Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: Joining us and we'll

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: go ahead then. So welcome to Nicole Dubuque with the Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets and Doctor. Kate Logan, who's actually a veterinarian. And we're going to talk a little bit about the Livestock Care Advisory Standards Committee Commission. Whatever it is.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Thank you. For the record, Nicole Dubuque, I'm the Chief Operating Officer for the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. And we are here to talk about the Livestock Care Standards Advisory Council, which we obviously speak about an acronym probably most often, so it's hard remember to all the words, but that is what it is. So this council was created, I believe, in 2009 to And I can go through the members for you, but essentially, the governor has some appointed members. The House has some appointed members. Senate has appointed members. We have the state veterinarian. I took over as chair of the council when Diana Rothfeld retired. We have, in the past few years, only had one meeting. And so let me just read the description for you, and then I'll talk about the why. So the council shall review and evaluate the laws and rules of the state applicable to the care and handling of livestock. In conducting the evaluation required by this section, the council shall consider the following: the overall health and welfare of livestock species, agricultural best management practices, biosecurity and disease prevention, animal morbidity and mortality data, food safety practices, the protection of local and affordable food supplies for consumers, and humane transport and slaughter practices. The council shall also submit policy recommendations to the secretary on any of the subject matters set forth under subdivision one of this subsection, and then talks about a copy of the policy. So since 2009, as you can imagine, our agency has evolved a bit. And so we have Doctor. Levine, who is our state veterinarian. She supervises our assistant state veterinarian who oversees our animal health section. They are very much involved in human transport and slaughter practices, as well as our meat inspection section, which we have an entire section of folks that work on that. We've updated rules over the course of the last several years. We do have a phone number available for the public to call should they have any concerns or complaints. Our animal health section can handle that and manage that. And so I think for those reasons, we have not had the House nor the Senate nor the governor's office present us with a specific subject or issue for the council to convene to have an agenda for. We haven't had an agenda where we would need this council to decide and make a policy recommendation in that time. So the last meeting we did have was pretty much just to introduce them to me. But there's also been the issue of, as you all know, veterinarians, which we really want people on this council to either be a veterinarian, a farmer, or someone who has that kind of animal health background. And the spots have been difficult to fill. It has actually been very difficult to have people that are willing to fill the seat. We've had a lot of people who've had their terms expired, and we haven't been able to fill that, partially because farmers are busy and we have a shortage of veterinarians. So for those reasons, I'm feeling like it would be a good idea to disband the council and continue to work within the agency, and we could call about a new group if there's a specific issue that arose.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Okay, good. Do you have a question? Yeah. And

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I'm not opposed to what you're talking about doing. Just Did you ever reach out to retired veterinarians?

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: We have. So before Doctor. Kristen Hass retired, she and I can forward some of the emails to you all she was going back and forth really trying to find people, retired, currently practicing folks that were not necessarily retired, but they were doing something else and had the background. She did a lot of outreach, was trying to find nominees for any of the House, Senate, or governor's seats, it was very difficult.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Yeah, this came to my attention most recently last summer, I think the speaker's office reached out to me saying, We need to make an appointment. And I'm not sure how the speaker's office knows when they need to make an appointment. Maybe the clerk keeps a list or okay, thank you. But they asked me, was there anyone who I could recommend? And I thought, I guess I could recommend somebody, but I don't know that I'm in a good position to be doing that. And I think I checked in you or with Abby Willard, and then learned a little bit about the history of it. And I think it's relevant that it was under John Lapartridge, who chaired this committee for many years, and Senator Starr, who chaired Senate AG, of course, for many years, that the council was put together, I think, back fifteen plus years ago. And then they both had retired or left the legislature. And I think part of what kept it going probably was it was something they were very familiar with having started it, and they may have been more inclined to both direct questions to the council and make sure that there were people sitting on it. So I will say it came to my attention most recently last summer, but you probably emailed me three years ago. I think Nicole, I was checking back and seeing when have we had these conversations? Saying, there's gonna be somebody, there's an opening, and the speaker needs to appoint somebody. So part of the blame probably has to fall on me. Although I will say the Senate has also, I think, not been keeping up with its appointments to the council. So there were a lot of people whose terms had expired, but they still continued to serve. I remember seeing that, which was great that they were willing to do that. But the reality is that we haven't given you anything to do or the counsel anything to do. And there's a report requirement every year. If there's no committee or no council action meeting, why ask somebody to do a report? Seems like one of those things maybe we should just, if everybody agrees, let's go ahead and sunset it. And if there's a need in the future, we can revisit it.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And we're certainly willing to, whatever we need or as issues arise, we could bring it back, but

