Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: Okay, good. Well, welcome, Chris. Thank you. So thank you, Chairman Durfee and the committee for making time in your agenda today to hear a little bit about Extension and College of Ag and Life Sciences and University of Vermont. I serve as the Interim Director of Extension and Associates Dean for Extension. And I have to tell you, I feel as though I have the best job in the world. You might hear that from many people who come to talk with you. Know, fundamentally, I believe in the power of knowledge to improve the world. And that is essentially what our work comes down to. I'll get into that a little bit. Gets to the question about the land grant mission and our role as part of delivering on that mission and that promise. Linda has introduced herself. Linda is the Dean of the College of Ag and Life Sciences, College of Ag and Life Sciences. And we will talk quite a bit about the intersection of extension and CALS. And later you have Vern on the agenda as well to talk about a specific topic, which I think is a great example of the work we do and how we do partnership with communities. So my hope was to provide a bit of an overview of Extension, what we do, how we do it, talk a little bit about the partnerships we have with state agencies and the state in general, and communities throughout the state. And then talk a little bit about what we're feeling and seeing in terms of the future, and just by way of giving everybody an introduction to our organization and where we are. So my thought was to introduce UVM, Caledonia, and extension, give you a little bit of history on the land grant mission and extension, we do it, the work we do and how we do it, how we're funded, and then the future. So it actually all started in Vermont, and maybe some of you are familiar with this history and this story, but it started with Justin Smith Morell, not too far away from where we are now. And the motivation was at that time to teach agriculture, military tactics, the mechanical arts, as well as classical studies, so members of the working classes could obtain a liberal practical education. And that it was the founding principle of the Land Grant Act of 1862. This is the act that essentially transferred the value of land to establish universities across the country as land grant universities. Principles being a three part mission of teaching, research, and extension, intended to democratize higher education with a focus on practical applications. So not just an education for those who are privileged enough to afford it and have connections to it, but really to get it out into the community. And it's one of the greatest experiments of US history. And I like to say that it's an experiment that is working, and that I get to experience every day and see the successes of any positive impact. The cornerstone of this is the belief that there's value in integrated research, education, and extension. So research on its own is great and produces knowledge. If it doesn't see the light of day, what value is there? And so one way it sees the light of day is by informing that it's higher education and degree bearing study. The other way it improves the world is by making sure it gets out into the communities that it should serve through extension. So as you see here, the College of Ag and Life Sciences is made up of departments just the way any other college is made up. Sorry, Michelle, I'll write

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: in your way. And

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: there's one addition here that you may not see in other colleges. It's the last bullet, Extension. And so we exist as a department of the College of United Life Sciences. And different from the other departments, our classroom is throughout the state. So we serve to do education throughout the state. The blue circles are our field offices. We have 10 of them throughout the state. We are, as I mentioned, tightly connected with research sites such as the Procter and Maple Research Center, the Porterview Research Farm up in Alberg, Horticultural Research Education Center and Miller Farm nearby campus. We're also closely connected with campus. And so, we are part of this three part mission that's all focused on putting research based knowledge to work. In short, the way I think about it is we're a bridge. We're meant to be a bridge between the university and communities.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Can you please pause your question, O'Brien? Sorry to interrupt. We've just

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: heard other states, there was a Connecticut experimental station for ag. So is that sort of what happens in lieu of that at UVM and UVM extension or?

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: So what's interesting, we have an agricultural experiment station and part of the state appropriation that goes to UVM supports that as well. Those red dots that you see are partly associated with the Ag Experiment Station. Also Proctor. Proctor, for example. There's also the purple dot is campus, and there's a lot of the Ag Experiment Station work that happens on campus as well. Anything you'd like to add about the Ag Experiment Station?

[Linda Berlin (Dean, UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)]: No, it's not a separate department. It's really integrated throughout everything that we do. It funds a lot of the research we do with your support and the Hatch funds that we receive from the federal government.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Bos-

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah, I was just wondering, I used to work for extension and my office was in Brattleboro, and I don't see a blue dot in Brattleboro. Did that office close or is it just not covered sorry, Chris. By the block? I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a change in my area.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: There is.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: In fact, Vern might be based there right now.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Can't tell.

[Linda Berlin (Dean, UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)]: We're use to both be based there.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: Other questions? Great. Thanks for the question about ag experiment stations. That's one bullet head, won't we? Well, you have the

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: map of it, because there are further north along the river, looks like no blue dots in Yabba Valley, for example.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: Between Brattleboro and St. Jay, no. At one point in time, we had a Springfield office that was very lightly used. Part of what we need to do is assess, obviously, where where we're investing, and the light use of that office sort of led to a decision to let go. But yes, we are not everywhere with our offices. What we do is try to make up for that by being very active and agile in our fieldwork. And, Richard Bartholomew?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I pointed out the lack of UVM's presence in that area to UVM president this weekend, last weekend. Trying to fix that little problem. Okay.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: You. Other questions? So the way we do our work is through four program areas, which I'll get into in more detail in the next slide. And then we have an administrative team. Our work is done by a combination of faculty and staff. So just like other college departments, we have extension faculty. And, so they are by and large serving as program leaders, for the work we do. We also have educational and administrative staff. And some of those educational staff members are also program leaders, depending on the program we're talking about. Another characteristic of our work is it's embedded in community. And so we'll get into this in a little bit. And certainly what you'll hear from Vern will demonstrate this better than I can speak to it. It's always participatory and stakeholder driven. We try to be incredibly responsive to the needs of the community. That can be challenging when we hire for certain skill sets and things change, needs change over time. But I will say we're a remarkably responsive and adaptable organization that tries to build programs that have a foundation of work that allows for that responsiveness as things change. The other thing I wanna mention is our work is done in close partnership with state agencies and other organizations. I'll talk about some of those specific examples, but at the risk of starting a list that I know will be incomplete, we work very closely with the agency of agriculture, food and markets, very closely with the agency of natural resources, agency of education through four H and migrant education work, Department of Labor on workforce development initiatives, and certainly the working lands enterprise initiative. Yes. So

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: that's Heather Darby up in Albert there, red, is that border?

