private funds to do the match. And so yes, we will have to raise more private funds. But that's not what I'm talking about here today. I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking about is how critical it is for the state to be able to administer the program really effectively and well, because if we don't do that, another piece of the federal law is that if states error rates in how they calculate payments to people in SNAP go over 6%, then the state state will have to, for the first time ever in the history of the program, pay a portion of the benefits that go to individual households, which has always been 100% federal funding. Right now, Vermont is one of only five states in the entire country whose payment error rate is below that cutoff. We've got to keep it that way. The reason why it is that way is because our state and the nonprofit partners that work on that outreach and application assistance work do a very, very careful job of making sure that people know what documentation do you need to submit, how do you do it, You're missing this piece. Let's make sure you get that in. So that we have to keep that level of high customer service in Vermont going and even improve it if we're going to make sure that we can preserve this program and continue to be

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: one of the five states. Yes.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Oh, wait. I'll ask my other questions when we're she's in here when the north back to talk about snap.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Another time. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. I can hold

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: off. We

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: do have time. So if if if anybody feels like you wanna ask Can

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: I just ask a follow-up to this? Sure. Yeah.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: I just wondered, has DCF calculated how much it costs to to support that?

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: So the gap, the extra 25% of funding is 6,900,000.0 in this year. And because it's a the federal year and the state fiscal year are off kilter from each other. Think it's 8,300,000 a year going forward. So that that it's critical that we make sure that money is available to be used to administer the program effectively. Otherwise, our payment error rate will skyrocket. And then we're looking at 17,000,000, 22,000,000 additional dollars a year.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Okay, good. I'm not sure that we had heard the numbers.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Those all numbers that I'm just pulling directly from the Department for Children and Families report.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Go ahead. Yeah. Actually, go ahead. Along the

[Rep. Greg Burtt]: lines of we mentioned so good before, did I hear that the federal government isn't allowing things like sugar drinks to

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: be purchased through SNAP now, or is that still?

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: The federal government is allowing states to apply for waivers, and there are some states that have implemented very recently bans on certain food items in snow.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: But not?

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: No.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's a very brief one. I have questions regarding news blowback truths on the counter, use of corruption. For Mhmm. Be very threatened or suspicious or go for another time. We need some truth to go into what is really happening in that regard because it's impacting public attitudes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Mhmm.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And it's very

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: confusing. So we can that's that's a good idea, and we can

[Unidentified Committee Member]: if I or I don't know. Yeah. Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: We can we can review after we're done here. Can have a Thank you.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: If I might just say one thing about that. So those programs that are in the news from Minnesota, those are totally different programs. I think it's just I'll just say here that the SNAP program is the federal program, the federal benefit program with the absolute lowest amount of fraud of all the federal programs. The application, I don't know if any of you have ever looked at an application for Three Squares Vermont. It is daunting. It is extensive. It is many pages long. It requires a number of different items of documentation And so it is not a program that is prone to fraud, either in Vermont or anywhere in the country. And I just want to make that point very clearly. That's not what we're talking about here when we talk about ThreeSquares Vermont.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: To tie it back to your earlier remarks of the conversation we're having about error rates, those error rates, Vermont's, again, historically very low. We're one of just a handful of states that were below a certain level and therefore didn't have to pay any of the SNAP benefit at all from the federal government. Those rates are determined by some sort of audit, I imagine. So it's not just self reported there, that's somebody coming in and essentially And

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: payment error rates refer to either an error made by the person applying for benefits. So perhaps they mean to check the box that says that their income is a certain amount every two weeks, but instead they check the box that says it's a month or something like that, right? So that could be an error. But also payment errors count against the state if it's the person applying or if it's somebody at the state agency who's trying to calculate the benefit and they make an error in their math. And it's a payment error if it's an underpayment or if it's an overpayment. And both occur. Just when you hear the word payment error rate, I really urge you to not do what kind of the federal and national conversation is and think fraud, because that's not what a payment error rate is. It's an error. And their errors are made both in underpayments by the state agency to people who've applied and are eligible, and also overpayments. And they're made because of errors on a state agency side or on an applicant side. So just please keep that in mind that that's what we're actually talking about here.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: you very much. Excellent context, as always. Before we wrap up testimony on this topic, we heard that mister Chappell was in the room, and I'm not sure whether that was to speak to us today. I know you're possibly on the agenda for later in the week too.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: K. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Thursday. Thursday. Okay. So we we will just note that

