Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Good afternoon

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: or good morning, I guess. We are on the second day of the session, Wednesday, January 7. We are going to spend some time today with Agency of Agriculture, food market updates. We are going to start out with General Counsel Steve Collier. We'll probably have Secretary Tuvitz in when he frees himself up from other committees. Wide ranging discussion. I think you might have a presentation or whatever or You can call

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: it that.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah? Okay. Absolutely. So, sir, the floor is yours.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Oh, good morning. It's great to see you all. Happy New Year, everyone. Steve Collamore from the Agency of Agriculture. What I was planning to do, and I'm happy to talk about whatever you'd like, but there are some we've been talking to to your chair and also to the chair of the House Ag Committee, and we're we're hoping to, as we ordinarily do, to propose some housekeeping some some some language for your committee bills for us to consider. A lot of it is very general sort of basic updates, and some of it is more substantive and important. So as we're planning, if you're okay, we don't have the language is mostly done, but it's not yet been shared, but planning to provide you with sort of an overview of what we're hoping to accomplish and That'd be accomplish. Is that okay? Yeah. That'd helpful. So I'll start with the one that, at least in my opinion, is probably the most important among the housekeeping items for this session, and that's the it's an effort to restore the zoning exemption for agriculture. So probably all of you know that back in May 2025, the Supreme Court issued a decision based on a half an acre duck farmer in Essex Junction, which basically overturned the standard longstanding understanding that towns cannot regulate agriculture through some. That had been widely understood, widely accepted, widely applied, but the Supreme Court construed it differently than the understanding then. So in other words, if you were a farm subject to the RAPs, the longstanding belief was towns could not separately serve. So the agency of agriculture has many requirements, but towns couldn't step in and do the same thing. The Supreme Court in its decision decided that that was incorrect, based on its reading of the statute, and it said that the only thing that towns couldn't regulate are specifically the things that are mentioned in the required agricultural practices. So you all know the required agricultural practices are rules mostly related to water quality that farmers have to, comply with. Springfield said that towns can't regulate those limited things, but not more broadly, all of the agricultural practices that always been construed that, quote, on farming includes a lot of agricultural practices, and it always been considered that towns could not sow those. So the Springboard upended that. We made some efforts late in the session to try to put a stay on that, but it was right at the end of the term. I think we tried to do something when we came back for a a veto session, but it just wasn't possible to get anything done in that short period of time. So we've been working very closely with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns since they obviously are interested partners in this. We've also been talking closely to a number of farm organizations. And what we really wanted to do was come to you with consensus language that that all of those groups supported. We didn't get all the way there, but we got pretty close. And so what we're going to do is ask you to restore the exemption, but we're also going to ask you to tweak it a little bit to be to compromise with the league of cities and towns. And they they mostly agree that farming should not be zoned by towns, but but they would like to carve out an area where they could regulate farming in the downtowns, village centers, and plant growth areas. And they'll they'll tell you they have good reasoning for it. We don't agree with it just because especially when it comes to plant plant growth areas because to that also to us, that also equals existing farms. And so given the delicacy of farming in Vermont and our constant loss of Vermont farmland, we're really reticent to do anything that could drive out a viable farm. And not only drive out a viable farm that's operating wherever it's operating, but also many many new and beginning farmers have to start small necessarily because of the cost of land, because of the cost of inputs. So we basically, we don't wanna do anything to stop anyone from growing food in the state who's able to, but they have to have enough money to reasonably do it. They can't be doing it, you know, in an area where it where it can't be supported by the land base. So we've got a litany of things that we'll talk to you about that, but it's basically restoring it like it was, but seeing a little giving towns a little more leeway to and being a little bit clearer about exactly what the farm and what a town can't regulate. Already, a farm could could regulate farming that didn't meet the thresholds in RITs. So we're gonna talk about adjusting those thresholds a little bit. And so but we're very pleased. The the league was wonderful to work with. We met with our board. We met with them many times. The the farm groups, understandably, are also very invested. They they want us to go a little farther than we are going, but we're going where we are because we want we value that consensus with remote legacies and towns, And we also think we expect that the government the government operations committees will also be invested in this, and we think it's important to have the league's partnership on from that community too. So we so we'll be talking and I think a lot about that this session, but I do think it's really important. And the the the hazard to farms is there's many reasons, but the the biggest one is that as the law currently stands, towns can actually zone out farming. That's never been allowed. Like, right now, a town can say, you know what? We're gonna designate certain areas where you cannot have farms. It's never been true in Vermont, and and we don't want it to be. And and the other piece is duplicative and potentially conflicting regulation. So if you have our regulations plus municipal regulations, and especially for farms that are many who are in more than one town, they could have different regulations and different lands they have, which could get just very confusing, very onerous. And we all know the economic viability, in my personal opinion, is the biggest threat to farming. And every time we layer on another requirement, another restriction, and another cost, we're adding to that. So we obviously need to have farms be reasonably regulated, but we don't need multi layers of regulations. In our opinion, if farms need to be regulated in a certain way, that should be through us, and that should be done uniformly throughout the state, not patchwork and a bunch of different municipal zoning regulations. So that's the kind of big ticket item, I would say. I I don't know if there are any questions about that. Thank you, mister chair. The

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: city's planned ex expansion part of the that three triumphant that that you had. I I think that's an important. And I think it's very important because other than wetlands and and floodplains, anything can be expansion for towns and city. So I I think that that's a big stumbling block that that I could see that I would be headed in on agreeing with the VLCT. I like what you're saying.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: I mean, you know, I I and I was on the board at

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: the time, so

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: I I knew that. But I'm that's that that's a that's a huge stumbling block, and I'm I'm curious as their willingness to acquiesce on on that particular part.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: They'll do a much better job explaining their position than I will. And they're

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: coming in when when, Linda? VLCG, I think VLCG?