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: That's Border Butte Farm, which hosts Just what are

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: the other two red dots then right near campus? So right near campus is the Hort Farm.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: And so that work that happens there includes tree fruit research. That's Cherry Cherry Bradshaw. Yep. For example, as well as fruit and vegetable production is happening there. And some agroforestry projects as well. So that's a case of where we have this foundational infrastructure, and it's developed for one thing, and then sort of a new avenue of inquiry shows up, and we can pivot some parts of it to look at those. And the other red dot is the Miller Farm, which is primarily our dairy research farm. And it includes also equine research and Not research. No research. Okay. Student activities related to equine and dairy.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: For other organizations that you're

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: in partnership with, conservation districts? Certainly. Yeah. And especially in the area of water quality and the intersection with agriculture, for sure. Very close partnership with the conservation districts through work supported by Clean Water Fund. For example, there's great Vermont Ag Water Quality Partnership that includes our two organizations and many others. That's a great example. So oftentimes, the the conservation districts are are finding the needs, the individual needs and inquiries and providing some technical assistance when it gets beyond what they're able to do, they will reach out to extension for additional in-depth technical assistance and identify research questions to be further explored. These are our program area teams, and I will say these emerged in 2018 as a result of strategic planning process within extension. So you can see the main purpose here is to provide a framework for our organization's work. And so it includes things like capable communities. So working with communities on leadership development, capacity building and inclusion of voices in their decision making. Healthy families, this includes things like four H and migrant education programs. The natural environment includes a significant work in forestry, for example, and the Lake Champlain Sea Grant. Sustainable ag, food and forests obviously is focused on agriculture, food and forests. And you may know this work more by the people and the programs than the name of the program area. So it was mentioned Heather Darby. Heather Darby leads the Northwest crops and soils team, which is midway down the Ag Food and Forest program area. Four H is up there under healthy families. Vern's work is in vegetable and berries,

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: and that's again, about halfway done in sustainable ag.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: And there might be some here that you're not familiar with. We do a lot of pesticide education. We work closely with Steve L. L. At the agency of ag and the Ag Innovation Board to make sure that we are part of that conversation around pesticide use and appropriate use. There's another area of work here with an integrated pest management. So looking at ways of controlling pests and disease without the use of pesticides or with a minimal use of pesticides. Yeah. Chris, Doctor. Ali Kasiba, what is that genius? Yeah, in forestry. So right in the middle, in the natural environment. And Ali was one I was gonna definitely bring up, because incredible work. And and it's an example of work that's being done here in Vermont that is not only nationally recognized, but internationally recognized. This is

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: a carbon scientist as far as as a forester, a PhD, leader in the nation, really. Yep. Got her to the extent.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: Yeah, and I have. She'll be here. Yeah. So what what does it look like in terms of the number of activities? So you can see our our coverage of activities throughout the state. This is where the activities happen. These are direct educational activities. And you see that we reach about, we engage with about 29,000 people a year directly. I asked also, how many do we reach indirectly? And I was actually pleased with, I was very pleased with this number. We've reached 2,700,000 people annually through indirect work. So what does indirect work look like? Instead of being in a room together like this, it's the evergreen, always available information that's on our website, for example. It's our work through promoting education and research on social media. So it's reaching people that we can't actually name, but people are using the results of our work. And that's not only in Vermont, that is throughout the country and internationally. You can see that we still do a large portion of our work in person, although we make very prudent use of virtual education technologies. A lot of our work continues to be very much in person, one on one tailored education technical assistance. We do strive to reach all of Vermont. Locations may not show up that way, and even the activities may not show up that way. But I can tell you knowing the organization and the people doing the work, they are everywhere. And they are in community everywhere, which is a wonderful asset to have. So at the end of the day, you have to ask, so what? And this is a little bit, Jed, you can see in the natural environment column there. This is one of Ali's conferences that was focused on both, it's the Northeast Old Growth Conference. And so what you're seeing here are quotations from actual participants in our work, in our programs. And it's everything from a municipal leader commenting on their experience being part of the environmental planning lab and understanding how their community can prepare for significant weather events and doing plantings of trees and coordinating plantings of trees and riparian zones for flood protection. And learning not only the details of how to plant a tree, but also the details of community organizing around a need and doing it in a way that involves students from UVM being part of that process as well. It's things like in the healthy families area, our STEM Ambassadors program. And this is a program running partnership with the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, College of Ag and Life Sciences, and it's delivered through four H. This is a program that trains undergraduate students in basic educational methods to bring an educational activity out into the elementary school population around science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. And so this is a quote from a mother of two children who attended this experience, commenting about how their nine year old and 12 year old experienced it, and how much of a difference it made to have a college student doing this, as opposed to anybody else. So again, the importance of third adults in people's lives, in children's lives, not a parent, not a teacher, somebody else who shows up and cares and has a shared interest. In the natural environment, we talked about the old growth conference. This is a quote from a participant who was a little bit skeptical as part of the planning committee for this conference about where Doctor. Krasiba was going with it. And this is from the evaluation after the conference, appreciating the different approach and the fact that new voices, new people were showing up at the conference that they had never seen before. So it's taking not only research about scientific topics and specific topics, but also about extension practice. How gather, how we meet, how we have a conversation and putting them into use. And then the example from Ag Food and Forest is a quote from a new farmer who participated in a new farmer training program and just commented again, not only about the technical details they learned, but about the way of engaging with resources such as extension and other service providers to support their business centers. So that's a so what, and this is how we pay