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: There must be a way we can put it into sleep mode. You know? Not not disband it, not do away with it, but just say for now it's over here. You know, because if we'd had a out of severe outbreak and maybe an influenza here, you may have wanted to convene. If we have a hoof and, you know, foot and mouth

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

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Outbreaks or or, you know, and and, you know, of course, back in the days of brucellosis. You know, there are things that can happen that would want you to require to get this up and running quickly. And so maybe you just wanna, you know, is there a way we can put it in sleep mode and just have it

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Yeah. Idling? Well, it's sort of guess, so maybe one way to think about that is what if there were a major disaster that needed to be addressed legislatively? Are we in position now where you would know what you needed to do? And if we didn't have this council, would that be a problem?

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So I think that the purpose of this council was more so to contemplate policy, would be less of an immediate response to a disease outbreak, which I think would more so live with the state veterinarian and calling in USDA for assistance with that. Whereas this would be like, Okay, we experienced something new. Here's how we responded to it. This is going to be something ongoing that we have to deal with. How do we develop policy around that? That's when I think that this council would come into play or something like it. And I don't see why we couldn't either move this to be more of a task force that is called in, called together when something like that happened. Or we could potentially look at, and I'm just kind of thinking out loud here, we could potentially make there be some sort of requirement to have veterinarians on the Ag recovery task force that we could kind of deploy in case something like that comes up. So I think there's certainly options.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: If you made it a task force without

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: scheduled, you know, meetings.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Busy people don't like to go to meetings unless there's a purpose for the meeting. Then they like to go to meetings, be productive, get it done, and get out as you can understand. I I know enough about you to do that, I tell you like the wrong things. So if you made it, would we have to do any changes legislatively to call it a task force? Or could it and you could probably get people to say, look, if we have an issue come up, would you be willing to to be part of this for, you know, a short duration, and then it goes back in the sleep mode again?

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I I wonder if it could be as simple as kind of keeping it the way it is, the makeup the way it is, but putting in some sort of disclaimer that if there are no subjects to call the council into session, then we won't, which is what we've been doing. But then it'll feel less like we need to create a report when we haven't necessarily had issues. So that's possible. I don't know if

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: you have anything to add, Doctor. Amy. My thought would be that since the last meeting of that council, we now have a director of animal welfare. So that position is not conceived of in the list of people to be on that board, nor is that structure taken into consideration. So I think now that we have someone whose job it is would be, I think, to advise the state on animal care standards. I would certainly be I'm here to be the livestock person. So Lisa and I can certainly work together should something come up. And whether it is another just new idea, or an edit that this kind of be a resource for her to be able to access, I think would be the only other thing that crossed my mind.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Part of the issue is that technically, is it a 14 or 15 person council? There are only three or four, I think, people whose terms haven't expired. So unless those seats are refilled or renamed, there wouldn't be anybody to reconvene in this situation. So we'd have to think about that too. John?

