Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: If anybody gets restless, we can take a little break in the middle, but it's effective time to go by typically as well. Alright. So if you wouldn't mind just formally for the record introducing yourself, and then I think we've got a presentation that you'd like

[Alicia Utter (Vice Chair, Working Lands Enterprise Board; Owner, Arbor Farmstead)]: to share. It's also on our committee page. For the record, Alicia Utter, Grand Isle County, owner of Arbor Farmstead and vice chair of the Working Lands Enterprise Board. I'm going to kick us off today with a little background of what the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative is. In 2012, the Vermont legislature and Governor Chublin created the Working Lands Enterprise Funds to make strategic investments that support a resilient and sustainable farm food and forest economy in The States. So there was critical foresight at this time of looking at the landscape as an inflection point that we needed to make investments into the businesses working the landscape. So the program is founded in principles of widespread participate participation and responsiveness to ever evolving contexts. So today, as you all are well familiar, the agricultural and forest sectors are seeing a reduction in federal funds available in addition to navigating severe weather events, drought, back to back flooding. And we need to make these forward looking investments on our working lands businesses now more than ever. So I'm going to start with this summary impact report. So this looks at the lifespan of the program. And these numbers speak for themselves. The initiative has successfully advanced according to the statute. The program was created to save Vermont's working landscape. And you can see that five ninety three projects have been funded for a total of $19,500,000 So not only were these state dollars, we also saw matching funds. So that was really able to leverage the power dollar to invest into the landscape. And this covered all 14 counties in Vermont. Furthermore, these are reports that we get as a result of these investments. 48% of businesses added jobs, 77% of grantees increased production, 74% of businesses reported increased sales, and this represents a total of 25,000 acres that are impacted as a result of these funds. And as you can see, this does indeed touch on all 14 counties. This reflects how much is invested in each of the counties. Now, program demand. At the inception of this program, it was uncertain whether farm and forest entities would take the time to go through this granting process and pursue funds. And we've worked really diligently to make it as accessible as possible. You see here that in this past funding year, we had over $5,000,000 in requests. However, a budget of $1,000,000 So that reflects about 20% of requests we were able to fund. So I'll share this. The hardest part of my role with the Working Lands Board is the review process. And I'm not speaking to the tedious nature. It is time intensive. But looking at so many compelling applications on my desk and being able to fund so few, Not only do they meet eligibility, but many of them are innovative and or allowing their business to sustain. And this is representative of new businesses and also multigenerational businesses. Oh, go ahead.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I just wondered what accounts for the spike in 2024?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Do we have a formal I think more funds, more funding opportunities, more funds were available. We had $3,000,000 available in funding. So, had more funding opportunities that were offered, and therefore more demand.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: So, if you had a lot of money, if you had way more money than me. Way more people wanting it.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Mean, that's a and it's a good when there was 2,000,000, there was 10,000,000 in Multiplier.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: So there's

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: sort of a multiplier effect. And

[Alicia Utter (Vice Chair, Working Lands Enterprise Board; Owner, Arbor Farmstead)]: we are anticipating for this demand to continue to grow, again, resulting from federal funding, but also unprecedented farming challenges. So I'm able to speak with grantees just when I'm out in my own community, speaking with other farmers or foresters. And it's the same when I do site visits. We get to go follow-up and see our projects in action, and folks continuously emphasize that these funds were vital. Their businesses are flourishing today because of that investment. So I encourage you all to review the impact reports that you have before you and continue to make these investments in the Vermont working landscape and the people who steward it. I'm going to go ahead.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Just before you pass it off, Representative Burke, did

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: you follow-up? I was just going to ask if this just because of

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the question you asked, John, this past year there was a matching

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: requirement for the Not a requirement, but it was grantees or applicants were invited to share if there was gonna be investments outside of the grant fund, but it was not required.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Historically, has there been sometimes a match?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Historically. I will say I'm really proud

[Alicia Utter (Vice Chair, Working Lands Enterprise Board; Owner, Arbor Farmstead)]: of how evolutionary our program has been and being really reflective of feedback from from applicants, both those who have received grant funding and those who haven't. So taking into account those and recognizing whether matching funds is a limiting factor. Yeah.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: A lot of times what happened, Greg, you you you applied for piece of equipment and you get funded and and you don't receive your grant until you purchase that piece of equipment. So depending on the size of your grant, you'll get cost of the piece of equipment. One time, we received a grant, but we weren't able to utilize it. And and a person on the committee reached out to see if we were gonna be able to continue on, and we declined. And so they were able to use that money elsewhere. But a lot of times, it requires and sometimes it's a 50%. You know, the grants for 50% of the equipment, maybe perhaps sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. And then it's updated individual receiver in the grant, they can go forward. But anytime you get a grant, you do have some equity in that equipment when you buy it.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Just a follow-up. Do you track leveraging then? Like, if you get a working lands grant, does that sometimes lead to another grant or funding in other places because you got that first working lands grant?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yes, actually, one of the work we're going to be back here tomorrow with some grantees who are going to speak specifically to their project. It's actually interesting. Was talking to one of them today, and that was actually one of the things that she really wanted to speak to. And it wasn't, it's getting the grant, but it's also getting the buy in from the state to be able to say, look, the state of Vermont believes that

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: we can achieve this, so you should too.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Exactly. It's that, so yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm sure you're going to get into more detail, but so for 2026, the $1,000,000 available funding, that's already happened? Has that already been dispersed or is that?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: No. So we included the applications have been closed. The application windows have been closed, but the decisions have not yet been made for the business enhancement program. Because we had the funds available and the funds requested, we added it. But this presentation is very much focused on fiscal year twenty twenty five and those grantees.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good, thank you.

[Alicia Utter (Vice Chair, Working Lands Enterprise Board; Owner, Arbor Farmstead)]: Pass it off to Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I'm

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: going to

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: try to be my

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Steve Mike Pollard?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yeah. I did. I'm sort of. Is this okay for you?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Absolutely fine. Okay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: The Steve Jed wrapped around his neck.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Rafters here.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Elizabeth Sipple, for the record, program manager of the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative. So I'm gonna be providing an overview into investments made in fiscal year twenty twenty five. Those grants are not yet closed, but we're beginning to already see impacts that we can share. And certainly all of the funds are allocated and grantees are out there doing the work right now. And I am going to take a minute to highlight two of the most important programmatic elements, or two of the most important, I think there are a number, but that we feel really allows the program to stay dynamic, responsive, impactful within a context that just keeps changing, the first of which is the Working Lands Enterprise Board, Act 142. So in the very beginning of the program, tasked the board with administering the program. It is a very diverse board. What you're seeing on this slide is the founders of the program created specific seats that they wanted filled by people from working within the farm and forest sectors who can represent, speak to that specific supply chain, that specific supply chain role. So I'm not going to read through all of the seats that are represented, but the buckets are, we have the forestry business seats, the agricultural business seats, the maple business seat, agricultural and forestry stakeholders. We have representation from the agency of agriculture, the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation, and the agency of commerce and community development. And then we also, the board was created with three ex officio seats that are held by organizations that are working day in and day out with working land businesses in the field. So that's the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, the Vermont Housing Conservation Board, and the Vermont Economic Development Authority. So I think of the board as sort of the cardiovascular system of the program, where we just have Or the nervous system, I'm not sure what's the better image, but we have people going out literally and living in every part of the state, doing all different jobs, being engaged in different parts of the ag and forest supply chains, and then coming back to the collective of the program to really make sure that we have a thorough analysis of landscape level needs, but also are really making the best investments for even the individual grantee businesses. So the board is a really essential part of the program.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Do you have any trouble filling the seats, the board seats?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I would say the one challenge that comes up for the business seats is that you cannot receive or apply for a grant while you are serving on the board. That has come up, you know, I would say a number of times where people are like, Oh, I'm really interested, but I'm also thinking of applying in the next year or two, and therefore, don't want to sit on the board right now.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's a three year commitment.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: It's a three year tenure. And yeah, we really encourage people to think deeply about the commitment and make the three year commitment because it definitely strengthens the board to have that. And many that you max out at three three year terms. And we do have people who have maxed out. We had two folks leave the board last year because they had completed their three year terms, which is impressive.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So it's not a situation where you can just accuse yourself. You just can't be on the board if you're You're not eligible, rather, if you're on the board.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: And I think that there's room personally, actually, it's one of the things that I've been thinking about. I think there could be room to You wouldn't want to recuse yourself for all three years that you were on the board clearly, but because we depend on the sector experts to help make the decisions within these sectors. So we want them to participate in the decision making process. But I think it would be possible to recuse from one year if that was Would really open it up to business owners because it's absolutely critical that we have business owners that are actively functioning in the landscape on the