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: for it.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: And this is something that I think is often lost in the conversation. Our work and sort of the principle, one of the other principles of the land grant university system model is it's a mix of capacity funds and competitive funds. And so we get capacity funds through a mix of federal dollars, which are known as the Smith Leader Act. Those are matched and then overmatched a bit with state appropriations, some of which goes to support the Ag Experiment Station, College of Medicine and tuition for students. What we do is we invest those capacity funds mainly in people and operations in a way that allows us to leverage that foundational money to go after competitive brands. The one thing I've learned since being with UBM Extension is we are incredibly successful in the competitive funding realm, like disproportionately successful. So we have people who've gotten very good at going after competitive grants and really maximizing the investment that the state makes an extension.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Are you concerned about losing chunks of your federal money with the current situation?

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: Not at all. Yes, of course. I'll get there. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's certainly part of why I'm very pleased to be here to talk with you because it's concern, it's one we're navigating for the moment, but as with anything, it's for the moment. The other key point is oftentimes there's an additional contribution to these capacity funds through county funding. So in other states, you'll see that model. We don't have that. And so I think to some degree, and you all probably know this better than I do, that may explain some of the overmatch that comes from the state. So all this investment goes into, again, the Cornerstone DeLoire Grant University model, which is integrated research, education and extension, and all leading hopefully towards public good.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Interesting. Can you break down competitive grants into whether they're federal, state or not for profit?

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: We can do that. I can't do it on the fly. I would say it's largely federal, although I'm questioning myself on that, especially now. In the past year that has shifted dramatically. But can I follow-up? Is there a way to follow-up?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Great. Yeah, you can send anything you'd like afterwards to Patricia and she can make sure that we all get it. Okay.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: Yeah, we can definitely do that. So the future, Michelle, you for the question. Yes, one of my big concerns is the funding. And I will say that right now, I feel as though we have a path for this. A lot depends on what happens federally. I wanna talk a little bit about the future of funding, but also the future of the work. So future of funding, there's both the long term what's been happening and the short term what's been happening. Long term what's been happening is capacity funding has largely stayed flat with relatively modest increases. At the same time, have grown and expenses haven't grown because we've hired more staff or because we have uploaded organizations. They've grown because expenses have grown. It costs more to do the work. Last year we had a dramatic increase, for example, in benefit rates like everybody else. And so that is an expense that we have to find a way to navigate with generally flat funding. The other thing is the federal funding landscape is dynamic. And, you know, the president's budget request last year zeroed out federal funding for the Ag Experiment Station and cut Smith Lever extension funding in half. I didn't sleep very well for these days, but that luckily was walked back and was addressed in appropriations. What's gonna happen next time around? We'll see. And I don't know how serious a threat that actually was or how much it was trying to signal. But it's something we need to certainly pay attention to. And that's a key source of our funding. Meanwhile, on the competitive grant side, it's become more difficult, not because of increased competition, but because of increased barriers to applying and to actually describing our work in a way that's truthful. And the process has both slowed down in terms of the announcement of availability of funds and then sped up in terms of the response time for getting proposals in. So it's all in the context of at least signaled increase in the number of competitive, a shift away from capacity funding to competitive funding at the federal level. Luckily, we are in a time at UVM where I have great confidence and in our leadership and our direction. UVM just the beginning of the week announced or last Friday announced the strategic plan that has been developed with these four pillars. I was part of this process and really believe very much in how it was developed. I'm also really excited to see what it looks like to align CALS and extensions work to the UVM strategic plan. And that's what's happening next. And in fact, we had a meeting this morning, Linda and others, to explore that. But the bottom line here is there is an overall longer term strategic plan for UVM. When I look at these pillars and look at the details of them, I see extension and CALS living in all of them and thriving. The other exciting thing that I hope to leave you with is we are embarking upon a Vermont wide assessment of assets and needs. This is an extension led project with funding from the LaLonde Institute for Rural Partnerships. It is attempting to use a two pronged approach to understanding needs throughout Vermont. One is leveraging a large language model to look at public documents and public records, things like municipal minutes, plans, plans, reports from state agencies, and understand how the public is expressing their needs and what those needs are and what they look like. Separately, we're doing a traditional literature review. This is what researchers do on a regular basis, looking at existing needs assessments, reports, etcetera, and seeing a scholarly approach shows. So then taking those two things and ground truiting them with two advisory committees, largely One made up largely of people engaged in community activity and another one based largely Made up of people largely serving in some sort of institutional role. So people working in a state agency, for example, someone from the agency of Ag. And the goal is to assess not only needs across Vermont, but also the assets that exist to address those needs, And then work on map that shows the connectivity between needs and assets. Where are there gaps? Where are there places for better connection? The key point of this is, although it's motivated by a need within extension to better understand the needs of the state, our goal is not to have this limited to just extension and what we can do. The goal is to identify these needs and better understand the assets and share it with the state and other partners so that it's useful to others. And that is what I have prepared. Again, I mainly wanna leave you with the sense that extension is still here and that we are prepared for the future and prepared to continue to deliver on the promise of Lamoille University. Lynn, is there anything you'd like to add? Any other questions?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Whatever question you had earlier, John, was that addressed? Was it the funding at Cambridge?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Yeah, we were gonna get some annotation on that. And I know you brought it up also.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: The mix of federal state, competitive grants, we can do that.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Even like a lot of the competitive grants, would think of those are mostly federal, a lot

