Meetings
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[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: To set the stage. The milk commission, you can tell us the history of it. It has it consists of some number of people. One of them is a house member, one's a senator.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yep.
[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: John, you were appointed to it at some point, maybe you've been the only house member. I don't know how long it's been around.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: It's been around a long time.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, it's okay. So tell us about it.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: I can't give you a really authoritative history of it, but it has been around a long time. But they also got to a point where they almost were defunct, at least dormant and rarely met. And in recent years, I think largely because of Laura Ginsburg, she's said we should be meeting more often. At the end of the meeting on Friday, Secretary Tebow said, Yeah, we got to pick up the cadence of these moves just because there's so much going on in the dairy world that's starting with the war in Iran.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: When did you last? How often They have you sort of aspired at quarterly meetings.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: I don't know if we've even done that, but it sounds like we might even meet more than that, depending on initiatives. So Laura led the meeting, and some cheered it. And the committee, you'll know some of these people, probably Kathryn Durfee from AgriMark. Anytime we have sort of dairy economics, I know she's been in this, probably on Zoom anyway. She has updates at the farm show. She's like, the joke is right, she's one of the three people alive who understands the federal bill. Kirsten Bourgeois from DFA and Harrigan. They were Zooming in from Franklin County. Organic dairy farmer called John Franklin is with the Farm Bureau also. John Cleary and Adam Worthington from Organic Valley. Nicole Foster, depending on, I guess, what circles you're in. She's from the Willette family, a famous dairy farm, Bridport, and she married one of the Foster brothers from Middlebury. They've got dairy royalty on both sides. She was saying that in the Bridport, they have a cheese making plant there that makes curds. Started the Vermont Poutine Festival. So good things there. Whitney Hall, She's the UVM extension appointee who, I think in one of our bills, added a position. I can't remember which one it was for that very thing.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: So she do it across the fence too?
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: I think she does, yeah. And then missing were Senator Joe Major, I guess who's taken over for Bobby Starr. Rob Howe, an organic dairy farmer also from Tunbridge, was absent, but he's another committee member, commission member. So here's some
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You're little light in that commission for conventional farmers, aren't you? Or I I know Oregon's does and Foster.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah. I'm I'm trying to think of maybe someone was absent from the
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I should find out if there's First BFA direct represent in Niagara Fire.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Right. Yeah. Right. They were more I had forgotten, they were more sort of players in the processing world than the farming side. So Catherine went over economics is sort of same thing. We know that fluids down, but class two and three, which are yogurts and cheese, those are still going up. Class four, which is sort of balancing plants, it's down to, but we talked a lot about just how challenging a summer it might be with diesel prices and fertilizers going through the roof of conventional. Organic dairy farm. The processor side was optimistic, but John, who was an organic dairy farmer, said, we're barely hanging on here, so it's always interesting to hear the farmer point of view and the processor point of view. The processors always seem to be more optimistic.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, exactly. The processor?
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Laura Yeah. Talked about the Dairy Business Innovation Center. Interesting there. Originally, there were three of them and those three, so it's what Vermont, Tennessee and Wisconsin get exactly the same amount of funding from the federal government. And then California was added later and they get less, which is interesting. And then there's some states, the Rocky Mountain states from Idaho down through Texas that aren't part of any of these, which is interesting given that Texas and Idaho are really big dairy states now. It's a totally thing. Yeah, a totally cool thing. It's a Texas big problem. And Texas, I think, are relatively recent players, and it's venture capital, probably money. Whitney Hall talked about how Vermont in 2016 had eight twenty eight dairy farms, now we're down to four thirty. And it just her What she's noticed is that more than anything, dairy farms, we need to invest in infrastructure. So like our schools, they've seen so much deferred maintenance improvement that they're really tired. And we talk a lot about what you brought up, Richard, of how tax credits in New York have really paid off. That states invest a lot in exactly infrastructure and new equipment. And now with processing like the Chobani plant and Fairlife going into Upstate New York, they're Cleaning up to do something. It's further west, think from Rochester. South Of Rochester.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Did they talk about, John, when these plants come online, there could be the possibility of the first time ever, milk moving west out of Vermont in a big way to backfill?
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah. I mean, we didn't specifically get into that, but I was I was wondering, right, if the, say, McAdam plant in New York, which AgriMark owns, right, if, you know, some of those farmers might start skipping those too.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Could be. Well, they're gonna, of course, draw that all milk is pooled in this great world of ours now, and Agrimarc milk, DFA milk might end up in the McAdam plant instead of AgriMark milk. Right. And some AgriMark milk might end up in down in Boston at the bottling plant. Yeah. And they pull everything. They pull everything? So so Pretty close. Body doesn't have contracts just directly with producers. No. I don't I can't
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: I doubt it.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: They do out west in places, but I don't know if that'll happen here or if it'll be more you know, I know DFA is trying hard to get contracts in these places. And
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Does DFA sort of dominate Upstate New York area as far as
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, they dominate everywhere.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: The largest go off in the world.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Whether we like it or not.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah. The bad news was we're losing three plants, root rotters. Is it Ennisford Falls as a cheese plant? Franklin Cheese. Yeah, what do they do?
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: Do you know John can they cheese? What's it sold under? Oh, I don't know.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah, they're not totally going under, but they're downsized.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: Way down.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah, well that's bad. And then Paragot came out, which we should make a note of to look into that. Formula. Yeah, formula, but they must be a big divider of something I don't know if it's dried or if it's So
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: was that coming from St. Albans? The whey protein from Perrigo?