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Well, you touched on part of what I was gonna say, but historically the council would be looking at animal welfare issues and care standards because we didn't have an animal welfare office in public safety at that point and someone drives by and sees a cow in the field in the winter and it's like this animal's suffering. Well, it acclimated? Does it have shelter? What's the breed? People didn't know that, so the council would talk about that kind of stuff whether we're talking about swine or goat boy or cattle, and that was a big part of what the group did. But I think in terms of what you were saying, if there was a crisis, this is always a state veterinarian would be in contact with USDA, and you would always have the resources where if you felt like you needed assistance to address a wild livestock health issue, you could put it together wherever you needed, I'm assuming, as just part of your role. Yes, our statutes are

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: flexible when it comes to addressing an emergency, an animal disease outbreak, any kind of contagious situation is something that we have pretty broad and flexible standards for. If it comes to making these kind of larger peacetime policies, that's that's when the council was most helpful. I believe the white papers were on things like tail docking, transport standards. There was a report about how do you set welfare standards for livestock. But the immediate disease responses are a much more nimble authority that is already granted in statute. We do also have some Trying to convene a committee that, I don't

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: know, candidate waiting meet, by the end the crisis is over, or it's too late.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: We do have some subject matter specific groups that are kind of maintained on a couple every three years or so basis for things like our avian influenza plans. We have a group of stakeholders for the for the or for various bird industries here in Vermont that that consult on that plan in again, in in peacetime. And if we learn anything during an outbreak that requires us to edit the plan, we that specific group to go back to. But when it comes to needing to respond to if heaven forbid, we got something like foot and mouth or when we do have things like avian influenza, we have pretty set plans with the USDA, with partners to address it that would be they are on call to be called when needed. We're less worried about that. Stop doing our shutdown. We still find a way. Maintain very good relationship with our state regional partners as well, just in case.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: I'm looking up at the H4 on the wall, which was care of laying hens, which we took some testimony out last year, but didn't pursue that. But I think that's the kind of policy question that in the past the council would have been asked to weigh in on to help the legislature, to help us, the committee, understand some of the issues.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: That makes perfect sense. I

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: was just looking at a farm to plate as a little description. And it says at one point, the council is also authorized to engage in educational and outreach initiatives meant to improve the welfare of Vermont's livestock animals. So in that sense, it seems odd that we maybe do away with it, given that education and outreach would be ongoing things of importance too. So I don't know how you might, if this no longer exists, at least that mandate would go forward.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. I guess what I would say is if we have people that are willing to participate in ABLE, certainly we could talk about that. But as far as education and outreach, especially over the last several years, there's been a huge focus within animal health, dairy, and meat inspection, where we take a very technical assistance education based approach. We want to teach before we regulate. We want to make sure that you know and that you don't feel like you're going to get in trouble or get a fine for something that we could have taught you how to do properly. So that's definitely embedded in our agency.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I think the conversation we've been having in here and at the agency about municipal regulation of farming too, the gap between farms, farm, the rats, and everybody else between the one and four acres, those are still livestock there, even if they're not under farming. And so how the agency as a policy works with those livestock would be an interesting conversation.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Any other thoughts or comments? And this is not something that we need to take a vote on or decide right now. Mean, the reality is there aren't people on the council. It hasn't been meeting. It hasn't been doing anything worthy of generating a report. The meantime, though, the statute I guess there's enabling statute that set this up, and we might wanna think about at some point, either deleting that statute or changing it to accommodate a slightly different set of concerns. And I hadn't realized that there was the education piece in there, so

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: that's interesting. That's something that we would put in as we look at next session with chair.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: It could be, yeah. Put it

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: in a miscellaneous field this year. Yeah, it could