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: of those are probably vulnerable to the income too. Like you said, just cut or you know, the programs can go away and there may not even be a call for proposals. We've had instances of call for proposals happening, we submit an application, we get the award, we get notice of award money being delayed or not showing up or projects being canceled in midstream. So all of those are risks for sure.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Other questions? Yeah, Greg. Yeah, specifically the extension portion,

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: how is extension being utilized most effectively? It mostly helping with the dairy sector or

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: is it something that is maple?

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: So in Houston, I'm sorry.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Oh yeah, our forestry.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: Yeah, yeah, it's if we go back to the distribution of programs heavily in ag And that's where extension has been historically. So and within that Northwest Crops And Soils and Champlain Valley Crops And Soils, Soil Pasture Team, those are two programs largely focused on dairy and supporting dairy as well as nutrient management soil health. But it's not just dairy. So Vern will talk about fruit and vegetable growers. We certainly have maple, maple extension program. And then that's just within that one program area. So yeah, basically what you're seeing here is a large investment in ag in terms of where the funding goes, but not only in ag. So it sort of follows the number of programs.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: Yeah. Chris, thank you. You know, on the side bench is the director of the it's called Salvation Farms, a major gleaning operation. And one of the titles on our door is food resiliency and, you know, in this committee right now is focused on a lot of food insecurity in Vermont. How would you interact with an organization like Salvation Farms, if you do it all?

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: Yeah. I can I can speak a little bit to the history? You know, previously, one way we interacted with Salvation Farms was researchers in community development applied economics, well as nutrition and food science, who actually supported research into understanding what the gleaning potential was in Vermont. And trying to work with Theresa Snow, previous director and founder of Salvation Farms, to quantify the impact of gleaning. So not only how it supports the charitable food system, but how does it support farms that are participating in it. So that was really sort of groundbreaking work. Gleaning, I think, before that time had been supported because it felt good. And seemed like the right thing. That was the first instance that I know of where there was actual research applied to it to understand its impact. And it's multiple impacts. So that's one example. The other way that we continue to work with organizations like Salvation Farms is doing workshops, for example, around post harvest handling of fruits and vegetables. So we've harvested, we've gleaned these sweet potatoes. And if we have a way to hold them, that makes sure that we have less waste of this surplus food after we've gleaned it. And so making sure that the systems and processes are in place to make sure it reaches the consumers who need it. It's another way. Thank you. Anything you'd want to add, Tal?

[Linda Berlin (Dean, UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)]: I mean, this is obviously a very intertwined with Salvation Partners for president, and they've always been a receptive partner with questions or concerns that we've had as an organization, which is appreciated. Appreciated.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: How does Extension and also the school, what is it, ag and Agriculture and life sciences. Life sciences Collaborate, I hope, with the other centers of learning in the state. Because Middlebury has something and Sterling, it's maybe disappearing, but they did stuff like those sort

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: of tasks at Vermont Law School and graduate school. There's a lot of good stuff

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: going on. Is there a way to share what you're doing to sort of meet your program areas?

[Linda Berlin (Dean, UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)]: So we are in conversation, not with all of those schools, we're actually in conversation with several, And we're actually in conversation with Vermont State

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: with their three new programs.

[Linda Berlin (Dean, UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)]: So there used to be a two plus two with Vermont State that has gone away and people are very sad about. So we're actually trying to break down a farm management major in house, which we don't currently have, surprisingly. That also, that we would get students the option of also adding in those classes from Vermont State, right, to get those farm practical hands on certificates as part of that degree. And then we also send students over to minor in New York as well, which we still have that program. We're actually finalizing an updated MOU with them for undergrads and grad students to learn at minorities in New York. We also work closely with community, Vermont Community College, we have five two plus two agreements with the community college to help students start out there and then come to UPM for two years and have everything on track to graduate on time with a Caledonia degree. But I think I just have a note in my opinion to go talk to the Vermont Law School because I haven't done that yet. That's on the list. I know that we're actually adding, don't know if we talk in the middle very slow, but that's the list as well. Yeah, I appreciate that.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: I would add in addition to the student undergraduate and graduate student overlap, there are a lot of collaborations that have a research and extension focus. For example, with the rollout of the new federal food safety modernization act, our food safety team partnered with Vermont Law School to come up with educational resources around the legal context of it, as well as the practice context. That's another example. I know Ali, Doctor. Kasiba works quite a bit with colleagues at Middlebury as well. Think, so there's lots of dimensions, There's a student experience, then there's what's happening research wise, and then what's happening in extension. Just the back end

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: of slide that mentioned the funding model and the state appropriation, is that money, dollars 5,100,000.0, is that in the governor's recommend for f y twenty seven?