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: anybody has a question.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Go ahead. Carrie.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: He's actually on on the schedule on Thursday to talk to house commerce, not to speak with you. Okay. I have to give you that update.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: You're gonna

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: be able to stay in the afternoon. If you want to just hop in the chair and introduce yourself right now, you're welcome to, if that's putting you on the spot. Yes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: You can tell by how, well, yeah, I won't finish that. My

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: name is Bob Schpelle, I'm a potato farmer in Williamstown, Vermont, and I am one of the beneficiaries of the Vermonters Eats Vermonters Mhmm. On the food bank side. And the this program, John and other people mentioned, it's a double win. The people getting good food. In the case of Food Bank, I can remember where I used to donate or sell number two produce, ones with defects, not for straight, but edible. And that was that's the way it was. And then when this Vermonters feeding Vermonters was started, and this is before I got into it, they were buying just number one quality produce, and and they're paying fair prices. It wasn't I can remember the days with number two stuff where, you know, I couldn't get 10¢ a pound, well, I'd give it to them. But that's not the way it is. And for our farm, it's a very big important input. I there's only one other one other organization that forward contracts that I know of. That would be tell me what that is, one in hardwood there. Sandwich Oh, but for now, you're coming. Yeah. They have a program that affects me, because they're for potatoes to produce potato wedges for universities and some schools throughout the state. That isn't that's good, and it's always nice to know ahead of time what you might be getting for a product. Dairy farmers, they know what they're gonna get, and it's generally not what they need. We literally put money and material into the ground with our fingers crossed. It's a roll of the dice every every year. It's up and down. They've been literally boom and bust. And the fact that Food Bank with the Vermonters feeding Vermonters program, that's that's been good for us. I'm getting up in years, and we're our acreage is going down. But as as a result, it's a bigger portion of our our budgeting for the coming year. So it's And I'm not the only one. There's a lot. They would be able to tell you how many farmers are involved, but it's very important. And I take great pride in finally getting something other than number two produce with our name on the bag into households throughout Vermont, ones that quite often can't afford to buy Vermont produce in the stores. What did you say your firm was again? Williamstown.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Williamstown. And what are you doing in your number twos now?

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: Well, there's another nonprofit but private organization, which is called Tuberville, and it's basically run by one man, Ralph Perkins and Milton. And he's been doing this for years. He started out with his father growing a few acres of squash and potatoes, and he would donate those those crops to the food shelves in the Burlington area. And he came to me more than Okay, my timeframes are not as accurate as they used to be, but it was at least ten years ago, maybe fifteen years ago, asked if I would advise him how to grow potatoes where he could get a little more production off his acres. And I said, Yes, I would. And eventually, maybe less than five years later, he actually asked me if I had any number two produce that I would would pack and sell to him, and then he distributed to the food shows. And that's gotten bigger, but Ralph is also getting up there in years, that is tailing off. But this is a man who okay. Then the the latest step, maybe five years ago, was he got nonprofit status, and he has a network of friends, mainly in the Burlington area, that went around and would basically sell shares in Tuberville, which would be tax deductible, and all of a sudden he had a huge budget, more than what we could produce, and somehow ate it. And he's very, very humble and private about the whole thing. He used to tell me, when we first, just to give you an example, when he first started out, he said, I said once, What do you do for a living, Ralph? He says, Well, I'm a kind of a forward guy. I set up venues for a musician, and I see that the tickets are distributed or whatever. And I heard that story for a year or so, and I said, Who are you working for, Ralph? He said, Oh, some old guy you've never heard of. I said, Well, I like music. And he says, Well, Taylor. He's amazing. He's quiet and very private about everything. And he's a very big hearted person.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Isn't that old, is he?

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So you're able to move your older you are. And and some, I'm sure, you sell the local markets.

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: Yes. So

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And and then you move a bunch through the food bank. Yep. And and then you've got a market for your number twos at a lower price that are going to a good use and still feeding people. Yes. And I bought 50 pounds of potatoes from a very dear friend of mine in Maine, and I'll tell you what, most of them are number twos this year because he got slammed hard by the drought.

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: I'm I'm I'm in that boat myself. I've I've been

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I hear I feel your pain. I'm a dairy farmer.