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: give us time to just make sure that there isn't something that we want somebody to be doing. And also, think reflecting the fact that we do not have that director of animal welfare, who's, yeah, it certainly makes sense that that person be part of this conversation, but also what what work is that person doing that might also be tied in.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: You, Jared.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: And this is this may go back to the previous biennium, but one of the most impactful meetings I attended last four years was when Doctor. Martin LaLonde came and spoke. I don't think it was the World Caucus, I think it was a joint meeting with Senator Ag and Al Sadd on the avian flu epidemic. While he's not a veterinarian, he was sort of the lead public health director of the state, and obviously through the pandemic he was one of those important voices. So he deep dove into the whole spread of that and had to do with domestic, not just big poultry producers, but the combination of wild birds versus the small backyard flock. And so I know I and I think we as units really value that input caring from a public health, not just to herd health, but, so I like others, I I'm reluctant to just expand the relationship that this group has potential. I mean, kinda got fairly lucky, I mean, where you were in The United States, it was devastating. I I like the fact that we're being tied in as an agriculture committee to your expertise.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: We did very much participate behind the scenes with the tabletop exercises with Doctor. Levine, other Doctor. Levine, but he was doing those. I mean, we are really open to whatever you all feel you need. Yeah. So we are open to whatever you need. I think our position right now is that we don't have participants for how it's set up at the moment.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Is

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yigi Florrie part of this group as

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: well? She has not been, actually, I don't think so. It was Doctor. Haas and myself. Evie would have certainly acted as the dairy expert behind the scenes, but I don't recollect that she was actually on the council.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, she did a great job with all the testing a year ago. Yeah. Was really, you know, put people's mind to ease and, you know, that's just another sector, you know, the more sectors you have involved in it, the greater breadth of knowledge that y'all have.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I was just gonna say, and we do host, and by we I mean Doctor. Levine hosts, a regular call with the dairy sector to still talk about HPI and go by and how it's going and updates and things. Is that weekly?

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's a bi weekly.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Now we have New World's screwworm.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: We do not have that yet.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: No, we didn't.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: No, we didn't want that yet, we

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: did not want that yet.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Don't put that

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: on the table.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: You know, but we haven't talked about equine, but that is a world where there's a lot of, whether it's Nile, pirates, or and horses tend to move around from regions, if they spend time in the South, come up to Lake Placid or East Doris or between the New England states And. But the point is, most of what I know I get from listening is CAX news because they cover it, you know, whether it's at Saratoga or, you know, a farm up in the islands that detect this stuff. So any connection we have some livestock or agriculture is valued. Representative

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: Burtt? Well, I agree with Ms. Breck Lipsky and others, but I, you know, the other thing I, you know, was that that committee didn't convene with regard to the avian flu, wasn't called upon, hasn't developed policy since then and I don't know how many other things like that have been my not that

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I really paid much attention to before I got here, but I don't know, well the history of things like this, how often do

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: we have something at the scale of the influenza come on the radar. But if that council committee wasn't called upon for that, is it even contributing? If not, then I consider the value of simplifying and making it one less thing for the state to have to keep track of. It sounds like there are other systems in place, obviously, that are more relevant that are already being utilized, and it looks like you have a system for that. Maybe at least worth investigating, okay, if we don't have this, what do we have in place? Make sure we have something else that's stood up and active obviously. At least know what that is.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Greg Burtt, you're very soft. Just

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: along those same lines. Did the advisory council ever say, have conversations about sometimes bees are considered livestock. And so during a whole, whether it's Varroa mites or they travel out of state to Florida and come back and can bring things with them, or even debates over any nicotine noise. I mean, it seems like those are certainly all livestock care potential policy debates. The committee ever take up a conversation on that, for example?

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Not in my time. I recollect the focus on a couple of things. And you just talked about some papers where we talked about gestational crates in pigs. And then we talked about foie gras, which I think was not a big issue in Vermont. I don't recollect anything about bees. And then there was a pretty high profile case about goats in Chittenden County that we talked about, which I guess at the end of the day in that specific scenario, there wasn't much of a policy to create because it was neglect. And so if the owner is not following what the care standards are, it's hard to make policy on that. Sorry to answer your question. I don't recollect bees, but it went on for several years before my time, so it's possible.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I don't even remember them ever talking about poultry. It's really livestock.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: That's the only stuff they

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: didn't get into rabbits or insects, and there isn't a lot of medicine taught in veterinary school on insects, very little insect medicine. In fact, I never had anything. Did you?

