Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good morning. It's Thursday, January 22, 9AM or a few seconds after. We got a busy day with some folks. We're gonna start the day off with farm to plate investment program. We got Ellen in here, executive director of Vermont State Sustainable Jobs Fund. Welcome, floor of Thank

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: you so much. Glad to be

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: here. Glad to be back. Sorry to believe it's been a year. And we thought that what we would do, Jay Claro is gonna do most of the presentation this morning and guide our conversation with you, but we thought that we would start with a little bit about the Single Jobs Fund because I'm not sure how much you know about our organization and why it is that we received the request by the legislature to actually do the farm to plate investment program.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And did I shortchange you on your introduction? I'll just have you, if I didn't hear it.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Oh no, I should say, I'm sorry, I didn't say for the record, this is Ellen Taylor, I'm the Executive Director of the

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Vermont That's why everybody else know,

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: they wanted to bully you, so thank you.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: And Jake Taylor will introduce himself when he's here. I'm just gonna be very short. So, what I wanted to do was just start with statute because over thirty years ago now, the Vermont legislature authorized and created the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Act. At that time, in 1995, the thought was there was a need for an economic development type organization that was outside of state government, that was a nonprofit organization, but was still aligned with and connected to, on some level, the state executive branch, and you'll see that in a minute when I talk about who's on our board. But then it was also very much accountable to the legislature in terms of the fact that we have this statute. So it's in Title X, Chapter 15A, and the purpose of the organization is to work on certain economic sectors. So instead of being all things to all people, like say the Agency of Commerce or the Agency of Agriculture are for instance, we are designated to focus on farm and food businesses, so the farm and food sector, forest product sector, and renewable energy, green technology, and environmental technology, and waste abatement or pollution control. So think of sort of like the green economy sectors. That was they asked us to to really focus on that and not just do short term, like, crisis management, which is unfortunately a lot what Department of Economic Development ends up having to do because they're working with so many businesses all the time that are going through various changes. They wanted us to look more down the road, look around corners, look long term about what are the opportunities in the marketplace that are emerging that businesses in Vermont, many of whom are in these sectors, could be taking advantage of, new opportunities in the marketplace, thinking about the types of support that they need to increase job creation, to strengthen their overall bottom line and be stronger, better businesses in their sectors and contribute to the environment economy. So you can take a look at our statute if you ever wanna do that and you'll see those sectors and what we can work on. So how we've evolved over the last thirty years is that we have three core areas we focus on. The ag and food industry, the forest and fiber industry, and the energy industry. And what we do is we're really big on developing networks, meaning all of the organizations, businesses, governments, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations that are part of supporting those business sectors to really unite everyone around a common agenda and looking for a path forward. So looking at what is the trajectory of the forest and fiber economic sector? What's the trajectory of the farm and food sector? What's the trajectory of the energy sector? And how do we strengthen that long term? How do we build the supports around the businesses in those sectors? And we do that not only by bringing people together, but we also have a very robust business coaching program. So we actually work with individual businesses, supporting them in strengthening their overall business operations, thinking about how to access additional capital, what are their workforce needs, a whole range of what it takes to be a successful business. So we're also very connected to other networks, like we're part of the Food Security Coalition and the Working Lands Coalition. We're also very much more engaged at the regional level across New England. We have a program that we support called New England Feeding New England. It's very relevant to farm to plate. It takes our farm to plate work here in Vermont, it takes it to the other five states, working with the key players, including their departments of agriculture in those other five states, to try to really grow the regional food economy. We have 14 staff, we have 11 board members, and the board members are by statute. We have the Secretary of Agriculture, or designee, so Anson serves. The Deputy Secretary of Commerce is serving as the designee of the Secretary. And then the Governor gets to appoint a seat and he has appointed, over the last several years, somebody from Department of Labor or doing workforce, so the new Executive Director of the Office of Workforce Strategy and Development. Because we definitely pay attention a lot to the types of workforce needs in the sectors that we work in. And then we have eight independent board members. In terms of where our funding comes from, we have a very diverse funding stream. Over a twelve month period we had about a $2,400,000 budget. I think we're going to be about $2,800,000 this year. We have a big mix of sources. Grants are the biggest source and then of the grants, so about $2,000,000 worth of grant funding, of that, in this one year period, you can see that there was state funding, foundation funding, and federal funding. Part of the reason for the level of state funding in this particular year was because we've had some special one time funds, either from the Working Lands Enterprise Fund or from the Agency of Agriculture Era Funds that went specifically to projects we're running, both a beef on dairy project that Jake will talk about, as well as a training for retail grocers that Jake will also mention. So a lot of times, as a nonprofit organization that is adjacent to state agencies, we can do things that state agencies can't. And so we're often able to tap resources that, again, the agencies can't then do, but they want us to do. And so they're able to in some cases, we're applying for even foundation funds that, because of our stature, so to speak, in the sectors, we're able to get larger grant funds or congressionally directed spending, for instance, that then benefits multiple other organizations or multiple other businesses. So we very much function as a conduit or a focal point for a lot of activities that happen in our sectors. Terms of our expenses we jump off of that,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: can you give me an example as far as fee for service, a service that somebody's what going would you do for that?