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I just wondered how many business seats are past recipients. Must be

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: That's a good question. Currently?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Oh, yeah, sure.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Yeah. Like Alicia.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Not a Bath recipient, are you?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I've stood on board at

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: least sixty year cyber piece myself. But you've never received, your business has never received, yeah. I think, I actually can't think of Yeah. Any

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: One of the people that had to step down last year was, but

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yeah. You

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: can see where that would be a struggle bus. Are these a 100% volunteered seats on the board?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: You the board is able to request a stipend because we do meet once every month for three hours. And then there are also subcommittees that meet. They the subcommittee, The meetings of the subcommittees tend to ramp up right before our summer symposiums, which is where the board really comes together in person to think strategically about what's needed across the landscape. And so the subcommittees, ag, forestry, service provision, come together to think about, to talk to stakeholders and think about the strategy that they want to propose.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: And are those in person or

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: The symposiums are daylong meetings in person, and the subcommittee meetings are typically online. And So a stipend is available. I will say that it is interesting how few board members claim that stipend. Yeah. I mean, there are some, but it's, like, certainly not across the board. No pun intended.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Nelson.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And what is the cost of this to the agency the the agency's forestry agriculture and commerce?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: The board?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. So how much money does comes out of this, like, we pro if you receive a million dollars, how much money of it comes out to run? It is not.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Is it?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Right now. Zero.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Zero?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: So it comes right now. The board's typing right now comes out of the general operating funds of the Agricultural Development Division, which is where Claire and I are housed.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So the million dollars that we saw a moment ago for FY '25 and FY '26, all of that money gets dispersed? Yes. 100%. Yeah. There is an operating cost, obviously, but it's borne within the department's budget.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yeah, so it's presented within the Yeah, exactly, the agency's budget.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The agency's budget, yeah.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: So I think another very strong and important part of the program's process is our commitment to a robust participatory review process for each and every grant application. Every application is read by three individual reviewers, And those three individual reviewers score the application based on a rubric, but they also provide comments, like written comments on the application. In 2025, we received 150 applications, and we recruited 48 reviewers from these, organizations and sectors to review those applications. And after the three individual reviews, reviewers then come together for a very in-depth three hour long review committee conversation, which happens per sector. So we have a dairy and livestock, a produce, specialty foods, maple and forest industry subsector committee, review committees that then come together, and they discuss up to 20 applications one by one. And then they are making recommendations to the board. And they are also, for the weaker applications, thinking about helpful, impactful feedback that could be offered to the applicant if requested. So we offer feedback, individualized feedback, to every applicant if they request it. We don't force it, but if it's requested, we gather that, and that's a part of the review process as well.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Is that a lot of uptake?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So you're actively letting people know that they can request it?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Exactly. So when they receive their application update, it's one of the key parts of the update. And we share right in the update for unsuccessful applicants, that there are many applicants that are unsuccessful, and then they come back and they are You know, they implement the recommendations, and they come back and they are successful. And I think the we see I mean, I guess we see per grant opportunity, we continue to see an increased number of applications that we're receiving. But I guess it's just important for me to name that we are very committed to the individual review of each and every application, one, to respect the time and effort that applicants have put in to submitting an application, but also to make sure that we're using the funds to the best and highest use. So now we're sort of zooming into Well, we're zooming into the fiscal year 2025 data and impact. So we reviewed the 150 applications. We were able to fund 38 projects with 1,064,208 thousand dollars of working lands funds awarded. The 64,000 over, the 1,000,000 is due to de obligated funds. So grants that either, there's one grant that had to be closed. The grantee was awarded and then ended up deciding that they actually couldn't accept the grant awards. And so that's rolled over into the next fiscal year. And then sometimes grantees underspend slightly, we pool that money and then invest it in the next fiscal year. But as we already covered, a little over 5,000,000 in requested funds. And I think this slide is starting to get to the real heart of the program. This is not capturing In the beginning, Alicia showed the percentage of grantees that increased sales, output, acres in production based on the grant project. This just gives you a snapshot of what the twenty twenty five cohort of grantees is contributing to the Vermont working landscape and economy. So our twenty twenty five grantees are stewarding fifteen twenty four acres. Collectively, they have $12,200,000 in annual sales revenue, and they are employing 146 people. So I think the reason this feels important to me is just to say that the program for relatively minor investments, those businesses are turning around and contributing a lot to our economy through land stewardship, but also through tax revenue and jobs created, which I think, you know, as we're talking more about budgets and like maybe return on investment, like this information is really important, I think.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Nelson? Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: How many acres do you think you've stewarded?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Total. Total. So 25,000 is a low estimate. But that's cumulatively, we feel that the reason it's a low estimate is because it's based on voluntary we're now it's now a required data set. But in the earlier years of the program, it was based on a voluntary, like, survey.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And were the seed drills that were, a few years ago, a bunch of people, vying for grants for no till drills?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: That might be through water quality. That water It

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: could be a pre program.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, maybe, I can't remember. I know those drills had incredible impact on acreage. GARS alone has done 4,000 acres.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Oh, maybe it was the seed for a brand.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, maybe.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Again, for their water quality.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: President O'Brien. Elizabeth, I just wondered,

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: is there a way you can say with the working lands grants, this was the difference with all these numbers? I'm thinking of like Myers Trucking, say last year, didn't they? So did they hire, you know, like eight FTE? So like, it'd be interesting

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: to see, like, didn't seem

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: like they were going to go out of it

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: since they were successful already.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Like, you sort of took them maybe

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: to the next level. Exactly. It would be interesting to see those splits.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: So we are collecting that data. That like because right now, this is people employed, and what you're saying is jobs created due to grant investments. And I think acres put into production is another data point that we collect. And that is different from, like, land stewardship. So acres that are also we're seeing like improved land stewardship due to grant funds. And that we've been doing actually like a really deep dive data, like cleaning and overhaul. And those percentages from the beginning that show the percent of grantees from the beginning that have increased their income, increased output, and increased acreage. Is that the other one in the first? That's what we're trying to capture there. Percentages can be better than hard numbers, but mostly for the data mining, because we just don't have the information for everybody going back ten years. But going forward, we're going be able to have it, which is great. So that's the overview of fiscal year 2025. The amount of actually, I forgot something very important, and that's going to go back to this. So Beginning in 2021, the board was able to leverage special appropriations that were made to the program to make investments of up to $250,000 specifically for projects that were going to have a invest in supply chain infrastructure that was going to benefit the forest or ag supply chains. In 2025, as you can see here, the program had only the base appropriation of $1,000,000 to work with, so we were not able to offer the larger $250,000 supply chain impact grants. But we did, offer our three flagship, programs, which were the Business Enhancement Grant, which had we had the smallest award was $13,000 and the largest award was $50,000 the Service Provider and Producer Association grant, which the smallest award there was $18,000 and the largest award was $75,000 And then we had the trade show assistance grants, which the smallest award there was 2,000 and the largest was, 5,000. So those are the grant opportunities that made up the 38 funded projects. And as you will see in the presentations following mine, where we're going to be featuring more of the grantees, we were able to fund a huge array of business size and business stage. So our largest business, awarded business, had just over $5,000,000 in sales revenue annually with 45 employees. And it's a company that's been in business for eighty years. And then on the, you know, on the polar opposite, we were able to fund a new, a beginning business, that had 1.5 FTEs. They had been in operation for This would have been their second season, and they were, you know, at $10,000 But through the grant, that went up significantly. And we're actually gonna, talk about that grantee. So I think that gives you, I mean, that begins to give you a sense of the diversity in projects and the diversity in the types of businesses that are funded. But in the following presentations, you're gonna have a much deeper dive into that diversity, looking at investments that are both catalytic for individual businesses, but also investments that are looking to benefit the food and forestry systems more largely. Yeah, and I can take questions or I can pass. Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Any questions? And