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I have taken a personal interest just because I have friends who are beekeepers, and they are bound and determined to make sure that I understand how bees are cared for. So I have it wasn't part of hot school.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Even poultry wasn't a lot, so I wouldn't expect a group of veterinarians and livestock professionals to be wanting to talk about bees or chickens for that matter. Well, wouldn't bees be under the entomologist? The state etymologist.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: We have a state etymologist.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: We Yes.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We do.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I don't think we've ever met them.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: I don't think we have either.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Those get on agriculture. It's not seem to me.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: Can you

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: look into that? On. Don't know.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: See can you tell me all the things? Think we have a apiary specialist. Run

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: a buggy.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Well, what we're just really, I think, talking about here is a group of professional veterinarians who were asked to come together for a specific purpose, which was to reflect on policy suggestions and then give us some feedback, which we may or may not have incorporated. And then perhaps you were also just on your own coming up with topics of interest and then sharing those with us. But I don't think it was the role of that group of people ever to be standing by in case of an emergency or doing something actively to respond to an immediate situation. There might be, I suppose, could be a role for a group of talented professionals in that kind of scenario, but I don't think I still think it's less.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Not to my knowledge, but we can shift however you see fit.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Well, I think that we can continue to have conversations about it. I will say the agency did not put this in the miscellaneous bill this year, but we had some conversations in the fall. I think that generally there was no sense that it needed to continue in the way it's currently continuing anyway. Okay. We can move on, if other people have other thoughts or if there's anything else that you wanted to share, just maybe a quick update on avian influenza. Haven't really talked that session, which is a good thing.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's a good week for it actually. There's some real updates that came out in the last twenty four hours. So I'll start, I'm gonna bury the lead. I'll start with the poultry side. It is continuing much as it has since 2020. It's very prevalent in wildlife, in our wild waterfowl, especially migration season continues to be a problem across the country where the hardest hit states are those with the highest density of poultry operations. The USDA is continuing to try to evaluate their biosecurity audits to help reduce the introduction, to minimize the industry effects. But to date that is just kind of holding steady on the poultry side. Vermont and New England continue to have these kind of one off situations where we get introductions into small production facilities, mostly because we have primarily small production facilities. So it's kind of a numbers game. And almost all of them have been with a sighted direct interaction with wild waterfowl. And so there's been no real mystery as to where it came from in our birds. On the dairy side, the situation has changed quite a bit in the last since it first started in 2024. The original spillover event that occurred in Texas spread really rapidly across the West and the Midwest and was causing quite a bit of sickness. However, in the last year that has really died down to a simmer. California is really close to achieving unaffected status, which just leaves Idaho as the only place where this original dairy strain is still circulating. It is mostly contained. They April announced another farm or another couple of farms that how they're reporting it kind of obscures exactly which are new PREMs and which are just changes in how those are being reported. But Idaho is really the last holdout on that original spillover. Since then, there have been a few additional spillover events from wild waterfowl into dairies that have been detected through various surveillance programs. New Mexico, Nevada, and Wisconsin are the biggest examples of those. However, all of those didn't spread. None of those spread from the original farms of detection, and they are not making cattle sick. So what it looks like is that whatever happened in 2024 for that original spillover event had something that allowed it to spread pretty aggressively, and we have not seen the new strain, the D one point one, that's been so prominent in wildlife causing nearly as much problem. To that end, yesterday, the initial announcement went out and it was published on APHIS' website this morning, that the pre movement testing, which had been required within seven days for all lactating dairy cattle, is no longer required if you're in an unaffected state. So that's great news because trying to get up to 30 of your cows milked all four quarters, sending out those tests that needs to be done within a week, that sample can't be taken more than a week from your movement date, was really a lot for our dairies and our veterinarians. And so we are excited that that federal order has been finally amended. So that came out this week. The other update is we kind of along the same lines as that change in national posture, the sign, we've had a lot of time to do some test validation and are now seeing that the national silo sample program is effectively picking up these one off cases in a way that is much less work than the every single bulk tank being sampled every single month as we have been. So starting this summer, we will be transitioning to a silo sample primary. We will still be doing some bulk tank sampling to support the industry because we do export quite a bit of milk and we do a lot of single processors. So we will still be doing some bulk tanks, but to try to capture the most farms with the fewest amount of samples, will be adding on and switching to at least partially a silo sample technique. So that announcement is also going to.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Can you explain what silo sample is?