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: A lot of times it's our business coaching program, so we'll partially subsidize it with grant funds and contract funds that we raise, but then the business might pay half of the total cost of the business coaching, for instance. This also includes, 105 of that is actually the Flexible Capital Fund, which is a business that was a $4,000,000 fund that invested in businesses, growth stage businesses, in our market sectors and was investing in them. And so but the Jobs Fund had a contract to basically manage the day to day of that. So the fund is a for profit, had the board of managers, it has equity members where the funds come from, but they contracted with the Jobs Fund and staff member who's no longer on staff now to actually do the day to day. And the reason that she's no longer on staff is because we just closed on, Flex Fund just closed on a new capital raise of about $7,000,000 and spun off the Flex Fund. They created a Flex Fund two point o. It's a particular type of capital that's very useful for businesses in our sector because it doesn't take a collateral or an equity interest in the business. It really provides long term working capital. So it's a very unique financial instrument that we're the only ones in the state doing. We meaning the flexible capital fund. But the same core sectors are the same as the Jobs Funds. So it was created it was something the Jobs Fund wanted to see happen. There was no other capital provider doing that kind of investing. So we helped develop it and launch it, and now it is 100% spun off and it's its completely owned thing with a separate management company running it, and it's now $7,000,000 to launch, but we're hoping that the funds raised will be up to $15,000,000 And again, it's all invested in these types of food, energy, clean tech businesses in Vermont. And that's private money? That is private money. Yep, yep. No state money at that.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Any questions from anyone else on that page or on the next? Thank you.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: All right,

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: so in terms of our category expenses, obviously for a lot of organizations like ours, personnel is the largest expenditure, but professional services, you'll see, is also quite large, and that's because we deploy a lot of consultants to actually do some of the work we do because it doesn't make sense for us to have those people on staff. So for instance, with our retail grocers training program for independently owned grocery stores, it doesn't make sense for me to have a full time person on staff doing that. We have a partial time consultant who's got real deep industry experience, worked in grocery stores as a category manager, worked for Black River Plugues at one point, has connections with Spixx. We contract with her to provide the trainings to the stores and producers who sell her to those stores. So we utilize a lot of consultants. In our business coaching program we have 10 coaches, all of whom have been C suite level business owners, entrepreneurs in their own right over their history careers. So those are some examples of what we do. And then in terms of by initiative, see, in relation to farm to plate, it is our largest program. 09/11000 there over that twelve month period. And again, it's the most robust, the most mature, and again, a lot of funds flow through us for projects that are benefiting many other organizations or businesses. Steven? Yep. So, and then in 2009, the legislature, the House Ag Committee and the House Commerce Committee members came together and they wanted to see a ten year strategic plan created for the farming food sector that would address all types of farms, all scales of operations. It didn't matter if it was organic or conventional or regenerative or whatever it was. It was like all food and ag. And not just production ag, but the entirety of the food system, right? From inputs to production to processing to distribution to waste management to what consumers how do we get more consumers to be buying local? And they approached the Samuel Jobs Fund as the place to put the farm to plate investment program and its tasks and methods because a couple of reasons. At the time, it was the Great Recession and there was a lot of risks going on at all the agencies and departments. And the feeling was that they wanted to see a ten year strategic plan that wasn't going to be, that could survive administrations. So when we started, it was Governor Douglas and then Governor Schumann came in and now we have Governor Scott. And so this program has only gotten stronger over that course since 2009. We haven't lost any momentum because there's been administration changes or secretary changes or anything like that. So there's a real, I think, in this particular case, real benefit to having this work happening outside of state government, but very adjacent to state government. You know, with ANSEM being on our board, it enables that strong tie to happen. We have a very strong working relationship with the staff of the agency, for instance, as well as the agency of commerce and has been part of both Secretary Tebbetts and Secretary Kerley have worked hard over the last number of years to really build alliances between the agency of commerce and the agency of agriculture that's really benefited the food sector, quite frankly. So I just wanted to give you that historical sense of sort of like why is this not the Agency of Agriculture coming to talk to you about these particular things? I mean, it is the case, my experience, I've been around long enough to know that it can be really difficult for agencies and departments to have strategic plans for a sector that don't often get created, and the skill set needed to do a real strong public engagement process often does not live inside state government. And so we're really strong on good public engagement process, and we did not want to do this work to create a plan that was gonna sit on a shelf, that was actually gonna get implemented by folks that helped create it. And I think the data that Jake's gonna walk you through and share with you and the stories are testament to the fact that we are all in this together. The nonprofit community, the business community, the government, the educators, the academic community. We're all in this together to strengthen our rural economy, increase local food production, increase local food consumption, and start to open up more regional markets for our products because as we all know, amazing. I'll hand So, it over to Jake unless you have any more questions for me.