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I did try I just want to name that I In designing this testimony, I kept twenty five minutes at the end, which we really haven't done previously, for Q and A because I feel like it's so important. And also hearing from you, Representative Durfee, it seems even more important this year. All right, great. Thank you.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Claire Salerno, program coordinator for the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative. So I'm the other staff person for the program along with Elizabeth. And yeah. So this slide is showing you the wide variety of businesses and projects funded in f y twenty five through the business enhancement grant, which is our flagship grant for businesses. It funds equipment, infrastructure, marketing, workforce development. And these are one year grants ranging from 10,000 to $50,000. And I'm gonna introduce you to some of these grantees, to further demonstrate the range of businesses and projects that have received grant funds in 2025 and demonstrate the diverse types of impacts that these grants have. I'm not gonna speak to the grantees that are featured in the impact report. You can read stories about them there. And we also have grantees that will be coming in tomorrow that you'll hear directly from, so I won't speak to them either. And this full list is also in the report. Yeah. So Carmen Brook Farm in Swatin, they were one of, several one of three maple, business grantees that we had. And so their grant funded project is modernizing their maple syrup and candy production infrastructure to meet demand, improve efficiency, support long term business sustainability. And so they're installing a boiler system and a heat exchanger, which reduced syrup preheating time, for bottling and candy production by 60%. And they also purchased a four port bottling system. And so these are allowing Carbon Brook Farm to double daily production capacity. So a single employee can now bottle two barrels of syrup in four hours, which before used to take eleven hours. And so with syrup sales increasing, these upgrades are essential for their ability to meet market demand. They have quite a few wholesale customers around the state. And another part of their project was the candy production side. They purchased electric steam kettle and a specialty vacuum pooling system. So those tools reduce candy production from about four and a half hours per batch to just under two hours. And they also help improve product consistency and texture while speeding up production. So this is putting them in a better place to expand their wholesale markets. The next grant that I wanna share with you is Agricola Farm in Panton. And their project is focused on increasing sales of cured meat from 13,000 a month to 28,000 a month, so more than doubling and projecting to reach up to 35,000 per month in the year after the grant ends. So the project funded a curing cabinet and hanging racks for cured meats, so salamis and other types of meat. And it also increased the number of pens in the barn to overwinter more pigs. So with this increased curing capacity and pens in their barn, they're now increasing the number of pigs raised at the farm annually from 140 pigs to two twenty each year. And they've also signed a lease for a larger processing facility. It's three times the size of the current one, and they've secured approval from USDA to begin processing in the new space. And they've already hired and trained three new part time workers to help with the increased production. This is a great example of funds in the meat industry. Shifting over to the produce side of things, Conscious Homestead in Winooski has been strategizing how to produce more food on their pretty small site to fulfill their community's needs. And they have a big climate focus with this grant. So their gardens have been facing increased disease pressure, soil loss, and declined plant productivity. So the grant funded research, development, and implementation of a climate smart garden redesign. So that included site design and then plant selection to optimize food production. And they have a big focus on community involvement in the farm and they follow what they call the each one teach one principle. And their project includes community training on climate smart agriculture techniques and technologies. Crossroad Maple is another one of the maple grantees. This is on the production side, the sap collection side. The grant funds were used to enhance their operational efficiency by upgrading the technology for their vacuum monitoring system to minimize sap loss during collection. So having these monitoring systems can save huge amounts of time being able to find the leaks in the woods and also improve safety for workers when you're out there digging in the snow, trying to find out where the sap leak is. Now you'd know exactly where it is through the system. And they're on, as it says here, four thirty acres, they have 19,000 taps. So with a system that size, having a monitoring system is really huge. And the farm had actually already invested in a base package for the system that monitors and allows for remote control of the vacuum pumps and sap tank levels on the Enosburg portion of their Sugar Woods, which cover two forty acres. But that current system didn't have the ability to monitor pressure leaks in the sap lines, and it wasn't at all in the Bakersfield portion of their Sugar Woods. So the project is expanding the monitoring system to all four thirty acres of Sugar Woods. So that automation covers the 19,000 taps and adds the ability to monitor vacuum pressure on the sap lines. So this has been huge for them and it will help them increase syrup production by 20% to 30%, increase sales and revenue by about 70,000 annually, and reduce labor hours spent on sap collection system repair by up to 30%. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Does that work via cell phone? Calls and

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I don't know if it calls, but, yeah, you can monitor it on a mobile device.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Trying to mine to put that in, and he put my number down.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: You're getting calls.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You can just yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: When you get when you get done today, you can go and check by woods.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Daniel Sean is he giving that to

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: me. Cameron. That's everything of a Brian.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I just wondered if sometimes there was overlap with say the meat, maple, produce grids that I've had and these, because they could, I mean, potentially you could

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: In terms of the same grant Apply for

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: both or you recommend, no, apply for our working lands. Correct.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yeah, when those were both offered, we recommended that we were not allowing folks to receive both. They could apply for both, but they could only have accepted one should they have been offered one. And we actually did not allow the folks that received those meat maple produce grants to apply for working lands grants. They have the same restriction of a three year waiting period as working lands grantees. And that is because the demand, as you know, is just so high that we want to ensure that folks that have received recent state investments, that other businesses are able to receive those. I don't know the numbers. Certainly a lot of people that applied for those grants and didn't receive them have applied for working lands grants. I couldn't tell you specifically.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: But just to clarify, this fiscal year though those grants were not.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: It's a one time, right?

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yeah, that was a one time.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: So, they weren't. We didn't have that scenario in fiscal year twenty five.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: You also have repeat applyers. Sometimes they get close, right, and you recommend, well, if you add this much or

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yep. Yeah. We'll recommend it really depends on sort of sometimes we've even recommended they were applying for a certain type of equipment and the feedback was, based on actually the operation that you have and the scale you're at, we actually think this other piece of equipment might be more beneficial Or it might be more around you're not at this stage in your business. We recommend you go work with a business adviser, different pieces like that. Yeah. But it's challenging. I mean, the demand is high, and we've seen people that come back and make improvements and there's still not enough funds.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: So I think the of fine line is sometimes they really are excellent shovel rising projects, but the feedback really is this just wasn't as impactful for your business as another grant project was, or it wasn't as impactful for potentially a larger landscape impact. And those are the hardest applications to offer feedback to because there's just not, you know, sometimes that's, the feedback is quite limited, know, just strong project and it'll be fun. Yeah.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: So the next project I wanna share with you all is SilvaCurl, which is in Hardwick. I don't know if you all are familiar with this product. It's really interesting. It's a wood packaging product. It's shavings made from poplar wood, and they sell their business to business, enterprise. So other businesses use this in their packaging. Farms like Jasper Hill, Big Picture Farm, which sells caramels, a lot of other working lines businesses. So other maple businesses or specialty food businesses use this packaging to ship their products. And it's a it's a really nice alternative to plastic packaging that could be used instead of Styrofoam peanuts or bubble wrap. And the wood they sources, they purchased from Goodrich Lumber in Albany, who those of you that were here last year would have spoken with them. And they buy all their wood from Vermont loggers. So this is all Vermont wood. And sorry? Cedar.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Mostly cedar, if this comes from Goodreads.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yes. But this is a poplar product. Poplar. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So are they they're taking milled lumber and turning it into this final product, or are they getting