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Sure. Silos are literally silos, giant holding collecting tanks at processing plants that bulk tank milk gets picked up from individual dairies and brought to a plant for pasteurization and for further processing. It all gets mixed together in these silos, and it allows us to take one sample that tests all of the farms essentially that is currently represented in that tank of milk. In the last year, the science has shown that it is a good enough test, it is sensitive enough to pick up a single dairy that is positive in there. And so that's the method we're we're moving to.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Representative Nelson and representative of science. So thank you, Jerry. Yeah. The silo sample is great, and I like

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: you know, when they tested f one for

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: COVID. They could find it. On the the deal in Texas and the way that so rapidly spread, believe I read some place, there's a lot of large heifer grower operations where they're co co mingled from all over that kind of, you know, kinda like the flyway is. You know, they come from Colorado and Idaho and stuff, and Michigan, right down through, and they

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Excellent example. It's exactly And and then,

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: you know, Texas heifers amongst them, and it just and then they got trucked back to their home facilities. Is that part of what caused that such rapid transition?

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I don't know if it was heifers, but that model of bringing together multiple life stages and then spreading back out again is really common out West, and Texas is kind of the hallmark of that. They've got a lot of land, and man, they can they've got some really impressive farms out there. And so, they were dispersions from some sort of co raiser in Texas. And then just from there, of just kept hopping to In Vermont, we think of farms as the smaller farms can grow all of their calves and their heifers and their dairy cows are all kind of on one property. The bigger you get, the less that becomes applicable. And so do you have one barn? Do you have multiple barns on one farm? Do you own multiple pieces of property all within the same state? Or are you teaming up with other farmers to start working on each of those groups individually and focusing on just one life stage? So thankfully the way we raise in Vermont, we tend, not always, but we tend as a general rule to kind of be self contained. And so spread wouldn't be quite as dramatic as it was out west, where they do have these different growers of different stages, and then they kind of bounce back and forth throughout the states.

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Representative O'Brien,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: you had a question here?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Yeah, if we can just go back to the advisory that was just at the end

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: of the I was

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: just wondering if say other New England states had similar committees or at the federal level, is there somebody that you can work with too? Like you mentioned AFIS, but I didn't know if in USDA, for example, is there?

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: From the livestock care standard? Yeah. So I think what representative Burtt brought up with the HPAI sample and why we didn't bring this council together is because there were pretty specific recommendations coming down to us from USDA. So there wasn't really discussions that

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: we

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: had with the council. We were not given a choice in the matter. It was, here's your very basic options, which were not much different from one another to do this. So there's that. I don't know, though. I am more than happy to reach out to my counterparts in New England. I actually meet with them every Friday and ask them, and I can send that back to

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: you all.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: That makes sense to have a region wide version of it.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: USDA also has a division called Animal Care. And so they do take on the equine industries is a good example, but also small animals, some just small animals, equine, other kind of weird facilities that would fall through the cracks exhibition. It's like zoos have to follow animal care. So there is a USDA branch dedicated to kind of just general husbandry standards.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I think there's just something in the news, all these sloths behind, was it?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Oh, I missed that one. Yeah. And they got cold and they they can't control their temperatures the way a lot. Species. Yeah. Anything else that falls into the general update?