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: I'm gonna have to phone a friend. Do you know state appropriation question? The Sorry. I I missed the question.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. No. I was wondering whether the 5,100,000 is in the governor's recommend for FY '27. I would have to follow-up

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: with you too. I'm not quite sure.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I know we didn't invite you in to hear your budget requests, but we've been hearing about other people's budget requests. And this is one that hasn't historically come into our committee. I think that it's something that we would be maybe in a good position to advocate for, given the work that's ag related. Yeah, let us know.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: I think it's fair for me to say my understanding after a conversation with Wendy Koenig last week is that it certainly is and that there may also be an increase requested.

[Linda Berlin (Dean, UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)]: I mean, certainly the 3% increase that UBM has asked for would benefit, that 3% increase would affect extension as well, right?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: This

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: is the extension portion of the state appropriation. My understanding is the appropriation is made as a larger amount. And then UBM splits it up here.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And I don't know, and I'm not gonna ask you how what the total appropriation is for UBM. But in any case, if if you if there's anything more you wanna share with this about this, let us know. Okay. Thank you. I think maybe we should let Vern jump in then. Sure. And I hope you can stay to that testimony. Yeah.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: So I'll stop sharing, Patricia. Hi, Vern. Hello.

[Linda Berlin (Dean, UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)]: Hi, Vern.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you for waiting so patiently.

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: My pleasure. Thanks for having me again. It was good to be with you last year and give you an overview of the vegetable and berry production in the state and the Vermont Vegetable and Berry Growers Association with which I work closely. Sort of view myself as a bridge to the growers from the university to the land, using that organization as a vehicle to organize them and help them feel ownership in the work we do together. So I don't have a prepared presentation. I thought I'd just give you sort of some high level observations, concerns I have, and open it up for discussion. I know you get talked at a lot, and it's always nice to get a PowerPoint break. Just as a little background, I've been lucky to be working with farmers as an extension person for thirty six years. I don't know where the time has gone. All of that has been in Vermont. I started as the county agent in 1990, county agricultural agent. So I sort of am the bridge to the old model. When I started, every county in Vermont had an agriculture agent, a four H agent, a home ec agent, a community development agent. We were partnered with small business development. We had continuing education in our offices, so the presence was really robust and we were very geographically focused and we were almost fully base funded. We didn't really talk about grants. State and federal funding was substantial enough to cover most of our costs is my understanding. So, lot has changed in how Extension operates and a lot has changed in agriculture. Since that time, extension really pivoted to being much more, I would say, entrepreneurial and grant fund driven, which has been a good thing to make us really hear the needs of our customers, be able to justify their proposals we put in, be accountable and report results in a way that really wasn't demanded when I first started. We had, you know, county advisory boards and people knew what was going on, but it was not nearly as robust a process of gathering data on both needs and impacts. The other thing I'll say is the geographic spread has changed. We had generalists in every county and now we have people with more specialized areas working on a broader spread of the land. So at this stage, I view the state as my county. I mean, it's interesting this discussion about where the offices are and how important they are. We reach growers all across the state. We drive around in the summer and do farm visits, but we have, you know, a listserv with 1,100 people on it. That's both farmers and service providers. As I mentioned, we have 400 member farms, mostly in Vermont, but also nearby and in the region. So we're exchanging information pretty broadly. We just had our annual meeting at Lake Morin, fairly with two twenty five people. We do on farm workshops. We have webinars that not only get several 100 people attending, but are viewed by a couple thousand people every year on YouTube. So the ability to reach and connect the communities is so much stronger than when, you know, when I started, we still wrote letters and mailed them and did phone calls. So still do some of the phone call and text part, letters not so much. So the community has gotten bigger and tighter, will say, the sense of social capital. And this is in my world of vegetable and berries, Mark Islehart, sugar makers. It's the same in four H clubs and the grazing community. I'd say this is a similar model throughout the state and extension in Vermont is a little bit unique that way. The county system for the pluses that it offered of the local focus and some county funding is also limiting in some way that the county does control some programming and it's maybe harder to reach further afield. So we have a lot of freedom. I feel like we've used it pretty effectively. You know, one thing that has changed and was alluded to as the state and federal funding has gotten smaller and smaller, and I don't know, we just had a budget meeting, but Chris, it's somewhere around a quarter of our funding or less. We've just really become reliant on and I was pretty adept at getting these soft funds. Yes, state, federal, some philanthropic, some federal money that comes through the state, like the Specialty Crop Block Grant. And the state, we work closely with Agency of Ag. It's been great. The Working Lands Enterprise Fund, the Clean Water Fund, especially crop block grant, and not just for us, you know, for the growers to get some help with infrastructure has been a very complimentary thing. One program I always hold up, the produce safety improvement grants that required the growers to work with specialists, largely extension and designing the facility they were requesting funding for. That was a really smart approach because top notch projects got funded. So yeah, it's been journey. I feel lucky I learn something every day. It's interesting. What is research? There's a lot that comes out of the land grant system. That's a wonderful thing too. Some of it's at Vermont, but there's a lot of people working in commercial horticulture in temperate zones across the country. And we are connected and we get to deploy that knowledge with our people. But there's also a lot of farm generated knowledge and that's one of the magical things I think about extension is being a steward and vetting what's credible, what isn't, identifying emerging ideas that might be credible and need some applied research to understand. So the fabric of knowledge development is something that think Extension has a unique position in because all of our people do have technical training and are scientifically adept and yet speak farmers. Like everybody on my team actually has applied farming experience and degrees in the area that they're working in. So they're credible with the growers, but they're also not particularly hierarchical. Like they speak farmer, they lend credence to farmer knowledge and experience and balance it with academic understanding as well. And I think that's a really important way to move forward. And I always joke, you know, there are things on our listserv that there are no academic scientific answers to like, what's your cell phone policy on the farm? And it goes all the way from we require them to we prohibit them. We don't have any cell phone service, so we have walkie talkies or we use the cell phones in place of walkie talkies. And that's kind of an extreme example. But even, you know, what's your favorite carrot variety? So when 30 people respond and 25 of them name the same two varieties, you just save two years of on farm trials. That's pretty powerful knowledge, especially when those farmers among them have hundreds of years of experience. These are not generally beginning farmers. So I see your question, Richard. I'll just preface the next subject I want to get into. And I did share a paper about the future of the produce industry. And while produce is thriving in many ways, when I started, there were 400 farms selling vegetables, according to census. Now there's 800. Many of them are small and start up, but some of them are really growing quite a bit, but their number is quite small. So just like ag all across the country, a small number of farms produces the majority of food. It's the same in the dairy industry in our state. But those farms face some very unique challenges that I think sometimes get obscured by all the enthusiasm for direct to consumer and even direct to store. So I did want to lift those up for you a little bit. And what I'm calling for is sort of a discussion and some deeper digging into what could be done to help those farms. But I'll pause Richard because I see your hand.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you, Vern. The extension service in my time, and I'm a UVM grad class of 85 and the extension services, well, it's not our father's extension service anymore. It's really dynamic and staying with the times or ahead of times and it's much appreciated and Heather Derby is a weapon in my world, in the dairy world. A question I have and perhaps the great thing about talking to people like you if you don't know the answer you get us in touch with the person that does And we have a bill on the wall for the Bennington and has issues and I realize what would be, would extension foresee any detriment to Bennington Paraquat because I don't quite know exactly how it is used in today's agriculture for it's used in the fruit trees or vegetables, I don't know. So that's a question I have and if you don't know the answer perhaps one of your colleagues would have some valuable insight for our committee on that, thank you.