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I think they're getting either saw logs or Yeah. I don't think they're getting Low end.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: It's normally a a wood that's used for pulp.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's like pretty much. Yeah. Thinking of when we we've we've been talking about wood products manufacturers as a Yeah. Kind of class or category, and we always say, well, that means sawmills, that means maybe firewood producers, and maybe a few other things. But this would be another one to Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Sure.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yeah. And they can process a 100,000 board feet of lumber at full capacity. So they very much are it's not Yes. Yeah. So they're very passionate about the forest forest economy and keeping forest land productive. And they've faced the challenge that is common for many small businesses, which is trying to keep their website fresh and up to date while search engines are constantly changing requirements and algorithms that make it hard to compete with paid advertising. So the project has been overcoming these challenges with specific ongoing website work and ad campaigns on Google, Etsy, and Amazon. And so far this year, the grant is not done yet. The work has resulted in 16 new clients. And I think this is a good example. We often are more often funding infrastructure or equipment, but I think this is a really good example of relative to other projects, the smaller investment in marketing that really is sort of more on the back end of the business, but has really clear impacts. And you can, if you go on to their website or look at their social media, there are some cool storytelling that they're doing to really connect this product to the forest economy. So some trade show? Yes. Yeah. I believe they had, in the past, received the trade show assistance grant. They're in are based in Hardwick. Yeah, everything's made in Hardwick. Sunrise Organic Farm is in White River Junction. And with their working lands grant project, they expanded their pasture based egg business. They purchased a 20 foot by 48 foot mobile pasture coop, which replaced three smaller coops and expanded their production space by 50%. And the farm, what's

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: that?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: The heck of a herd

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: of chickens, I guess. Yeah.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: The farm, I actually don't know the size, yeah, of their, flock, but they use matching funds to purchase the nest boxes, roost feed stations, and other equipment to complete the new facility. And so their weekly egg production this year, they are all done this project. It jumped from 200 dozen a week to two seventy five dozen a week with the new coop. And they maxed out at two seventy five dozen per week this year because they couldn't get a full order of pots this spring. So they believe that this year, expect to exceed 300 dozen per week. Yeah. And I also think this is a great example of the lower end grant amount projects that have a pretty significant impact on an operation. And yeah, so with that, this is just a sample of the diverse businesses and projects that the Business Enhancement Grant funded in FY '25, and you'll hear more tomorrow directly from other grantees.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thanks.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: For the record, Abby Willard from Agency of Agriculture. I always love hearing about the business enhancement grantees. It's really nice to see what the investment can do to support the growth of a particular business. The Working Lands board and the program has made a consistent and conscious decision to invest both in direct assistance to businesses, but then also investments in services. And so over the years, there's also been a sub portion of allocation that supports service provider or producer association grants. So in fiscal year 'twenty five, there were nine awards in that category that totaled just over $369,000 in grant awards. And the focus for the service provider investments were been the same for the past few years. And those priorities are focused on executive business skills for business planning, looking at market development, succession planning, and workforce development support for businesses, both in the agricultural and forestry sector. And those focus areas are really aligned with what we learned in the Ag and Food Systems Strategic Plan and in the Future of Ag Action Plan is where their priorities were and the needs within the service provision to support businesses. And we thought we'd do the same thing with the business enhancement is just sort of highlight a few of these. There's some common investments that have happened year over year supporting the VHCB's Farm and Forest Viability Program that provides business technical assistance support and Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund that has their forest product development program. So those are two that I'm not going to highlight. But I just wanna note that, like, this time right now feels like a really important moment to make investments in established and tried and true programs and supports. And so a lot of the technical assistance and service provision that supports ag and food businesses and forestry and wood product manufacturing is critical right now, just given all the volatility and the transitions and uncertainty that's happening around access to funding. So I'm going share three examples quickly, just noting the time. One is the Sprout program, which we've actually talked about in this committee, and it's been highlighted in impact reports in the past. But it's a special loan program that we like to highlight simply because it's not your typical direct investment in a business, and it's not your typical technical assistance, but it's an alternative investment that has provided opportunities for early stage and startup businesses to be able to access capital through very low interest loans when the business may not have been eligible for a traditional loan. So the Sprout Loan Program is managed by the Vermont Community Loan Fund, and there's been a partnership with the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative for many years to make these types of Sprout Loan investments. So since 2016, the Sprout Program has provided 56 loans to Vermont businesses, again, both in the ag and forestry sectors, and they're typically low interest loans up to $60,000 The typical range of terms is from two to seven years, and they start at 1% for first two years, and then fixed 2% interest rate thereafter. So really great rates for some of those non traditional businesses, And they're up to $60,000 So again, they can be relatively small loans, or they can be a pretty significant investment for a business.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Just quickly, what's Sprout?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Like, what does it mean? It's not an acronym, as I understand. So it's just like Sprout as in giving you the chance to sort of grow. So the Sprout Loan Program is as it's entitled.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I get it. Yeah. Community loans.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Everything's in that.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I had thought for a while, because it's all caps. So then you would think maybe that is.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It's a word you can say.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Right. But it's not.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. It's more of just like the image of helping a business get started. With the fiscal year '25 grant, as of September 30, when there was some reporting shared, they'd closed on four loans totaling $202,000 with an additional five subsidized loans that are anticipated to close by July. So a few examples of the types of loans, I'm not going to identify the business, but just to give you a sense of the type of loan investments and what they might have supported, they sound and feel very similar to some of the business enhancement grants. So this is a real opportunity to leverage where the Sprout grant was only for $72,000 but the loans that they're able to execute have additional funding attached to them. So one was a startup seed company located in Northfield that's looking at cold and short season climate, vegetables, herbs, flowers. So feels appropriate, given the season. A diversified farm in West Haven that's focused on pastured meat, eggs, and vegetables. And they purchased a walk behind rototiller to expand their crop production on relatively small acres, a Tunbridge based early stage operation that raises sheep and chicken for both meat, wool and wool. And that was a $60,000 amount to support some barn improvements. And then another was a garlic farm that grows eight different varieties of garlic. And this was to support the construction of a curing and processing barn for their operation. So a variety of different projects supported by that investment that the Working Lens Enterprise Board made.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Is that money paid back because it's a loan? Yeah. Does that go back into the Sprout loan program so it gives them more monies every year to loan out?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: That's my understanding of how the program works.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yeah, so the capital is provided by the Vermont Community Loan Fund and the grant funds are just being used to subsidize the interest. So to cover some of the administrative costs to the Vermont Community Loan Fund managing the program. But there, the Vermont Community Loan Fund, by July, will have made over $500,000 like that's their target in loans with our $72,000 match. Not match, but So it is, I think Abby, said it's a really good way to leverage working lands funds, and it's not a grant, but it is very low interest.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, think. And the money coming back in, does that add to their ability to make, Will their that fund grow over time to be available to more people or greater amounts? What I'm asking.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I believe, yeah, the payments go back into the program. I don't know the source of the full kind of, like, base lending budget that the program has. I'm sure there's multiple sources.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Doesn't grow much because there's no interest. So, you know, the businesses are really paying back in what they're given only, pretty much, 1% for one year and then 2%. But it slowly grows, and the Vermont Community Loan Fund has continued to put capital into it, And they fundraise in different sort of fundraising strategies that they use to build up that capital.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Well, in the days of 8% higher interest rate loans, anything helps.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, so there's an eligibility criteria to be eligible for a Sprout loan program. So it is focused on early stage and kind of like beginning businesses that are in the working land sector.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: And the program was created to get it in conjunction with the working lands enterprise initiative. So it's been a partnership from the beginning.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Go ahead, Representative Lipsky. Then if you wouldn't mind, or maybe Elizabeth could, if we were looking over here, Representative Nelson and I, we've got reflection off the roof of the sun. You could just turn that, the other shoulder. Thank you. You're done. You're Perfect. Yep. Representative Lipsky. Abby,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: broader education Yeah. The with BW pay. What was the grant for?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Let's talk about that next representative Lipsky. So I'm glad.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Is that a