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Great. Great. Thanks. Okay, we're here. Yeah, that's a call. Thank you, yeah. Max and the Tunker. Yeah. So for the record, Jake Claro. I'm the late director of the Vermont Sustainable Japs Fund. And I'm gonna cover a little more about some highlights from this past year, but also cover some trends that we think are important to pay attention to and offer up some legislative priorities and just things that we think are gonna be important over the course of this next year. So just to continue off of what Ellen was talking about, a little more about the the plan and the process of of creating this. As she mentioned, a statute was passed in 2009, and in in statute, the the directive for the plan is for us is related to these three outcomes. So increase economic development in Vermont's farm food sector, create jobs in the food and farm economy, and improve access to healthy local foods. So that was in 2009, and then in 2019, the investment program was reauthorized, and those outcomes were amended slightly. So, the first two were, in essence, consolidated into one economic development outcome. Then we added an outcome related to improving soils, water, and resiliency of the working landscape in the face of climate change, so it's a little more of an environmental focus there, resilience environment, and then we kept that improved access to healthy local foods for all Vermonters. So, really easy way to think about it is, you know, we're charged with economic development, resiliency, and improving access to local foods for everyone in Vermont. And as Al mentioned too, the public outreach process, over 1,500 Vermonters engaged in the creation of this plan. So that includes the public, that includes, we had multiple industry focus groups, and also content experts wrote specific health sections of this plan. And then, it's really served as a keystone and a source of strategies and recommendations for other state plans, so this was in, very much formed the basis of a lot of recommendations coming out of the Governor's Commission on the Future of Act, so there is a tie to the administration there. I'll talk a little more about how we've been able to integrate this into the Climate Action Plan to make sure that farm and food economic development, as well as resiliency, is represented in that plan, and then the food security roadmap. Then just a little bit about just a little bit about sort of what we do and how we how we do it. So the implementation operates through the farm to plate network, we support, And so this is made up of over 300 farms, food businesses, technical service providers, educational institutions, nonprofits, capital providers, and government agency staff. And some of the groups included the Squam Security Coalition, the Vermont Food Hub Collaborative, retail grocers, agroforestry, Equitable Access at the farmland capital, CSA in health care, climate soil environment. So we are touching upon really many different aspects of the food system through these groups, bringing people together to work to supplement strategies and recommendations from the planet. And just to quickly cover how we do that as staff, so my colleagues behind me, Anna Baxter, and sorry, Jessica. So, do that, so we mobilize funding, we administer grants, we distribute funds, we provide project management, we coordinate technical services, we facilitate, advise, and administer support to groups, we serve on state policy committees, including these cross sector committees like the Climate Council's Ag and Ecosystem Subcommittee, Department of Health. We've been serving on a group for the state health improvement plan, and then also grant committees and advisory boards. So the ABC Specialty Crop Block Grant, as an example, and Sodexo's Vermont First Advisory Board, which guides their purchasing decisions. We have input on how are they prioritizing local for their institutional purposes. We also help with developing shared measurement, including local food counts, which I'll touch upon, doing research and analysis of food system trend and policies. And then we also provide free communication platforms. So we have our website, e news and listservs, and people can post news, announcements, events, job listings, which is very popular. We're reaching over 7,000 Vermonters through our lists, our meetings alone. And so just providing a way to, you know, provide our members with benefits and an outreach platform, also a way to reach everyday Vermonters as well. And then we, as a network, we also provide networking professional development, so our annual gathering, which we hold every year, our fifteenth gathering was in Burke, at Burke Mountain this past year, over 300 people attending that. So those are just a kind of a brief look at the different ways that we support the network as staff. And, yeah, so the first, I'll give some highlights of of the work that we've been doing this past year, and then I'll turn over to larger kind of trends and policy priorities. So on the economic side, in this past year, we relaunched the Vermont Food Hub Collaborative. This is actively convening and providing TA support to the six major food hubs, improving coordination, their financial sustainability and distribution services, and those members really cover all the major regions of the state. So we've got Addison County Relocalization Network, Middlebury, the Center for Economic in Cardwick, Bootkacks in Brattleboro, works closely with CAE, the Annerville Center in Burlington, and the Vermont Farmers Food Center in Rutland. One of the reasons we think this support is really important is because the hubs really matter to our food system and to access to markets for small and mid sized producers. So that image there is actually their full distribution network, and you can see from that, they are touching upon, in essence, providing access to markets across that network, and that's fully covering the state and actually going into Massachusetts and New Hampshire, And we want to continue to think about how to expand that reach and help support the hubs in doing that. And they're selling, distributing with 19,000,000 in local and regional food, working with over three thirty farmers, delivering over five fifty customers. And they also employ a lot of people too. If you think about over 50 people, and a range of jobs, warehouse and logistics, sales and marketing, and delivery drivers. So a lot of diversity too on the workforce.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Nothing in the Boston market.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: There connections are with actually another hub in Boston, so there are some kind of transfers of products that are happening there, and kind of some like hub to hub sales with an entity in Boston, But that is, yeah, I think more and more thinking about how do we reach those major metro markets more directly. I know CAE and PharmConnects is kind of considering a route to Boston, and so those are some of the questions we're trying to work through as to,

[Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: you Yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Seems like there ought to be something coming off of '93 down through there. Yeah.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Yeah. And a lot and, yeah, a lot of the, probably the bigger challenge is once you get into the city, it just becomes a lot more costly and really time intensive to do those deliveries, so you gotta build that market out pretty substantially before you can viably do those deliveries. So that's kind of part of some of the pieces we're trying to work through.

[Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: Jake, if employ 50 people in, it is a variety of and that's great to see. Are you having difficulty filling those jobs? Yeah.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: So and to be clear, this is the the food house point, 50 people. So And, yes, so workforce, you know, and and I think the biggest thing that we hear, probably as a surprise to members of the committee, is housing is a major obstacle. And also in the distribution industry, pay rates are gonna be, to provide competitive pay as well, is gonna be a challenge. Yeah, definitely housing is the thing that I've heard the most from them in terms of keeping, also retaining employees. Another initiative that we've been working on is this beef on dairy project. So this is looking to improve the genetics and basically the meat quality of dairy meat cross breeds. And so we've been working on specifically like, Holstein wagyu crosses and also Angus, and developing really, really good feed protocols and genetic selection that is trying to bring more premiums to those animals. So a lot of dairy animals do get processed for beef, but at lower quality, lower prices, and the of the national reduction in herd size in the beef industry has opened up a lot of opportunity for dairies actually to supply beef animals. And so this project has really been focused on developing those feed protocols, the genetics of animals, developing markets for the sale of animals that are being raised. And so we had seven farms, mostly dairies, one actually sheep farm that has provided a certain additional source of income, and and the TA is focused on breeding infrastructure, financial planning, marketing, and a lot of cost of production analysis. And then we will have there will be some publicly available tools available to beef beef producers, dairy producers, so a futures calculator to determine production costs by site, feed ration, cost per capita gain, provides blood breeding plans and nutritional protocols, and also cut sheet calculations for direct consumer marketing sales, which is something that this project has also been involved with, some online direct sales, so that's another piece. And then through through the course of this project, a new enterprise was created for Montcalmo, and they are now they were awarded with in partnership with USTA, a five year study to continue this work on improving quality and genetics, and there are big sustainability components to this as well. If you gain feed efficiency, and you select animals that are really good at gaining weight on that feed quickly, you can reduce emissions and cost of production, and so that's, they're going to continue that work, and that's going to, there will be kind of two cohorts that they're going to follow. They're going to have a Wagyu kind of Holstein group and an Angus Holstein, the relative differences in cost of production between those two. And then the of third major thing in that economic area that I wanted to highlight is, so we've been doing independent grocers work. In this past year, we've reached over 120 people representing over 100 farms and food businesses, ranging from farms, distributors, retailers, participating in different types of trainings, and receiving direct technical assistance. Some of the stores, top right hand side, that's the Main Street Market

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: in

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Richmond, which is operated by the healthcare center there, so it's kind of a unique public private ownership, which we're seeing more of for small retail grocery stores in The States, so providing direct assistance to stores like that to help them be viable, and also working with there's a lot of farms now that have shifted to farm stands or farm stores that are bringing in, not only selling their product, but they're purchasing product and selling it, and there's a lot of, it's a lot different to kind of operate that type of retail store than it is, say, to go to the farmer's market and sell, so working with farms on that, and also just bringing together farms, food producers, distributors, and retailers in different ways that they learn about one another, they develop business to business relationships for Valley Produce, that's the picture on the bottom right hand side, has been one of the participants in that. So really trying to bring this supply chain together and increase local food purchasing through that. And I just wanted to share a quote of the real impact. So this is the general manager of Maple Wind Farm who participated in this three part series that we brought in actually a national, nationally recognized consultant to do these trainings, and they realized that they were leaving a lot of money on the table at their farm store and kind of the art and science of doing retail was a lot different from what they maybe thought or expected. And so we're seeing these real impacts where, whether it's the farm stores or the rural grocers, they're really seeing sales improvements, viability improvements, as we're participating in this program.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We saw, to supply these root vegetables and everything all year round or as close as you can before you get to the next row and see if it where's that being stored? I mean, the CSAs a store? Who's storing? Are there storage facilities, carrots, potatoes, all these viable products?

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Yeah, so it's really on a farm by farm basis, and I think this is another area that we're interested in exploring with the produce industry, there opportunity more for larger shared infrastructure? And I think, again, to bring up the Center for an Ag Economy, I think they're really doing a lot of things with infrastructure. They're helping small growers not have to take on that cost, and as these industries grow, or as farms say they want to stay small but reach markets, we're going to have to have that kind of infrastructure to access and get into markets. That is, I think, the next evolution for a lot of these emergent industries in Vermont, produce, like grains. There's a project right now happening for grain aggregation. I think right now it's more farm to farm based. Think another tricky thing with that too is also just the business model of operating that kind of facility, how do you do it in a sustainable way. So that's another challenge for investing in that type of structure. So, on the environment and resilience side, so we, I served on the Agriculture and Ecosystem Subcommittee. We also provided opportunities for our network to provide input and advocacy to the update of the Climate Action Plan. So the Climate Action Plan was recently updated, and 64% of the priority actions that were financed by the subcommittee and approved by the Climate Council came from recommendations or iterations of recommendations from the strategic plan and from the successful advocacy of our members. And yeah, I think the significance of this is that we are now seeing staff at the Climate Action Office at ANR reaching out to farm food stakeholders to say, we have access to different types of funding here that we want to try to work with you on. And so we're seeing some projects emerge out of that. And so really, having this in the Climate Action Plan is a way that we see to bring more resources to food and agriculture from different sources that we may not have previously known about or had the right partnerships to leverage, to bring to the food system. So that's how we kind of see this long term, is that this gives us a positioning to do that more, and we're seeing some of that actually happen directly already. The other thing I think that's kind of similarly and also important is that a lot of these strategies are also in the Vermont Resilience Implementation Strategy, which was this joint effort between the administration and the treasurer, and it names, just to name two, as tier ones of higher, see high readiness, food system supply chain infrastructure investment. So I think we feel it's great that part of the resilience strategy is seeing that we need to invest in infrastructure in the farm and food sector. And then it also does identify the Farm Force Emergency Relief Fund, which we know this committee has has supported. So I don't need to convince anyone there, but just to know, you know, it is it is in there. And if anyone in the legislature maybe looks at things more from this lens, you can now point that out to them. Yes, sure, sure.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: So, when I look through when you changed, if you go back up, you know, you added in a climate action plan, kind of falls out of the scope, as I see it, of what you what your primary goals are originally. And my worry would be that you direct money that we allocate that would go maybe into a climate action plan for funding to that, and you start asking for more money for that when that wasn't the original intent your organization. Is it just so you keep an eye on it, or are you looking to put funding into it?