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Not of the general update of HPAI. I think that's

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Beyond beyond avians.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Beyond beyond that. The New World square rumor is definitely something that we talk about a lot. Thankfully, as this far north, as long as we continue to get winters that are below 30 degrees, we won't have to worry about it being an overwinter problem. So if new world screwworm does reach our borders, it will be a one season issue. This is also something that's being discussed very heavily in the Southwest, where this is most likely to arrive first and be the most dramatic impacts. How that, as we can't, and nothing affects Texas without affecting the rest of us when it comes to the cattle industry. So it will be interesting to see how that plays out. We are most concerned about introduction from pet species because dogs and cats can get them just as well. And we actually move many more dogs here than we do cattle. So that is a active discussion, both regionally and nationally, for how are we going to address that. Representative Lipsky?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Not all of us know what school is. Think of us as third graders, it feels nice to hear.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Absolutely.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: Sure.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So New World Screwworm is a form New World because there is an old world as well. But the new world screwworm is the concern is the larval stage of this botfly. Like many flies, they lay eggs in wounds, and what makes them different is they feed on live flesh instead of decaying flesh. So like your standard larvae are gonna eat dead rotting things. New world screwworm is different. It seeks out live healthy tissue and can consume whole carcass whole animals while they're still alive. The second they're dead, they stop being interested. So the pictures are truly horrifying if you go googling them. Whole sides of animals are just covered in fly

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: What is the type of fly?

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's a form of bot fly. So it's the There has been a control program based out of Panama for a very long time. I don't have all of the dates with me, but there is efforts throughout, started as early as the fifties, up through sixties and seventies, recently saw a really cool map as watched it suppress across The US down through Mexico, down into Central America, and to the gap in Panama, where there had been a control zone established by sterile flies. So these flies, the females only mate once. If you can get them to mate with a sterile male, they won't be able to produce any eggs that could hatch into these larvae. So we have a sterile fly rearing facility in Panama in partnership between USDA and the government of Panama that run a sterile fly production facility and have created essentially a barrier that keeps new world screwworm in South America.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So they're sterile nailflaws? Yes. How small is the emaximulator for that?

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: This The cord that is the killer.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: This new world screw screwworm is the reason why there is no Mexican beef now coming in The United States. It's to protect our domestic herd. And it really is no Mexican beef, and we were a large importer of Mexican beef. That's one of the trade deals we had in Mexico and it, you know, but for real concern of protecting our herd, you can't have them coming into Texas feedlots to be finished.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So a couple summers ago, that barrier down in Panama broke, And so they started to see the northern expansion of these flies. So they kept trying, changing where they were dispersing the sterile flies, couldn't get a handle on it, couldn't get a handle on it. So now it is, the most recent report I heard was 67 ish miles from The US border. And the thought is that almost all of these more Northern incursions are because of livestock movement. So the USDA has closed The US border, basically decreasing the likelihood or the inspiration for cattle to move North. If you're not gonna be able to cross the border because we import Mexican beef, but we import it mostly as live animals that are then finished here and then slaughtered here. And so if we're not importing live animals, then there's no reason for them to be continuing to move closer to our border, is the thought. And then the flies, which don't actually go that far. Thankfully, they are a, as the USDA keeps calling them, a fairly lazy fly. They are not interested in traveling much on their own, but they do hitch rides and travel with illegal cattle movements. So that's kind of the basic background.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Just finished question. I'm going back several decades, but I used to have a botfly knife, and it was always you had to look out for these little yellowish eggs on horses' legs.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yep. And you

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: You're saying, are

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: they old world, No. Old Completely unrelated. They were not a screwworm. It's just a category of fly. Honestly, once they hatch, you would never be able to tell one fly from another. They look like any other fly. It's just that the larval stage is so aggressive about eating healthy living tissue that they cause a lot of damage. The most recent case in The US that needed to be controlled was in a population of deer in The Keys. And we were able to kind of repress that and keep it from reaching the mainland. So that would be the most recent US case of it. Yeah, it's flies, flies are come in all shapes and sizes. I'm glad to not be the entomologist.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: Super Nunberg. We've mentioned pets earlier,

[John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: had a cat that got bought fly years ago.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: The free cat ended