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: grant or a law? It was a grant. Yeah. So the only loan investments that that the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative contributes towards would be through the Sprout program. And then Vermont Community Loan Fund makes the loans. So it's still a grant from the Working Lands Enterprise Initiative to that organization. So in the case of the Vermont Woodlands Association, so that was a conversation that started back in 2024, as I understand, between the Vermont based Lager's Education to Advance Professionalism, so Vermont LEAP program, looking to have a potential merger with Vermont Woodlands Association.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Was LEAP an F. R. Program or

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I don't know that

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I can answer that.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: The education program has been around for about one year. There's over 200 elite trained loggers in the state. It's the same way homegrown or industry grown program that they are supporting that we can't take credit for starting it. There's some lawyers, people that found the lead way back in the day. So the

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: merger, did they sell it to the

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: DWA or More recently, DWA is taking over sort of the day to day management of LEAP. We set up a subcommittee to the board, to the board of EWM, which is the technical advisory committee for LEAP and Kate Forrer, who is the executive director of LEAP and her team will be the ones promoting LEAP, securing funding, offering LEAP trainings, ensuring that the list of LEAP individuals is up

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: to date and doing this during the

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: LEAP certification. You can complete the training, you get certified, that gives you access to certain mills, that gives you access to certain options, finances, which is what Vita is offering now.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: So VWA is just kind of a, I would say management support

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: as well to the LEAP certification process.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: That's great to have Oliver here in the room. Yeah, so the grant was about $39,000 and it is essentially supporting that merger between the LEAP program and BWA. So it will cover

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: go out of business and then it started up by BWA?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I wasn't under the impression that they went under out of business, but more that they were looking for like a new sort of like fiscal sponsor or, you know, organization to kind of like house the program within. So I think it was my understanding from the bit that I know, and Elizabeth may know more is that it was like a mutual understanding of like, how do we merge this program with an organization that already has relationships with woodland landowners and sort of sees the value of having that kind of a trained skilled workforce to kind of like continue to support the working landscape.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: So a part of the grant was actually legal advice, because they weren't sure when they wrote the grant, they actually weren't sure if they were going to merge or what the structure was going to look like, given that the Vermont Williams Association was going to take over more of the day to day management. And the two boards of the two organizations worked with an advisor that was funded through grant funds, and the ultimate decision was to do a complete merger. So Vermont LEAP is going to be completely housed within the VWA and grant funds are paying for a partial salary for one year for a new employee that's going to be based at VWA to help launch like this, yeah, like help launch a leap in this new position. They've done already a number of trainings this year, and we're still, you know, we're not finished with the grant period. Think is it five?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yes, they've done five workshops already, reaching 135 But

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: they're also going, you know, the VWA is now going to be managing also all of the educational materials, but they're almost done, the legal merger part. But that's the path they're taking.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So there

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: won't be two boards. It'll just be one board. It's a merge, going be a fully merged.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, and I think as Elizabeth was describing, part of the grant was supporting that new kind of like plan, like what would be the structure, the board composition, the bylaws, the staffing. So all of that would be part of kind of like what this grant would support. And then I don't know a lot about this. Maybe others in the room do. But then there was also a component to the project was like having a very community involved process about this merger and the union of the two different missions and focus of LEAP and BWA. And it was, my understanding is that it was well received to be able to have the opportunity for public input and active membership be able to weigh in on how they thought this would best work. Then the last project to focus on is Connecticut rip off. Should I stop for a moment?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I want to talk about this one.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Okay, me too.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: This one is actually a really exciting pilot project in it was a $20,000 grant to the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance to focus on a pilot project of how to manage bale wrap to become a recycled product. So a lot of plastic on farms, and this was initiative to be able to see how many farms could they get to be able to provide the bale wrap to reach a 20 ton goal of being able to go around and collect it, aggregate it, and then be able to like pack it, bail it, and then have it be kind of suitable for recycling. At the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance annual meeting, they talked about this project, And it's also highlighted a little bit in this impact report, so you can read about it at another time, that it's still hard because the bale wrap needs to be clean. It needs to be dry. You can't have driven over it. It can't have ice on it. It's what needs to be stored you know, in undercover in a dry kind of location. The hope is that like this pilot project will start to identify like some possible solutions. It's complicated and it's they are the project pilot project is already identifying that it's very difficult. There's not really the structure and the capacity at the municipal solid waste districts to be able to store it. But they were at 14 tons collected and aggregated. It's taken like real passion of like driving around the farms to collect this bale wrap and ensure that it could be, you know, reach the 18 to 20 ton minimum requirement to be able to be packed into a bale.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: They're not putting 20 ton into one bale?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: No, no.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: No, 20 ton is the What's the, okay, yeah, I'm sorry, you're right.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: They are big bales. Yeah. But it's not

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. 2010

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: is over the lifetime of the pilot.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And they're just using bale wrap plastic, which is a real thin film. They're not using, the six mil black on white bunker plastic.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Specifically are piloting just with bale wrap.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. This is also up for topic topic with the AIB now.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: So and right now, they're storing the plastic at? A farm, at Guy Grosby's farm, just because he's passionate about this and willing to make it work. So there's, I think one of the big challenges, one of the reasons we're highlighting this is because it's gonna require some thought partnership, I think at a state level to engage the municipal waste districts in supporting some of the storage and bailing of this plastic, because they're facing a lot of challenges with that now, where the waste districts don't have the capacity to store and some of them don't have the capacity to bale this plastic.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Well, it would require almost one of those industrial balers like people trying for hemp and whatnot that can bale silage and bale trash

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: and whatnot.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It looks like each bale weighs about a ton.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: But some, what they said is that they do have balers in Lindenville and Brattleboro, and also in Lebanon. But what those waste districts don't have is the space to hold the loose plastic or the baled wrap enough for it to accumulate for them to send it to a market in Pennsylvania. So there's like some supply chain challenges that we're gonna have to work out, you know, I think.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So that was what it was. Yeah. The the pet the recycler requires an 18 to a 20 ton trailer load. So you have to accumulate, you know. Right.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Well, and if you're putting a thousand pounds in a bale, that's a pretty prodigious pile.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I wonder whether I know I I don't think that since you're highlighting it here that we're gonna hear more tomorrow from this particular point, but maybe at some point this session or next year, there's more to learn about, we could Yeah, have some

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: think it would be great.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's been a challenge that we at the agency have been trying to solve for us, so really grateful that they've been wanting to take it on.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Hoopsky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yeah. I think it's really interesting because it's quite five, six blown around

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the pond. Yeah. And

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: but it it occurs to me that the cost of

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: gathering, cleaning, storing, packaging, I mean, they're really providing a neat environmental service. Yeah. Oh, for sure. It's not like

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: They're trying

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: end of the day, they've got a profitable product here.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It's They're trying cost a lot more to

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Oh, it's truly to just keep it out of the waste stream. Right. Yeah. Is a tipping fee at

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: the landfills that farmers pay, but I think it's what you're saying though, like you know, farmers wouldn't have to pay that tipping fee if if it weren't the recycling route, but it's never going to be like a profitable business. It really is an ecosystem service. Yeah. Yeah.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Other great projects that were funded as well that we won't talk about today. The last piece that I just wanted to offer before turning it over to Director Pearson is that the technical assistance that happens by the program staff, both Claire and Elizabeth, on a routine basis is another form of technical assistance that the program provides. So I don't know how many calls they field, but when a funding opportunity is open and businesses have questions about what should they apply for, is this an appropriate use of the grant? Is this an eligible use of the grant? I know that they get, you know, two dozen calls a week kind of fielding those types of questions. And a big part of what the team does is sort of either direct them to have an understanding of how it would be a good fit for the grant or maybe redirecting them, as Claire said, to another funding source, maybe recommending that they work with a business advisor, maybe giving them some feedback if they do end up applying but are not an awarded grantee, how to make their application stronger. And so I just want to say, like, there's just so much technical support that happens within the program at that level that doesn't show up on a slide as an investment made, but it's truly a benefit to so many dozens and dozens of businesses throughout the year.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative O'Brien. Yes. Sure.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Is anybody with sort of agritourism or accessory on farm business, are they eligible to apply?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Oh, yeah.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And then there's often agritourism related applications that we review and have certainly funded some of those projects in the past.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Access around farm businesses, is that