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Yeah, so to also be clear, the Climate Action Plan is the work of agency of natural resources, like that's their charge. We simply, you know, we're a a member of a subcommittee that's providing recommendations for that. And, yeah, I would I would put it more as making sure that agriculture is represented in that, in the ways that we want it to be represented. Like in this this is Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: I Yeah. You tie it in nicely with this Yeah. With this slide. I would just be worried that, hey. We need extra money to do our climate action plan, and you don't see that happening.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Yeah. And and we see a lot of, you know, kind of the a lot of the things that, like investment in infrastructure for local food, we see that as a really critical piece of any climate planning or resilience, and we wanna make sure that is represent that's represented. And yeah. So it's not a redirecting, but ensuring that's the focus, and we're not pursuing other stuff that may not have the impact we wanted to. Thank you. Yeah. Then just on the local food access and security side, and I just saw that Warren entered the room, so that we've been involved with the Food Security Coalition, and there's been a lot of successful priorities in the past year implemented through the work of coalition, including funding for crop cash for the Vermantras Fee and Vermantras program, and base funding for the Land Access and Opportunities Board. Those are Actually, one more thing on the highlights section. I think this is also important just to recognize we're also trying to form connections in the healthcare space as we have a CSA in healthcare community practice. They were awarded a grant that supported, and this project engaged with more than 50 people, clinicians, dietitians, community health workers, to see how to scale food is best programs in Vermont. So the Vermont Farmers Food Center, for instance, runs CSA and healthcare programs, so does Acorn and Addison, and there's research that indicates that these programs that bring more local healthy food into the healthcare system could actually save Vermont $53,000,000 annually in healthcare expenditures. So, we've got the full report that you can look at, the link there. And there is also a food as medicine task force that, well, if you Amazon, that will be working on how to present some policy recommendation around this for next year. So that's it on the on the highlights. So the transition here on trends and legislative priorities for this this I just want to start with setting the context that, and this is a message that we constantly want to make so that agriculture is not forgotten in economic development conversations, and this is an industry that has a tremendous amount of economic value, and also there's then downstream effects in terms of distribution of retail food service, and food system as a whole is producing a lot of economic output. So if you look at just the industry aggregate of agriculture food and beverage manufacturing, that's $5,700,000,000 Farm Credit East did some work to look at the multiplier effects, so those businesses purchasing from other businesses and also their employees spending money in the economy, you add those elements, then you get almost $8,900,000,000 of output. And you add those multipliers to the whole food system output, that's nearly $22,000,000,000 And I will say, too, I just want to note, agriculture gets short shifts in GDP numbers, in part because GDP is looking at only value added. So, for instance, just for a simple example, if a farm sells $10 of milk to a processor, and that processor then sells that product for $20 that $10 of value is attributed to the processor. Agriculture doesn't get recognized for that value, but it's the basis of that value. I just want to make that note as to why you look at these numbers, and I think they're more significant than sometimes when you look at something like the the GDP projections, because they're they're really only trying to account for that value added component. And yeah. So that's why those numbers sometimes seem a little lower, I think, than what the actual impact is. So yeah. So, you know, big big economic output, and also if you look at employment across the the food systems, if you were looking at everything from farm inputs to higher labor to distribution retail, there are almost 64,000 Vermonters working in the food systems. So, a lot of people are touching, have a hand in this in different ways, and that's a 10% increase since 2009, and that's almost 21% of total Vermont employment across both private and public sectors. So pretty significant. And then just to kind of look at it a little differently, too, I think this is also maybe sometimes lost on people, that farm operators and hired farm labor are 33% of that food system labor force, and that's almost 21,000 Vermonters directly involved in agriculture. So a lot of people have that direct relationship working in the sector. And then just of on the food manufacturing, just to see where that kind of parses out for different types of manufacturing. Dairy, Masser Pising, is the largest employer. And then you get other food manufacturing, bakeries, breweries, and sugar and confectionery in the top five. So that's kind of the breakdown there by industry type.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Does sugar and confectionery, that maple syrup, fall under that?

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: I think actually, I wanna say that's in the other food manufacturing. Right here, yeah. Yeah, yeah, sugar and confectionery is more like chocolates. Yeah. Yeah.

[Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: I'm sorry. Go ahead. With the the dairy Yeah. Are are we concerned with, like, our dairy farms, everything shrinking here, that number will go down consistently?

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Yeah. It's a good yeah. It's a good question. I I I think it there's a lot of risk in that, but also, I'll show some further slides. As that contraction has happened, the dairies that remain are actually performing fairly well in comparison to other production types. So there's definitely concerns and risks that that carries, and I think just nationally, the way that companies are deciding to locate or move processing and manufacturing facilities is a concern. But I think, yeah, so long as that supply is there, that does hold some currency and keeping processing relatively close. And there's also been, I think there's been shifts too in the diversification of dairy processing in general, like on farm and other types of value added activity. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I should say, I'm not, it's not that I'm unconcerned about it. We have a goal for total local food purchases of of 25%. So seeing that, you know, one quarter of the of the food purchases that are happening in Vermont are purchases for local food. And we've seen this increase over time from 4.3% in 2010 to 10/2022. And I think the takeaway here is that, you know, Vermonters are bought in on supporting local food. And so it's a you have a strong localized market, which is a great foundation, and that we are also going to be we are in the process actually collecting the twenty point five data around this, and what's unique is that it's happening in all of the New England states, and so what we're also hoping to have here is a is a picture. It probably won't, you know, be a conservative one, but we're we're trying to get some data around what the value of Vermont products being purchased in those other states is. So we'll have a little more sense of also how well Vermont is doing in the other New England states and working with those states to find ways to increase those purchases regionally.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Is the increase partly due that the schools are also buying more local?