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: You're correct. I don't have the answer. I mean, a burned down material like Roundup and when these things come up, just like the neonic bill, obviously we don't advocate for positions. Our job is to provide information and yes, can do digging. That's been my recommendation is collect the data. How many farmers are using it? You know, we could put questions on our listserv, get farmer opinions on pros and cons, consequences, look to other states that have done similar things. So I'm a big fan of the due diligence to inform the conversation and the decision. And that's certainly something that we can help with. In the vegetable world, it's not a material that's widely used. Can tell you that. The yeah, Roundup is a more popular and less, I guess, aggressive material that's used to things like some conventional growers that use it like on blueberry rows to keep the grass out. So the thing I want to lift up about the produce industry there, according to this latest census data, 27 fruit and vegetable farms that gross over a million dollars. That's out of about a thousand farms growing fruits and vegetables. So it's a very small number that are actually filling tractor trailers and sending them to supermarket shelves. It's not a either or. We need those kinds of farms. We need the direct to store farms. We need the community based CSAs, farmers markets. It's all part of the fabric of a local food supply. But those larger farms face the highest level of regulation, nutrient management, labor, produce safety. They are most at risk from flooding because they have the biggest fields along the rivers. They are most impacted by labor challenges. When the H2A wages were going up, they pay the most. I mean, they're going down slightly this year, but just the uncertainty of labor is huge on those farms. And some of those folks are at or near retirement age. And what worries me is the next generation coming in is asking the question, why are we doing that? Why don't we just have a store and a CSA and stop shipping wholesale? The wholesale prices are generally not rising to keep up with costs. So there's a lot of challenges and, you know, our farm to plate goals are to grow more of our own food. So they seem like a pretty important component to try and support. Ironically, lot of that food is leaving the state. For example, Deep Root Co op sells a lot to Whole Foods out of state and that's okay. It's still sort of in the region and could be diverted into our state if markets were stronger. So what I called for in the paper that I just shared with Patricia is a conversation looking at what other states are doing, asking farmers through interviews and surveys, what their needs are, what their perceptions are. We have pieces that could be probably better coordinated. We have some folks working on farm transition. We have business planning through farm viability and farm and forest viability program, which is awesome. But we don't have grants, for example, targeted at those larger folks. And the other thing that I feel is missing is we don't have a statewide food marketing program. So back in the day we had seal of quality. And the reason I'm thinking more about that is, you know, when I started the local food and the organic movement were really just taken off and they really gave local farms a lot of traction in the marketplace. A certain segment of the population wanted those attributes about that food. What I'm hearing from growers now is those things are softening, some of it with economic pressure, but the messaging has not been rejuvenated. And I feel like there's an opportunity there to remind people it's not just for the quality of the food, but keeping that money in your local economy. And if there's a way to get supermarkets, getting some recognition for selling more local food. Our co ops and our, you know, healthy living type of stores do a great job and are important, but the supermarkets move a lot of food and we haven't really engaged them with a local marketing campaign. So again, I know it costs money. I know the ag agency looked at it a few years back, but I do wonder if it's worth another consideration. Richard. Yeah,

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Vern, you got me haired up now being a farmer and 1.5% of us are feeding the other 98.5%. How many fewer of us do we need to be before we can get we talk about livable wages and people concerned about livable wages for our employees. Our equipment costs more, our land costs more, our inputs certainly costs a lot more. Yet every time you hear on the news and they talk inflation they talk about the cost of food, the cost of food, cost of groceries in the supermarket. Milk is in the 1990s pricing right now. Farmer gets paid 11¢ for his wheat out of every loaf of bread. How much cheaper can they expect us to do it, Vern? How much cheaper? Where is the justice for the American farmer to be able to make a living with all the risk that he takes and puts his neck on and I'm gonna stop there.