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: up costing me like $600

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: I was like, you better be buying a bike. It was like my daughter's birthday present. So it was like,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: no, that's worth no money.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: I don't know. I tried pulling it out myself and it's, those things are, yeah, I don't wanna do it. That's why you got a knife.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Now these were scraping the eggs.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Oh, okay.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. Off of healthy healthy hair. Oh, they get pretty they get pretty sticky.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So it's a heel fly. Is that a botfly type that the the larvae crawls up and express it out of the back of a cow that's Groubs. That yeah. It's not big. It which used to be a thing, and I haven't seen one in twenty years.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Thank goodness. Honestly, that's all because we've got some good porons and things that have helped us control our Horons are a method of controlling flies and parasites in cows. And instead of

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Pyrethrins and fibermectin and stuff that contain PFOS and

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I was trying not to get controversial with it.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I thought controversial, it works. It's a medication, and it's needed just like a flea and tick treatment in dogs and cats, and and and they do have a great value in our food system. Absolutely. You know, because they don't wanna pay us anything for the food we produce. So we gotta do it cheap and fast as we can.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And there the USDA, the FDA, and the EPA are all working on approving an expanded list of products that can be used to treat the new world screwworm when it gets here, because there's nothing really on label for it. So that can be an issue, especially in our food systems, you need to make sure you're using on label products, because those are the ones we have controls for. And we know that if you use them appropriately, they they won't contaminate meat. And so they're working on trying to create options around how do you treat for new world screwworm if it does get to us.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: They don't go yet?

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Ivermectin does work, but it's not on label for screwworm in some species. So they have to expand the label.

[Rep. Richard “Rick” Nelson (Ranking Member)]: The label. Okay. Glad to say it

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: would probably work too, John.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Any other wisecracks? Let's get one more question, then we'll take a short break.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Well, two things that actually do come up with this question here. One, rabies.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: Going get to that actually after the break. Okay.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: And also tick borne. For sixty years we've had sheep and in the last ten, we'll be sharing on Friday, they're starting to show up around there on eye weight, fingers.

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: Yep.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I don't remember where they are. I'm just, with various livestock, are you recommending various treatments?

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Tick control is imperative and that can be done through some products and sometimes it's pasture management. I am not the clinical veterinarian for the state, so I'm going to not in this forum announce a recommendation for how to treat for your ticks. I will say you should talk to your herd vet to make sure you're getting a product that does address them. We do have expanding ranges of tick borne diseases. We had our first case of a TYLERIA not that long ago. We're doing some investigation into that with our, not the state entomologist, but with our agriculture entomology team who does surveillance on various ticks and biting insects.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: What is that on the

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's Tilary is another disease across the country that affects cattle. It causes anemia and causes cows to go off feed. It's related to, well, kind of related, it's in the same category of diseases as like anaplasmosis. It is a parasite that gets into cells and causes general unthriftiness, sometimes to the point of death, there's not a great treatment for it. It does not respond very well. So we don't want it here, but it's spreading with tick ranges spreading. So controlling ticks is the number one way to stop it from getting to your herd. And we all know how trying to control ticks go. We live in the woods, so we do our best.

[Nicole Dubuque (Chief Operating Officer, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I don't know if you all have Steve Dornell coming in at all, but he is the director of our plant industry division. And we have a vector surveillance team within that division. And they go out and collect ticks and mosquitoes. And they're ramping up right now to do that and look for if the populations of mosquitoes and ticks we have here have certain diseases. So he might be a good one to tell you more about.

[Dr. Kate Logan, DVM (Veterinarian, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And I'm working with that team to We work in conjunction to make sure that we're getting surveillance in the areas where we're starting to see clinical signs of those diseases as well. So it goes back and forth. We work well together.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair, House Agriculture, Food Resilience & Forestry Committee)]: And we have heard from Steve, but not on that topic, not this year anyway. All right, after we take a short break, we're going to continue the conversation, but shift to the vaccinations and including

[Rep. Gregory “Greg” Burtt (Member)]: free