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: So yeah. No. We this is our fifty third crop we put in this year. This is the first time we've had a crop failure. And started off with some equipment breakdowns, but the drought. And then we had a freeze, not a frost. Frost doesn't bother potatoes. Freeze in October, right in the October that cut one of those Almost half of our production was in a field. It was coming in good shape and got cut right down. So the potatoes weren't much bigger than the size of an egg. So luckily, I can say something. Let me get my 2¢ in here. It has nothing to do with the food bank. I am the only certified seed grower in the state of Vermont. And if you know somebody in Maine, probably know there's at least a 100 certified seed growers up there, and this is the case all across the country. I remember when I wanted to do this, I sort of not grown bored, but I wanted an extra challenge. And growing seed potatoes is tricky business, and you gotta buy higher grade seed to start off with, and there's inspections involved. And I approached the Department of Agriculture. And a lot of people, farmers included, say, they complain about local government. What was his name? Phil Benedict. Does that mean anything? Phil Benedict. Okay. Phil Benedict was still in the department at that point, and he said, we still have a certified program on the books. And if Chappelle wants it, we're gonna do it. And they actually took one of the newer employees, a pathologist, actually, he was forester, and they paid to have him educated how to how to spot virus in potatoes. I'm the only one, and I can tell you, I do I do my winter testing. The way it works is you grow your potatoes, but you gotta send samples that get grown out, either in Hawaii or someplace so that this time of the year, they can go out and walk the fields, and they're visually looking at the foliage to see whether it has virus in it, which is affects your future production. And I had to do all that through New York State because Vermont you know, they they knew where to level it off. But Vermont had an inspector, and, yeah, the door was open. And I it's hard to believe.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I could sit down and talk to you for hours about this. I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: was like, I

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: find this very interesting. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Yeah. Thank you. Glad that we yeah. Glad we sorted that out, and you're welcome to come back again Thursday or another time.

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: Yeah. I would like to maybe you said there was might be

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: another Yeah. We'll talk about other opportunities too.

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: Yeah, I'm getting kind of slammed. I have a lot of I've overbooked, let's put it that way, for this time of the year. I have Yeah, I'm meeting with my lenders as a result of this drought beginning of next week, and there's a lot of truck going on.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So we grow corn on a lot of old potato land up in 14th in Cracksbury and Rose? Rose? Farm in Auburn? Yeah. My dad grew up with that. Yeah. And what? Representative Nelson.

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: Yeah. Down at Derby. Are you Doug Nelson? I'm his son. Right. Richard. Nice nice to meet you.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Nice to meet you.

[Rep. John O’Brien]: I think Bob, you're a farm borders on Rodney Graham's, right?

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: That's right.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Used to sit in his Yeah.

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We're neighbors and same farm. Yeah, we, I was an engineer, then a potato, a math teacher for fourteen years, and then a potato farmer. So, and I'm getting near the end of my productive years here. But I gotta tell you that we didn't marry or inherit the farm. You understand that. And we started off with some really unsuitable equipment. And but we buy secondhand, fix it up, and we make do. But it's and and somebody you also probably know, Burtt Teasley, he was just a tremendous help. Just a I think a lot of people know that name. And there's a new man on

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Matt Smith.

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: Named Gilhall. Yeah. Matt Smith. But, yeah, Burtt was just wonderful man.

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yes, sir. And would teach. Yes.

[Robert “Bob” Chappelle (Potato farmer, Williamstown, VT)]: That's what I do now. I tell you, there are far I'm not gonna mention any names, but typical produce farmer, you go say, how did how are you you getting that kind of production out of your blueberries or whatever? I'm not telling you. And I find that I depended on Maine Extension and Burtt Peasley, and there was inspector Dick Jensen that used to inspect the Department of Agriculture. I just I asked questions, and I learned from them. And I as I said, I was a teacher. I this idea of hoarding knowledge does not make sense to me. There are a lot of lot of mistakes to be made, you know, and not everybody has to make the same mistakes.

[John Sayles (CEO, Vermont Foodbank)]: Well, I

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: think that's a good note to maybe say thank you again, and we will welcome you back later in the session. I wasn't expecting

[Rep. Richard “Dick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Quite glad you came.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resilience, and Forestry)]: Yeah. Sure. Why don't we take a short break? We'll come back and pick up the discussion and then move into the last topic of the day after that too.