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, some of those as well. Yeah, that same category. Yeah. I mean, that's what we're seeing from many businesses that, and we've talked about that at different times, that they're doing more of that on farm vertical integration or value added processing that is starting to move them towards being a farm and an accessory business model to be profitable and to be viable? Jennifer, sure. I think,

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: you know, obviously the program's great. It's providing seed money for, you know, basically bolstering the

[Unidentified participant]: economy for

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: work and lands.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I think it's a vital program for our state. And then I just wanted to make sure we're doing our due diligence with

[Unidentified participant]: what's been requested of us in terms of asking some other questions, budgetary questions. Operating costs, do you have numbers on operating costs for the program?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So as we said earlier, the appropriation from the legislature all goes out in competitive awards at this time. The agency of agriculture has two positions, both Elizabeth and Claire, that sort of are program managers. And then we have a portion of one of our grants and contracts team members that provides the assistance around standing up the funding opportunity and the management of our web grant system, the management portal through which people apply and submit their claims and their progress reports. So that's the operating cost in addition to covering per diems, meals, and travel stipends for board members. Actually, Elizabeth, I think, been working on what that annual budget is that comes out of the agency of agriculture. I don't know if you have a number that sticks with you at the moment.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I'm sorry.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Wanted to

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Keep sharing the slideshow and

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: look at that. I mean, could probably guess that Go ahead and give it a shot.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Well, I can tell you the exact operating budget, actually. I mean, I guess we'll just share my screen. Be very

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: transparent

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: here.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: If you want to save that for tomorrow, that's perfectly fine too.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: The question or?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The answer to the question.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: My computer's also being incredibly slow.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: If you have it right there, let's pop it up if

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: it's in the take a bit. Hold that. So 13,453. And that's that isn't for the staff.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: That's just for, that would just be the cost for the board.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: That's the cost for the board. It's the cost for, yeah, basically the board, the symposiums, the impact reports, the grantee signs. We're making signs available to grantees to put on their businesses to help with public recognition of this program, this amazing program that most of the public doesn't know about. So grantees were able to sign up to request a sign. We had 63, is that right? Sign up. So, it'll be slowly but surely, we're hoping to get more of these signs out into the landscape so it becomes a more known entity by the folks that are frequenting these businesses, especially farm stands and sugar houses that offer public events.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And then you would add to full time equivalents plus a portion of the grants and contracts team if you're wanting to kind of like capture the full cost of administering and managing the program. I will say, and maybe not to get into great detail right now, In previous one time appropriations towards the Working Lanes program, we have used some of those funds to pay for one of the two positions. One of the two positions is a permanent position, and one position is a limited service position. And actually, so is the portion of the grants and contracts position. So in government, when we have limited service positions, we use special funds, either one time appropriations, special funds, or federal funds to support those positions. So that's what we've been relying upon in the past few years, but not out of the base allocation of the $1,000,000 or it was less than that four or five years ago.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thinking back to earlier slides where you showed us how much larger for a few years the grant a lot of it was just because we had more money at the time and maybe we'll again in the future. But I imagine that the administrative costs didn't double or triple. But there's efficiencies gained with, yeah, there it is.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, and I think that five times the demand to the annual allocation has been pretty consistent for the past five plus years. And I think that was like in line with, as Elizabeth shared, when the appropriations went up in 2022. So this was like, this was post COVID money and then ARPA funds and then one time appropriations. And we have kind of like pretty clearly recognized that the program requires the two and a half FTEs to be able to administer the program, whether it's at a million dollars of a base allocation or it's at 3,000,000

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: of

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: a There's lot efficiency of scale. Like a lot of what we do, we just have to do it no matter what. And so if we're doing it for 5,000,000 or 1,000,000, it's like not that big a difference as far as the job, the time it takes,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I guess.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: John, just thinking ahead on this conversation that you have such great stories and you have this multiplier, like a one to five multiplier. So my question is, why didn't you ask for more? Is there a sweet spot where you're like, okay, there are all these great requests for grants, but at some point I can see they're just not ready for money if you've had more money. But is there a, could Ag Dev say, this would be that much better if we had 2,000,000 a

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: year? Well, I mean,

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I think you know that we support the governor's recommend, but I think there's other stakeholders and the Working Lanes Coalition that can sort of speak to kind of like what the ideal demand might be of resources for the program. But I would say that historically, it used to be that we would see a lot of applications come in that weren't really ready. That is not so much the case in the last few years. Mean, certainly there's higher scoring and more shovel ready and more direct and immediate impact. But the quality of applications has improved over the past five to seven years significantly. So businesses are ready. It's just finding the right match of the amount of dollars that are also available. It's hard.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So two things. The FY twenty seven governor's budget recommendation is a million Is 1,000,000. Base level funding. Yes. And we are also hearing, I think, next week from other stakeholders, as you said, who may have different ideas. Great.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: This program is great, and it's, in fact, I was on the committee when it was created.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I remember.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. And the goal back then was to reach 5,000,000, and we started running around 7,000. That 5 or 5 and a half millions in '22, that's COVID money that made that possible? Is that what was going on?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: That was ARPA money, yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: then I'm curious, when you talk about leveraged funds, how is that calculated?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Applicants claim that in their proposal and in their project final report. So it's a self reported. But

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: it's in

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: the budget table. They say exactly what their matching funds are going

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: to be used for. Well, I'm thinking back, I thought we were looking at higher percentages of leveraged funds. If I'm reading all the way back to the second slide, if I'm reading this correctly, 19,500,000.0 in funds awarded and 32 leverage, that's like 61%. Is that enough?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Say more about your question. Is that enough for the projects to We're be

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: handing out money. We would expect a bigger return for this kind of program than not even a 100%.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I wouldn't say that money is return on investment. It's money

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: that's also being put into

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: the same It's leverage, but it's still only, it's like 60%.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, so I think of the leveraged funds being, that could be the business's contribution, they make a cash contribution, or it could be an in kind contribution of they're using their own equipment that they're not charging or paying anyone for. It could be that the project is the grant project is a small portion of a larger effort that they're doing at their business, that they actually have additional loan funding or raised capital that they or they sometimes say it's coming out of our savings or right out of our checkbook that is covering the rest of the project. So those are the examples of the leveraged resources that we've typically seen on applications and projects.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: As I say, I was hoping that that would be higher. So I guess my ultimate question here though is, there are funds requested, am I reading this correctly, 5,300,000.0?