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Yeah. That's be helpful. Yeah, and we do have a, I didn't include this slide, but we do have

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: a

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: breakdown by across different market types, and so schools and institutions is a part of that, and that has gone up over time as well. The primary market is retail grocery. That's just where most people are spending their money, so that does make up the most significant percentage, but school is a growth area and a part of this pressure. So, those are some of the positive elements that we do really want to emphasize and make sure that people are aware of. There's we do have concerns, and looking at farm viability, there are some things here that we should also be paying attention to and being concerned about. So, this is a net cash income per farm, and it really shows where the breakeven point is for a farm in terms of, so this is looking at their gross sales, so less than 1,000, for instance, farms that have 2,500 to almost $5,000 in sales, and so that breakeven, where we start to see farms with net cash income, is when they reach the $25,000 mark of sales, and there's some more significant jumps that start to happen once you get into, say, the $250,000 range. And this is not, it's a continuum, people have to start small, maybe lose some money in the process, but we definitely want to see more farms reach the other side of this where they're seeing that cash income. So, yeah, it's just kind of something to think about in terms of where do farms reach viability, and how do we get them to that place. And then, just to look at it a little more closely, because the higher range kind of distorts the image a little bit. So this is just looking at that 1,000 to almost 250,000 range. And I think it also just shows that, you know, there there is a a significant jump as well going from, say, a hunt from 50 to 100,000 to 100,000 to 250 where, you know, you're going from a net income of 19,000 to 61,000, which starts to look a little more viable in terms of, you know, supporting supporting yourself or or family. And then, looking at this, this is kind of mentioning the, you know, by farm category, and, you know, I think this is also a reflection of kind of maturity of these different areas of industries, production industries in the state. So dairy, when you break the numbers down, and this would include government payments and dividend payments, agritourism, so this is inclusive of all types of income that a farm may have. Dairy is by far and away in a different category, And so if you break down the net gains of the dairy industry by the the number of farms, the average of that would be almost $540,000 per farm. And then in this, I wanna note too that you'll, you kind of notice the negative areas are related to other types of livestock, and we don't, in this state right now, have livestock specialists that are dedicated to improving production and operational efficiencies for those categories. So we've got people who are doing a lot of grazing management work, which is great in terms of like feed, you know, really trying to recruit feed costs and efficiency, but on the genetics and production and marketing, for these other types of livestock, there are no acting, say, extension specialists working in those areas, and so that's something that we think is a gap, and it's been identified as a gap in the plan when we wrote it. It's something that we want to bring more attention to, because the other, if you look at those other categories, you know, vegetables, Bern Group and Juror has been doing amazing work with the vegetable industry for a really long time, and he's got a team as well that work in that industry. Heather Darby, Oil Seeds and Grains, has been doing amazing work. Camp Dairy, as a mature industry, has a lot of that type of support. So I think you can kind of see some of that reflected in the technical service capacity that is not available in some of those other industries. And so, yeah, so to get to some priorities that we feel are really important for economic development, working lands is a big one, and increasing the base funding from 1,000,000 to 1,500,000.0, That $1,500,000 has been a target goal for a long time. Then supplementing that with additional $3,500,000 one time funding to address backlog and rising demand. This is really our keystone economic development program for ag and forestry, distributed since inception of almost $19,000,000 with $31,000,000 of matching funds. It brings additional investment impact reporting for over an eight year period, that the program helped grantees with employing 1,100 people, creating almost five forty jobs, generating 55,000,000 in sales. And the funding gap that we've seen in the last four fiscal years in terms of requested funds and distributed funds was 3,400,000.0, but if you also look at '24, there was the Ag Development Grant Program, which offered grants to produce meat in April. There was 43,800,000 requests and only 2,800,000.0 in awarded funds. So we know there's a demand for investment, and sometimes that investment can be hard to get for smaller, mid sized operations that are in this growth or trying to get to maturity. So that's a big, we see that as a big component to economic development from a policy standpoint. I also just want to point out that farm succession is something that we're really keen on. The plan identified a need for six dedicated transfer planners along with some dedicated legal expertise. There's a house bill that was proposed that changes, would need but was trying to kind of look at ways to bring that capacity, so that's something that We're

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: gonna be spending some time on that as well. Great,

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Fantastic. We think the infrastructure, in essence, is there. The HCB has