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: So there's a lot we don't control in the marketplace obviously, but there are some things I think we can do to reduce some of the burden on farmers. And you know, I've shared this paper with the agency of ag. I do feel like the regulatory arm could coordinate a little better visiting farms and knowing what the other arm is doing instead of produce safety and labor and water quality. Maybe, you know, a consolidated visit or form filling, there's a lot coming at farmers and everyone's just doing their job in the best way they can. And it's just, I think, a lack of awareness of how this lands on a farmer. And I think the marketing support and I think the grants that continue to support critical infrastructure, you know, we've, one thing I've seen is some of those grants are what take a farm to the next level. They didn't have that washpack shed, they couldn't ship wholesale, now they can. And it's a sort of a one off thing that really moves the needle for those farms. And so this is one thing I'm thinking about is being clear about the audience. We have these beginning farmers and small scale direct to consumer. You have those larger farms that have unique needs, and I think transition is a big one, but you do have these mid scale farms, some of whom could produce more food and sell more wholesale with the right equipment that got them more efficient so that their costs were lowered. The prices aren't going to go up, that's the, you know, we kind of have to follow what the dairy guys have been doing forever, is bringing their costs down, bringing their costs down to cope with static milk price. Any other, I can't see the rest of the room, so you'll have to tell me if there are questions.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It's a race to the bottom burn. And you know, we do enjoy current use taxation for those of us that can get our land in current use and that helps. Are the grants out there and those help, but it's the value of food and people need to realize there is a value that America has the most diverse, safest, cleanest food supply in the world and they don't put a value on it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm concerned. I I don't see any hands up in the room, and maybe we'll check back with you and see if there's more you wanted to say about, know, your the concern that you're raising about support for those larger produce operations.

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: Well, I'll I'll create the space if there is any other conversation to be had.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: I think because

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: I can just keep talking. You don't want that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think question is, you know, what can we in the legislature do to either, you know, facilitate more conversation or, you know, specifically around permitting? You just kicked off four or five different departments or agencies, I think, that probably don't spend a lot of time talking to one another. And I'm not sure, like, where we would go next to try and deal with that. But if that's a particular concern, it's something that we can brainstorm a little bit about.

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: Well, again, I wanna thank you for the funding that does come. These grant programs are hugely helpful both to extension and the producers, clean water, Working Lands Enterprise in particular. I think the regulatory stuff, I think, is a conversation with the agency of ag, and it may just be a request to ask for some, you know, poking at is there a way to be more efficient with the farms and reduce some of the kind of opportunity costs of all these separate compliance activities. We have built up some websites for the Vegetable and Berry Growers Association to help with compliance, soil health site where they can post all their documents for the required ag practices compliance. We have Vermont has a unique produce safety program called CAPS, Community Accreditation for Produce Safety. Chris was involved with some of the origins of that, which helps growers access wholesale markets by getting accredited and the Agency of Ag has been supportive of that. Some of these other things, there's some water quality expectations of these farms with 50 acres of vegetables in production that are pretty intense. And the agency is receptive to common sense implementation of those regulations. And the marketing, I think, would come out of ag development. And it's also conversation with Abby and others. And I think UVM can help with these things. Where I get excited is when we have researchers providing information, like Nelson asked about the paragraph, but even, you know, we have students looking for useful things to do. Let's have a study of what are the local food marketing campaigns out there and what data is there on their effectiveness. There are some states that have local purchasing rules around food that actually have some teeth in them. I think Louisiana is one where there's actually a percentage, an incentive payment for a percentage of purchasing. So I don't have those in front of me, but that's the kind of thing, you know, researchers at UVM could be put to work on. So part of it would be you raising those questions and making requests. I'm sure Linda and Chris and myself can take them back to departments that have faculty, staff, students that, are looking to do research that will serve the state.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Representative O'Brien. And Brian, this might not be quite appropriate for you, but just for extension in general, we've had last week, they were two witnesses who remarked on how much food distribution as a cartel, and sort of impossible to break into if you're independent. So I just wondered at extension, almost like a business school thing, is there research being done from sort of farmers vertically up through to the retail and the consumer on, you can grow a great blueberry, but getting it into Whole Foods or your local market is really difficult.

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: I'd push back on that a little bit. It is difficult. Vermont has some amazing actors in that space. Food Connects based out of Brattleboro, Myers Produce, independent distributor. Yeah, so there are some players who specialize in taking Vermont's smaller scale producers to local stores and in Myers case into the cities and have storage. And I know UVM continuing education had a whole training program, certificate program maybe on food hubs. But certainly, studying more the economics of that would be useful. I mean, problem is any entity that's going to move your product, store it and handle it is going to take a cut. And that's, in my experience, what farmers don't like, right, is paying that fee. So how do you bring that cost down enough that a farmer can still make money if they go through that type of distributor versus that's why direct to store has been so popular is you are your own distributor and you have a relationship with a buyer. So much of this comes down to relationships. And just like an extension, why we thrive is we have mutual trust with the people we serve. The best food systems for farmers tend to be when there's a buyer that they actually have a relationship with. And that takes time and it's a challenge, especially the more you grow and the more you get into wholesale. But we did just get a grant from the agency of ag. We're going to hold some in person events and trainings and couple of webinars, bringing wholesale buyers and producers together, both to understand the expectations of pack out and food safety and all that, but also just try and build those relationships. Because I think that is at the key, you know, you don't have a relationship with Hannaford, you have a relationship with the Hannaford produce buyer. And I think that's where we need to put more energy. A lot of the work over the course of my career has been pushing on a string. Let's scale people up to grow more product. But I feel like we need some pull too. Let's create more market demand at a price that works for farmers, and that would really help help pull the production up. But pushing it up when there's no place to sell it at a profit or you have to pay the distributor everything that you would make as profit, that's not a great model.