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yes, in 'twenty six.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Even the current financial climate, if this committee goes to appropriations suggesting 5.3, they're just gonna laugh at us. That's my opinion. So how much should this committee actually ask for and realistically expect appropriations to listen to us? It's great. Mean, if we're gonna give away money, there are always gonna be people lined up who are willing to take it and use it. And that's great. We're promoting some really good stuff, but we don't have the money.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think that the folks who are here today from the agency aren't in a

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: position to Well, that's not the only one.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah. But hold that question because we'll have other people who, as I mentioned, I think may help us answer that question more easily. And I will just say, though, before we go on, and I am mindful of the time here, that the met And I think we talked about this earlier. At one point, there was an explicit Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Yeah, one to one matching.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Matching requirement.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Oh, yes. Was gonna mention, yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Which would have contributed to that 31,000,000. And then presumably, people were also saying, because I got this grant, I was also able to get this grant, and maybe included that in that number as well. Whereas today, we're not asking for that match. It's still, we're looking at it as a good investment. The return on the investment isn't what we're showing here. That number really is other people who helped put in money.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: When I think of the return on investment personally, I guess specifically, I think of when grants are increasing sales, that's direct return because there's a sales tax on that, right? So the state's making that money back directly. I mean, I think these businesses, like we said, just the 2025 cohort has an annual sales revenue of 12,200,000.0. I don't actually know what it would be interesting to know exactly what that calculation is. Are those sales actually, maybe not for one year, but over a number of years, like just funding this program itself. It's an economic engine that we're funding. And that's like, it's kind of a cutthroat analysis, right? Because that's not even talking to the fact that these businesses are the businesses that are keeping Vermont beautiful, feeding the communities, keeping our lands working. But I think job creation, the sales tax, and certainly the number of acres, I think that are benefiting from this program. For me, that's the return on investment. I think that we have to sort And

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: those are the metrics that are tracked over time, essentially.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Why don't we I think we still maybe we're gonna hear from Oliver. Great.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I just asked. When you add FTEs, are you counting jobs created and income tax that's coming back to

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: the state in that calculation too?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: No. I'd be interested to hear more about what you're thinking as far as I'm always curious about

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Just that return, because if you create a job, there's a certain amount coming back

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: to I the thought of it more through the sales tax.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Well, 's because

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: a lot of our investments are increasing business sales.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Who guys know sales tax?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Think guys

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: know sales tax.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I Well, yeah, but value added food does, Like if we're talking about restaurants, if we're talking about some of the more agritourism, I mean, it's certainly,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: yeah, that's a good point though.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Think that I think

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: everything this project does has value.

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, it's

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: still circulating in the economy. Those dollars are in the economy.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think we've got just another short set of slides here, but an important one focusing on the forestry economy.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Yeah, thanks, chair. For the record, Oliver Pearson, director of forests within the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation. I'll talk a little importance for the forest product sector in Vermont, and then try to wrap up this presentation and just talk about a few examples along the way. So just for some context, as you've heard us say before, the forest sector is one of the sort of fiscal leaders of Vermont's natural resource economy, along with agriculture and some other sectors. Elements of that, such as logging, forest trucking, milling, secondary processing, are vital pieces of this forest economy. It's a priority for the state to support these industries to thrive and contribute to economic growth and forest health. But these industries, like many others, are suffering lots of different challenges because of market pressures, rising costs, climate change, labor shortages, consistent with regional challenges. And so we're seeing more contraction here than we'd like with mills closing, loggers getting rid of their equipment, etcetera. And there's not a lot of programs out there that support new entrants into this sector and expansion of existing businesses. But the Working Men's Enterprise Initiative is one of those, and it plays an extremely important role in helping to maintain the important economic contributions of the forest products industry to the state. So we're thrilled in FPR that when the Workflowing Enterprise Initiative was created, forestry was put essentially on par with agriculture this initiative. And it's played such a really important role for forest sector businesses over the years. We're working to support the forest products industry through the implementation of the roadmap. We have small, large, medium sized programs to support loggers, to support the forest products industry, and working as enterprise initiative is a really important part of that. It's helping businesses grow, add employees, modernize, increase efficiency, and get over hurdles that they wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Many of these forest sector businesses are capital intensive, and we lab grants, sometimes in relatively small amounts, sometimes larger amounts, have had really important impacts for businesses in this sector. I'll get into these slides in a minute. One thing that's not of the we've had conversations in this committee before about workforce development and the challenges that the forest products industry faces with recruiting new talent, recruiting new labor. And so it's an exciting effort that Wheelab has undertaken to provide a scholarship for up to three Vermont residents to go to Maine and take a logging and trucking mechanized training course that professional logging contractors of the Northeast has been offering over the years. And I just learned today there had been some questions about whether or not the federal funding for that would come through, would put a question mark next to whether that MLF training would be offered in Maine and Vermont residents could participate. But just learned today from PLC that that has come through. So this will be a really exciting new opportunity for students, apprentices, aspiring professionals in the mechanized logging and trucking sector to get trained by one of the region's best established programs and bring those skills back to Vermont. So we're excited about that. A few examples of projects that we love working as Enterprise Initiative has supported over the years in the forest sector. A $50,000 grant to Vermont Heavy Timber, which is a timber drying and storage facility in Huntington. And the structure that the grant made available helped them store timbers often sourced in Vermont that have been processed through Vermont heavy timber, their sawmill, and they're waiting to be cut or installed in historic timber frames or erected into new timber frames. So this is a successful business in Vermont that was able to expand its capacity through this this this grant. Now I'll move quickly, Chair, in recognition at the time. Maple is one of those sectors that sort of crosses both ag and forestry sectors. We focus on the sap. They focus on the production of the high quality grade A maple. But this maple farm was hoping to install a wireless monitoring system to help them sort of manage all the tap lines and get everything into the boiling sugar house. And so this grant will help them to increase production and labor efficiency, and really do some interesting stuff, pinpoint in their many, many miles of lines where their trouble areas are, if there's a vacuum leak, if there's a blockage, identify that remotely, get out there, repair it, and really reduce the amount of labor required to search for and fix vacuum leaks. So that was pretty exciting. The next one is in Case Cows, one of our larger grants, 50,000, for Sawyer Made to expand their production facility that helped them to meet some growth needs. And this one is sort of exciting because, just looking at my notes here, their output has increased by 100% since they received this grant in 2022. And so it really shows the impact. The grant allowed them to expand their facility by adding a finishing room for painting, oiling, and storing the chairs that are made on-site. So this is one of these, again, successful rural businesses that provides employment in the part of the state where there aren't a ton of other options, and it was great that we were able to support them. And then finally, the last example we'll cite is the J. K. Adams Company, which is a cutting board company that was based here in Vermont. And this is another example of a grant that helped them increase production through new equipment and do some marketing of their products. So really excited about that one as well. And they were able to launch a new line of cutting boards sourced entirely from Vermont timber as a result of of this grant. So, you know, these are these examples are you know, what what you see there is examples throughout the forest sector. We have made some deliberate efforts to increase outreach about the initiative to logging and trucking businesses because they've been a bit underrepresented in the past couple of years. And in this latest crop of grant applications, I think we saw that outreach was successful. There was a number of applications from logging and trucking businesses that we're in the process of reviewing right now. So wrap it up, chair. I think, as you've just heard, great one of the JK Adams cutting boards.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Say

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: it again? Live chair. The uniqueness of

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: the Weed Working Lands program is based on the effectiveness of the program structure and the way the structure supports the ongoing evolution and success of the program. And I'll say that to have a program with the commitment of the agency of agriculture to provide two staff to manage anywhere between 1,000,000 to, I think, what was our high year, 6,000,000, dollars 5,000,000 $6,000,000 of funding is phenomenal. It's one of the better managed efforts that I'm involved in. I think the board's expertise is a key part of it as well, has been said, an extremely talented, experienced, and committed board. And I'm always amazed that these very busy business professionals are going to spend their time going through grant applications and process improvement in painstaking fashion. That's just their commitment to and recognition of the importance of this initiative. We want to note that there's a number of statewide partners and networks that involved and consulted and sort of a partner to WeLove, Farm to Plate is one, and New England is feeding New England. And the WeLove investments are critical to the success of the businesses and the viability of the business that those organizations support. And it's also helping establish a regional food system and forest product sector in Vermont that feeds its ongoing efforts throughout the broader region. So conclude by saying the founding statute of the Working Men's Initiative was designed to create a nimble program that can adapt and stay effective and relevant and involving in challenging context. And as a result, the working landscape that we all cherish is protected and improved through this program. I think I'll stop there, but happy to take any questions about the forestry pieces or any other comments Thank that will

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: you, Oliver. Representative Nelson. Two quick ones.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Do you have dedicated staff for this as well or is this funded by the agriculture side of things?