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: a

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: lot of the systems in place, but yeah, there's they, just needed capacity in their networks to do more transfer planning, and we see that also as continuing the viability to the next generation. And as I mentioned in the previous slide, just exploring this technical service capacity with EVM Extension and other partners, particularly around TA capacity for livestock. So no dedicated livestock specialists focus on genetics, meat quality markets, either broadly or with any specialization, for say beef or pork or small ringmits poultry. So those are the economic development trends. Now to look at the kind of resiliency trends here, just as things pulled out from what will be a climate assessment that's being put together by UVM that'll come out later in the year. The trends are clear of just we're seeing increased annual temperatures, increased annual precipitation historically, increased in heavy precipitation. The 3B, for those who maybe are gardening and follow the hardiness zones pretty closely, the 3B hardiness zone has completely disappeared from the map, and we actually have now a 6A zone in the Windsor area, which I'd love to be in that zone. You throw some interesting things there. So, and, you know, in some ways, that shift brings opportunities to grow new types of new crops. And then, the the other thing too is that this extreme precipitation impacts soil erosion and runoff, so the 2023 flooding delivered nearly half of the allowable annual phosphorus load to Champlain in just one week. So there's other types of ways that the flooding and extreme precipitation affect the state. Of course, with the Farm Security Fund oversight. So all of those things have direct impacts on farms, and in the last three years, just from the flooding and drought, that's over $74,000,000,000 of reported losses over the last three years, and just speaks to, again, the need for the farm security fund. I'm using that shorthand for the because the name escapes me. But it includes forestry. Yeah. And and really looking to get, you know, really looking to get appropriate scaled appropriation for that fund. And then when we're looking at farmland, the trend has been we've been losing farmland, so almost an 11% decrease since '97. And if you go further back, those numbers are gonna be larger. So there has been this trend. And there's been some new data analysis around some of the factors driving conversion. So American Farmland Trust, which I think would be great to have staff who are involved in this work come in to speak more around the details and technical aspects. But they originally produced a report that projected, just based on some modeling, where kind of the trend was headed in terms of farmland being converted. And they have now recently actually done an actual analysis of land that has been converted since they first did the study. And the trend of the of what they've observed is outpacing what they projected in the modeling. And so they're already you know, what they've observed were 48% to the conversion that they were projecting in a business as usual case, and were 32% away on what they would call runaway sprawl. And I want to also emphasize, talking about front line conversion, this is not sort of a way to say, like, we shouldn't do development. As I mentioned, housing is something that's constraining our businesses, but this conversion, it is happening, and it's happening faster than what people expected. And just to They also, you know, if you want to look at it by county, Chitinan leads that, but it's happening in every county, and the type of conversion that's happening is more in what they identify as low density residential, but there is also more They're starting to also see this urban high density conversion happening as well. Can you define that? I wish I had included it. It's a technical description, and this is where the the AFT staff, I think, could really dive into the nuances of it. Yeah, there's kind of threshold markers for the density levels and type of development. The way I think you could sorry. The way I think you could think about the low that low intensity is sort of on the outskirts of town, like, starting to get on the outskirts of town centers. And and also the fact is we don't we don't have a lot of the medium and high density developments in Vermont anyway. So that's why I think there's gonna just naturally be greater distribution on that low intensity side. And these, this is land actually lost to development. Correct, yeah.

[Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: And Yeah. So when you say development, are we saying housing or are we saying business? Exactly do we mean

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: by It could be any of those. Yeah. Yeah. And so just on the priority side, this is why we really think the state, this conversation around the municipal regulation exemption is really important. We don't want to continue to lose ag land once it's gone, it's gone forever, and so we want to continue to protect that as much as we can. I think there's been some language maybe shared with the committee recently, and I've been a part of a farmer coalition working to propose some language around this, and I think two other points is that really having a clear, consistent regulatory framework across the state is good for farms, and it's good for towns. I think having that will help to remove some of the contention and acrimony has arisen in certain cases. And I think the other thing that we want to emphasize, too, is that we think those changes, and we're hopeful about this, that there's consensus even with the agency, with the cities and towns, that we can focus these changes in title 24 without actually getting into the the wraps and create, a framework that works for everyone that's clear and understandable. And so that's, yeah, some of the positions that I think you're gonna hear more about in additional testimony from others. Some other priorities, this is the Farm and Forestry Operations Security Special Fund. Enacting that and appropriating 0 is a big priority, continuing to fund the Land Access and Opportunity Board, and also supporting one time appropriations for their programming. And just one other thing is that we'll have a report out pretty soon in partnership with Intervale Center. We support some work that they've been doing around alternative land access, land ownership and farmland access. And so there's potentially some policy stuff around flexibility for ownership and housing on conserved land, and also looking at lending guidelines that would provide more flexibility relating to multi party purchase and operating loans. So those are some of our land and resilience priorities, and then to end with local foods for all Vermonters, the trend for household food insecurity is going back up. Through the COVID pandemic, with a lot of stimulus funds and enhanced benefits, the rate went down for a little bit, but those are going away. So 9.4% of households are food insecure in Vermont. It's important to note that USDA announced that they are going to stop reporting this data. So this is the last year for, we don't know, that we'll be able to have access to this. So we are working with partners to develop a state based way of accounting for food insecurity, and we're gonna be working over this next year to develop a methodology and test a way to track food insecurity in Vermont. Too. Frankly, while it's great to have the federal data, we think there's a lot of gaps in what this tells us in terms of food insecurity in Vermont, so we think there's a need anyway for more state based tracking and accounting around this issue, and so even if the federal data came back, I think we have a, there's value in having a state based system too.

[Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: I think that's great, and I applaud you for for doing that. I think one of the important things that has to be done is to make sure that we're preparing apples to apples. Yeah. Even if even though the federal data may be a bit flawed, I wanna make sure that we're still if you enhance it Yeah. That we're still able to compare it to what we what we have. Absolutely. And that's something that's come up very early on

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: in these conversations of just recognizing that the federal system has been a gold standard for measuring this, and exactly that. So, retaining the core concepts so that it's comparable, and then giving us a little more nuance and even demographic understanding or geographic understanding within the state. Yeah. And then lastly, just on the data trends and related to Healthy Global Foods for All Vermonters, I did want to highlight, because the next slide's going to talk about SNAP and some of the federal changes, is to recognize that over $151,000,000 distributed through SNAP, and those are federal dollars, so up until this point, the state has not had to contribute to the direct benefits. The state contributes to the administration of the program. So, transitioning in terms of legislative priorities, policy priorities, appropriating $6,300,000 for FY27 to meet new federal SNAP administration match requirements, so this is really essential to maximizing and leveraging those federal funds and maintaining a low payment error rate, because if if we exceed that payment error rate, then the state does have to start for the SNAP benefits. So the state has averaged over time. The error rate has averaged over a ten year average. It's 5.5%. Last year, was 5.1, so we are below the threshold right now, but there's gonna be reporting requirements two times a year rather than one. There's more requirements based on receiving benefits, and so there's just more complexity and more opportunity to get, to have a higher error rate, and the error rate is also counting not just people who might receive more, but who might in error receive less than what they should get. So it can become very costly if we exceed that rate. So having the systems in place and the appropriate level of support to make sure that we're not hitting that is really important. And that relates to the 5,750,000.00 to expand capacity for SNAP and Medicaid benefit assisters. Those are the people on the ground, kind of case management We're working with folks to make sure that those things get filled out correctly, and yeah,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: that

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: they stay below, that not only they get those benefits that they qualify for, but also that we stay below that error rate. There's also and and I should note too that these are all of all of these priorities are in the policies or the policy slate of the Food Security Coalition. So appropriating $182,000 for the H2PED and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. So that's a federal program that provides cash reimbursements to early family child care home providers for eligible meals and snacks, and without this appropriation, the entities that are able to act as fiscal agents for the health care providers would not be able to do it, and so would not be leveraging those federal dollars. Then the Food Bank, 5,000,000 appropriations. Some of that includes Vermonters, feeding Vermonters, which supports local farms, and also 1,000,000 for Ready Response. The food bank is asked to do a lot of things, or has been asked to do a lot of things in times of emergency without any kind of support or relied on their existing funding to do that, and it's put a strain on their ability to do other things, so really trying to create consistency in the way that they can run with emergency response when needed. And then the and then 500,000 for no fuss or Crop Cache, Crop Cache Plus, Barkshire. And yeah, that is it.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Jake, well done. Good presentation. Do you have a chart somewhere of all of your appropriation requests? I've been trying to keep track of them. Went through each slide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've lost a few million somewhere. Yeah,

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: I've got a spreadsheet that I can convert.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: That would be good. That would be good.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Yeah, yeah,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: yeah. So Ellen mentioned earlier that the Sustainable Jobs Fund budget was 2,400,000.0, I think you Yeah. Said this it's gonna go to 2.8. And I'm just wondering how much of what we just had in terms of appropriations requests are part of that extra, I think it's a 14% increase, if I did None. My

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: No. I mean, have, it just, our fiscal year is actually the calendar year. So, like, my 2026 budget is like 2,800,000.0. Most of our grant most of our funding comes from grants and a portion of that, maybe a quarter of all of grants, is the state funds. Total 2,800,000.0, something like 25% is state funds. So, we're raising federal funds, we're raising foundation funds, we get some base funding out of the Agency of Agriculture budget, 235,000, and then $275,000 from the Agency of Commerce. That's base funding for us, basically. That's what we get. And then we apply to Working Lands Enterprise Fund to support the Forest Innovation Summit that happens every year. As we said, sometimes there's special one times that come through us that go to other entities. So, we're raising a lot of money from lots of other sources. We leverage the state dollars to do that. For a lot of our foundation partners that support us year over year, the fact that we have state statute, and if there wasn't state funds in the jobs fund, they would have a harder time going like, why is the state not also contributing? So that sort of a quarter of our total budget being state funds is so critical to us being able to then raise up everything else. So, none of these other things are coming

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Right. To that's, you know, I I see part of my job as being a representative of our members of people who are in the food system, you know, and and representing what their requests are, because these are requests that also tie into implementing the strategic plan. I feel it's important for me to communicate those needs as they relate because it's part of implementation to how we get to reaching the goals of the plan.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I realize the budget address was only on Tuesday, so you may not have had a chance, but do you have an idea of how much of your requests were in the governor's recommend?

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Yeah. It's a little it's a little hard right now to parse through that. I've I've started to dig into it. I don't think a a lot actually is.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: For working land, it's just keep the base at 1,000,000. So the getting to 5,000,000 part was not something that the governor put into this budget, although I do know that the agency, that's what they requested, was 5,000,000. And the agency of commerce and the Department of Forest, Parks and Rec all together submitted budget requests to the Governor's office saying, We'd like to see this at 5,000,000. But you know what the Governor's priorities are and so it is what it is.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Yes, thanks.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Questions, all good?

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: No. Very good. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for the time. Really appreciate Sure.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you much. Anything else you are good? Anything else you want to add? Anybody else in the room? Anybody got anything they want to add?

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Okay.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: You for your time. Awesome. Thank you very Appreciate it.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Excited for whatever work you're going to be doing on the succession issue and the municipal exemption work too.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We have a lot of work available. Yeah. Well,

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: us know if we can be supportive in any way. Yeah.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Thank you.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: And I like your any k, sticker that you

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: have there.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: I live in hard time.

[Jake Claro (Farm to Plate Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Showing your bias. Yeah. I know.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Too I invite our big residents. That's right. That's right.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks so much.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: We gotta commiserate you again.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We almost have a buyer.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: And I say every year. So it's next time. I've

[Steven Heffernan (Clerk)]: been saying it for sixty one years.

[Ellen Kahler (Executive Director, Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund)]: Know. I I don't have that much on you, but I