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: Yeah. Thank you.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: What was the people?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I can't remember what the context was of that. Well, there

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: were two. It was it was eminent at Champlain Valley and then the butterfly bakery also. They both mentioned it.

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

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: then you have like Champlain Orchards that really transformed the wholesale, you know, Apple market by being their own distributor and creating those relationships and upping their storage game so they had the quality year round. That there are there are success stories out there. You know, twenty years ago, it was looking pretty dire for apples, and that's and a lot of apple growers have shifted to direct to consumer and pick your own and all that. But there's a orchard that's selling to supermarkets and has figured out a new model.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Representative Burtt. Bernard, I was just wondering, you know, I think part of the challenges historically is, Vermont was kind of ahead of the curve in terms of promoting local agriculture and purchasing local and even the microbrewery scene, but over time, other states kind of caught on to the same wave of thinking. So now New York state is bi local in New York or bi local in Maine, local in Massachusetts, New Jersey, you name it. And same with microbreweries, they popped up everywhere. It used to be Vermont, was meat. We had a hub of microbreweries and now that's, they're all over the country now. So it seems like, how do we stay? I think a big question is how do we stay ahead of the curve and innovative and how we market because we're not sure we're within striking distance of Boston or New York, but there are definitely costs associated with getting into those markets and that has a hard time making its way back to the farmer. So, I think there just needs to be fresh brainstorming, think in terms of what market do we tap into now, because that market that we were innovative in twenty, thirty years ago, the competition has caught up, so to speak. But I feel like what's your take on that? There making sense?

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: Of all, feel free to correct me if anything I say about apples

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: is incorrect.

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: Well, a couple of things. One thing I take hope in is you don't have to move the needle too much on how many more people choose to buy local. It's not a gigantic part of the shopping population currently. I don't know the number, but increasing it ten, twenty, 30% is a lot of sales. So I think a fresh look at the messaging, that's what I heard from our vegetable and berry grower board is that just plain old locals kind of gotten stale. It's been around a long time. People have other things on their mind, but reinforcing all of those benefits, The economic multiplier effects to your community, the trust of the produce safety, the stewardship, all the things Vermont farmers are known for, keeping our working landscape. Sometimes the price difference is not that great and it's just a lot of people are not thinking about the reasons to make that choice. So this is back to the marketing, the messaging. And I know Jane Kolodinski at UVM Community Development, before she retired, did a lot of work in this area about consumer perceptions. And I think it's an area UVM could continue to inform what a marketing campaign might look like. So that's our local people. And then Vermont does have cache in states not too far away. What is the messaging there? I remember Jed Davis from Cabot saying, you you have to be a little careful, like, geez, a few states over is good. If you then start to say, hey, it's been on the road for this many thousand miles, maybe you're detracting from your own message. So there's nuance into which messages make sense. But we have, what is it, Farmers To You selling Vermont produce into the Boston area, online CSA and Myers down to restaurants. So I think there's opportunity in all these areas just sort of need to get organized around a data informed narrative and then, yeah, who's going to deliver it? Does funding need to be given to the agency or is it just more, I know DIG in Vermont with the farm to plate effort kind of started down that road. I think it stalled a little bit of, but getting behind a unified messaging that's based in some critical analysis, I think is low hanging fruit for increasing sales of Vermont products. And I always use my wife as an example when we first got together, she came home one day with, you know, Land O' Lakes butter. I was like, no offense, but, you know, could you please buy Cabot? She just had no idea. And so that's a light bulb on the off of my head. How many people are just oblivious? If you told them, they would change. But she wasn't thinking about where does the butter come from. So I've held that thought of what what proportion of people that have the disposable income could be moved to different purchasing behaviors.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, we'll need to take the show from the cafeteria on the road somehow. Get that yeah. To the producers' names out there. Yeah. Okay. That's really good food for thought. Very no pun intended. Any other questions? All right, thank you. Richard, any final words of wisdom? Okay.

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: Feel free to follow-up. I'm always happy to provide whatever info I can.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. And we do have your the white paper is on our web page, definitely worth reading. And you said you had sent that. I know it was back in the fall, I think, when you put it together, but presumably, the agency has seen it and

[Vern Grubinger (UVM Extension Vegetable & Berry Specialist)]: Yep. The agencies, some wholesale marketers, etcetera. Thank you all. Enjoy your reception. Before

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: you go, one more question. This isn't for Burn, but for Chris and others here. You know that there are a lot of agriculture producers in in the cafeteria. Yes. And if you're able to stick around, I was gonna take your pictures and send them to Richard Nelson. That's my job. You know? So I'm like, you're safe now. Well, I think Chris is If you want

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: special guest today. Are you We both are. Yeah.

[Jed Lipsky (Committee Clerk)]: Okay. Alright. I just wanna make sure. Yes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you, Jed. Alright. Thanks, guys. Take care. Let's take let's take a just a short stretch break and then come back, committee that is,

[Chris (Interim Director, UVM Extension; Associate Dean for Extension)]: and