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: We do not. Have, so Commissioner Fitzgow is sort of the forest parks and rec representative to the board. I fill in for her when she's busy, and we have one staff member, Catherine Servideo, our forest economy program manager, who spends a lot of time on sort of the day to day details of grant review and administration and advising the commissioner and me on how to proceed in in reviewing the grant. So FPR doesn't make a direct financial contribution to to the program that we provide in kind support through staff time. And

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: does force and products put up any of the $1,000,000? Does that all come through the agriculture?

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: It's the latter. It comes through the agency of agriculture. I think our our role is is to recognize and and and support this program, recognizing its importance for forest products businesses. But our budget doesn't provide specific funding for this purpose.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Absolutely. It's important for our forest, our brethren, and the working lands. I just wondered if we could expand it to $2,000,000 and get ANR to release some of the

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I never said it. Representative O'Brien.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I'm pretty sure that the angels in Randolph, the White Rock sawmill was the recipient. And then we also heard last week from Sam Lincoln, former deputy commissioner, that they had had some Act two fifty permitting difficulties. So I was wondering, can you apply and get technical assistance or even use, sometimes we hear it costs $100,000 for Act two fifty. Is that eligible for a grant?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: It is. It

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: gave a grant to L. S. Forest Products and Fletcher because

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: they They're the other

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: one that heard of that, right?

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: They had a grant that paid for some of the storm water and engineering. And their costs were higher than White Rock, but it was still significant. We provided more, and Forest Parks and Recreation provided a small grant to White Rock to help with the permitting process. We provided more of what Abby was talking about, talking it through with the business owner about and doing a little bit of follow-up, sort of state to state follow-up with the person who was being very slow at supporting the permitting process, I was able to say, this is a grantee, I'd like an update on they've submitted x, y, z, when is this going to be reviewed? Because it can be quite a slow process. But they're completely through it now. Both.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: That's almost another type of leveraging if you say FPR or Ag Dev, it's got my back.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Totally.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: There was mention earlier of metrics that measure the success of this program beyond leveraged funds. What kind of metrics are those, and where can we see those numbers? I think the least of that.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: I think these are some of the metrics that we think are So 48% of business grantees added jobs through the grant funded project. 77% of grantees increased production capacity. 74% increased sales. And then again, collectively grantees are stewarding a minimum of 25,000 acres, and that's a very, that's a low estimate. And I would say that we're also very open to hearing, like, there data that would be specifically very interesting to the committee because we can pull data.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: There's a percentage, so you don't

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: have dollar amounts anywhere, I guess.

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: So we, yeah, I can speak to some of this. I would say because this program is funded, there's a variety of staff turnover. We sort of inherited a certain set of numbers, a set of data. So this is data that we have that goes back to the life of the program, and of it was missing. And so when you have we're trying to report on the current numbers of jobs, and we don't have it for a certain year. That's where we wanted to lean on percentages. But we have taken a few years, honestly, to overhaul what our data collection plan is and metrics, because we know it's important. And this year, the FYP 500 grantees are the first ones that are answering different questions in their final reports. And it will be a lot more data heavy, but we only have a few of those grantees that are done so far. So we won't have all of that information going back, but we will have that moving forward, specifically questions I think about Representative O'Brien you spoke to earlier, asking about, did you do these jobs? And then asking how the much grant was responsible on a scale of one to five to that added job or that increase in sales. Because we know that sometimes these things are happening independently and sometimes they're directly related and we want to test through that.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: But I think there's still a chance that we will go back and mine some of the and share some of the data and just name the years that are missing. Like if the data is not available, like jobs created. I guess

[Claire Salerno (Program Coordinator, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: what I'm saying is moving forward, could say for next year, could say in FY '25, this many jobs were added.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: We just don't have that

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: That information would be more useful because you're looking like 74% businesses increase sales. Well, was that 5% increase? 25%? It's hard to know. It's hard to interpret a percentage and know really what that means in terms of success, making Yeah, I

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: think anything like that would be helpful. To the extent that it's also possible to quantify, and I imagine this is a much heavier task. But I was thinking when we were looking at the maple, the illustration to the folks who had received grants from the maple sector, to what extent do we know that that's expanding Vermont's share of maple sales as opposed to cannibalizing somebody else's smaller business that isn't able to make that investment and can't compete? Just as an illustration. Again, that's probably a bigger, more difficult task. Representative Lipsky?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I was seeing J. K. Adams, it occurred to me, do any recipients ever close or go out of business? And was it enough, not enough life support or I mean, is it twenty five percent end up failing with this is, let's say, thirteen year span you're talking about? And is JKN still endorsing?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: That's probably the last, I think, wood products produced or one in Cuba, it's over a century old. Wow.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's wonderful, they're doing well. We could check-in with my colleague, but yeah, same. Does somebody else have a question or does somebody else have anything you want to talk I

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: don't know that we

[Abby Willard (Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: know to answer your question, representative, let's give out the percentage of businesses that fail. I don't have a percentage. I don't know if Elizabeth declared you, but I can think of one business that failed because the business owner died. And that was a loss for the family, and they had to make decisions of whether they could continue maintaining their business or not. It's not a metric that we track, but it's very rare that we've had a business go out of business during the time frame that they've had a grant. Might they go out of business three, four, five years later? That may occur. We don't have that longevity.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: It just occurred to me that, you know, we're tracking how many farmers we lose every year, how many products businesses, from mills or busing? So we'd have more.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Oh, actually. Obviously.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests, VT Dept. of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Was just gonna comment to representative Bartholomew's question. The applications ask applicants a series of questions that then could lead, if the grant's awarded and implemented, to metrics. I'm looking at an application right now, and there's questions about, will the project result in increased gross sales? If so, by how much? Will the project allow you to access new markets, sell new products, increase efficiency, increase employment? So we ask the applicants to provide a lot of data regarding how the grant might support their business. And I think we could perhaps share the blank application with the committee. And if there's lines in there like, boy, we'd really like to see how that metric played out with your successful grants, that might be something we could do.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: We can absolutely share it. And the final report is maybe even we can share both. But I think, as we said, I think we've strengthened our data collection largely with Claire's leadership. But what's challenging for us is the cumulative, right? So going forward, we're going to have, we'll share it with you, we're going to have very strong data on increased sales, exact numbers. We're going to have data on new jobs created. We're going have data on increased product output. We're going have data on acres, increased acreage in production, we're going have data on equity, projects that are investing in equity outcomes like accessibility to food, to local food, to new populations. So I think it would be interesting to share it and get feedback maybe on the

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think that's great, and I don't think that you should be worried or that anybody's gonna be asking hard questions about what happened ten years ago. It's really more about the last fiscal year or some reasonable amount of time. I just wanted say Vermont can be really proud of this program, and I've to say I'm proud

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: to be one of its architects, and I just wish we could throw all the money at it. There are few states that can boast having this kind of program in place, if any.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Don't know if there are any.

[Elizabeth Sipple (Program Manager, Working Lands Enterprise Initiative)]: Well, interestingly, we've helped Maine quite a bit over the past year develop a program that they're modeling off of this. So we've shared a lot of information and learning with that institution that's trying to copy Vermont because there's really we're unique.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Once again, Vermont's a leader and hope we can find more money.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: This is an important program, and we are going to take more testimony on it tomorrow from several four of the And grant then that will not be the end of the conversation. So I think there'll be an opportunity, If there's anything else that you've, based on questions or the conversation, wanna bring back, we'll be sure to make time for that. We are running a little bit over, but representative Burtt, did you have one other Oh, I was gonna tell that there's opportunity to ask questions tomorrow. Yep. Okay. And Elizabeth, are you back tomorrow to start things off? Mhmm. Well, thank you. I appreciate everybody's time and making time for our committee in addition to the Senate committee. That's very helpful. Thank you. Thank you so much, We have we're not done. You'll be on mute if you guys can help. Thank you. We will take a shorter break, but don't go too far because we have one more topic.