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: It probably was now, it's deeper than the DFA. Yeah.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Of course, why has been better off the border? Years ago too. Why?
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: Perrigo was Wyatt. That was that plant was Wyatt. The one in Georgia.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Oh that was Wyatt's home also.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: Well, course that's Wyatt built it very little bought it. And we just approved a big expansion there two years ago so after fifteen they never built
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So when we're on the street, Jack, you probably know more about it than I do, is the plant needs a bunch of upgrades. Mhmm. And I think they find it easier to do their upgrading in one big plant out in the Midwest someplace. That's what it And then try to form a lot across the world, you know.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah. Well, that's a lot of jobs for Vermont. Figured something out there.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Was four you said it was 405 something. Yeah. There's quite a few people out there. Okay.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: And then we talked a bunch about what we could do from a policy standpoint for our dairy farmers. Like the over order came up like this chill, because Maine has one tax credits like Massachusetts and New York and Connecticut have now. Guess Connecticut's starting a tax credit that's based on New York's Investing. Yeah, and if can't offset your taxes, I guess you'll just get a check-in. That's just pretty nice. And John Franklin, the organic dairy farmer from somewhere up in Caledonia County. His suggestion was that agriculture does so much for our tourism, that if there's some way to increase rooms and meals, part of that To help fund and then roll it back into agriculture would be great.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Do we know it'll help New Yorkers funding? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. That would be interesting. Or Maine. Maine probably funding it by the near thousand miles of ocean. Well, Maine has they're such a milk deficit stake. And I don't know if they I don't know if they have a a surcharge on a price per gallon.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: They do.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And and then that money goes right back to Maine farmers. And Vermont used to be 600 and some pounds produced per or no. Way more than that. Like, a thousand pounds produced per capita, and that consumption's 600 and something. And Maine was like 300 pounds produced. These are old numbers that I'm trying to pull from that data pack. I'm just curious to know how they're functioning right now.
[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Did you say Massachusetts also tax credit? Thing stuff?
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Mass or Connecticut? Connecticut's 20%. Mass has a $2 over order price. Probably courtesy of Vermont milk.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: It was interesting that on the processor side, like Catherine Duran and Houston were saying that overall, the big American picture, US picture is that things were looking up because we've kept our butter and cheese prices so low that we're doing really well exporting now. But on the farmer side, you can imagine that's not really your zero six dollars per dollar for the farmer. It's not helping them. And then on the input side, this summer, things are going be so expensive that you can see the writing on the wall. Then we talked about sort of specific things like protein. Everybody wants protein now, and so are going back and starting a line, I think, of milk. It's called protein plus that's gonna have extra protein in the milk.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Delivery, is that common? They
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: must somehow artificially add a protein shake. There must be so it's not a particular breed of cow that, well, some of them may be on the grass fed, I don't know if there's Yeah.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: A lot like in the St. Albans co op before it was organic. One truck went to all those Jersey farms, picked that stuff up separately and then dumped it into the rest of it to bring it all up. Oh, fuck the way. Since they did it.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Is there more protein in it, like, to be Component wise, I guess.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: Component wise, gyrosine was higher, but it adds a volume. But the whole steep gradient, it's kinda up there.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: But I guess we have a surplus now of butterfat. Terrible. Which would be nice with school nutrition if we could get
[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: kids' milk into it.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: Whole milk is in schools. But it's the Jersey breeders who've been trying to do it for thirty years.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I sent senator Welch an email or probably a text saying that we still have issues with the whole milk for kids thing because, alright, is it just breakfast they can have whole milk at?
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: No, just lunch. Just lunch. All the other programs, breakfast, after school, summer, those, they didn't include it in all those. So they have to
[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: have more space in the cooler essentially then, because they have to have milk. They have to have the other kind of milk.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: I wonder
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: if they just forgot. Like, are you stupid, though? Why would you change on your meal and mention Believe it was an oversight. He said that they're working on that. He was aware, and they were working on it. And, you know, they're too busy. Those committees actually have staff
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: and the senators. They've
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: known some of staff. Somebody explained it to me. It wasn't so much an
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: oversight as somehow politics was They based were able to make a big announcement, but the impact is Right. Part of it is because of calories.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: so I think if you went to everything, then you went over the calorie limit for kids. So nutrition was still getting in the way.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: But back on a date or not.
[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Are, speaking of nutrition, almost at luncheon,
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: I don't want to keep people, but anything else, John? That's it. I I think any questions this committee generates, we should bring to the next meeting. And I think policy stuff, for us, maybe they'll look at, like you said, like, how does New York do these tax credits for Mass or Connecticut, and how does Maine do their overwater would be just on a basic level would be good for us to do.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Of the stakeholders group, though the one tax credit that had traction from all sides was good tax credits or anything agriculture does for water quality would be a way maybe a place to start.
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Right.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You know, we have the clean water funds and Almost like a paper because
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: there's some stuff Yeah. Of how much farmers have done Yeah. On the CNBL side and nobody else has.
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. And, you know, if we're we're investing in jag line and injection equipment and more storage and handling the primary waste and whatnot. You know, there's this all and some of it we get monies from NRCS, but Sarah was just in here. My conservation district manager was just in here updating us a little bit on how NRCS is now not funding. They used to fund this, and now they're not.
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: So
[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Or there are no engineers, so
[Rep. Casey Toof (Member)]: There no engineers to design it. Nobody wants to work for an MCS or to make a lot of money from a private engineer.
[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, we will break for lunch and then,
[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: so