[Linda (Committee Assistant)]: They're coming in early next week.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Okay. Okay. Sure. Yep. But but we we agree with you. Essentially, position is is simply that anywhere where agriculture is reasonable and viable, and we want to be able to allow it, that doesn't mean it'll happen. The reality is the more densely populated areas, including plain growth areas potentially, farmers often sell their land, which is a you know, which is good for the farm, not necessarily good for the state. So the more densely developed an area is, the more likely it is to not remain farming. But if you can farm there and you can be successful there and you can have an incredible roadside farm stand in that location because it's densely populated, Great. So we just wanna maintain that flexibility. We don't wanna be pushing viable farming out wherever it can exist in the state. And, you know, the league has they have to worry about housing, they have to worry about how to expand. They have to worry about, you know, neighborly relations. So they've got their own and and they've been wonderful to work with. I will not curt it. You know, they they were very thoughtful about this. We happen to have disagreed. But, you know, that said, on the majority of the state, they agree with us. The town should not be you know, the vast majority of the state. It might be 98% of the state or 95%. But part of the problem with plain growth areas is those can change. I think you were talking about that. We're talking about undefined movable maps, and we don't want that. And it's never been the case. Like, towns have never had the authority to tell a farm, you can't farm here, as long as there was the the ability to do that. So it would be a substantial sea change, and I don't blame them for asking for it, but hope that the legislature logs up there's nothing to do it.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So prior to the Supreme Court decision, farming had, in essence, total immunity from any kind of local zoning regulations, right?

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Correct. If you meant the threshold that you were covered by the required equitable. Well, yes. If

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: have if three three came into play, for sure.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Yeah,

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: okay. So I think I'm feeling the same way, Senator Major. I'd like to just go back to the way it was, period. I don't believe in giving anybody authority to put their thumb down

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: on the slides. Just me. Alex, again, a welcome sound of him. When will we have the language that's proposed? It's provided that your chair in your committee is amenable. I hope to share that early next week.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Absolutely. Because I'll have questions.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Sure. Course. Yeah. The language comes in. Of course. Yeah. As much as we yeah. We're happy to talk about it. And are you gonna have that comparison language of what it was and what it was? Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk we'll talk about the history. You know, I've I've researched it as far as I could go without going to a law library with older statutes, and the exemption's been in place since at least 1987. So there's a more recent version that's on the books now, but I'm not aware of it ever being allowed. I don't know for sure, but Act two fifty, you know, was kind of the first statewide zoning. Yep. And that was enacted in 1970, and farming was exempt from that. In fact, Act two fifty was largely created to protect farming. Right. And it was exempt from that. It's been exempt from zoning at least since 1997. I think zoning I'm not sure when zoning really took off in Vermont, but it's, you know, there's still a lot of places with no zoning, so I have no reason to believe that towns have ever been allowed to zone agriculture, maybe before 1987, I don't know for sure.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: And you mentioned farming groups. I'd like to get a better sense of who you talked to from them.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So the sure. So the Vermont Farm Bureau Okay. NOFA, rural Vermont, BDPA, the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: and there

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: and there were several other groups that were kind of participants in the call too. Got it.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I had a conversation off just in all the way with yesterday, and they're certainly aligned with with your way of thinking. So Yeah. I think they wanna know a

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: little more than we do. It was completely understandable. I think we're, you know, we've committed to a partnership with the leads because we believe their input in the Winder Game Institute as well. And so we tried to narrow the area of disagreement so that we'd have, hopefully, the best chance of getting consensus among the legislators. Good. Okay.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So while we're kind of on that schedule, and I know you're gonna tell us about, you know, kind of your outline about it, but one of the things that we brought up yesterday, and I don't think it's something that we will be able to do anywhere near small, but we're going to start the conversations about protecting Primag lands from solar development, any type of development. I know we understand that Vermont used to have a lot of pasture land. The reason why it was pasture land is because it couldn't be turned into farmland, so to say, crop land. Cows don't pasture anymore like they have in the past unless they're a cabin. But but so there you've got a lot of land out there, sometimes just across the fence from a a good farm field versus something that is not a good farm field because it's really not meant to be there. And then we'd like to be able to say, Okay, well no, you're not gonna put those solar fields in this nice farm field, but we have this factory land next door. So we're gonna somehow kind of start to thread that needle a little bit. It's very touchy because now you're starting to tell farmers what they can do with their land. And we understand that, you know, they own the land, they, all of that stuff, but farmland is at a premium. Those fields have been, I think every, I don't think there's very many major farm fields that still aren't farmed today, even though we have less farmers. And so to protect that growth potential of these farms in the state of Vermont, think it's very important that we start to look at even in housing. There's just land is precious. They don't make any more of it. And so at some point in time, we we're gonna get that off the ground. I don't know what direction we're gonna do that in.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: No. That's good to know. Thank you. And and there are a lot of people who have interest in this, and it's a very rife political issue Yes. Because of renewable private property interest that you talked about, and also the desire to have more renewable energy. Farmland is one of our more of our most precious resources. The theory with solar is that we don't lose it. Theory is that we maintain it so that it can be used later. That's a wonderful theory. Some people refer to it as a legal fiction. Some people say it will happen, but the idea is, and it's not it's possible that the land that's used for solar can be restored to farmland in the future, and that that is a possibility, and that's what our agency, the current legal authority that we have, works to do. We're involved in the certificate of public good process between the Public Utility Commission, and we work to preserve agricultural soils. And with solar, though, there's a legal there's there's something that's in statute which says if you have a solar field, that land remains primag soil. So the idea is you're protecting that primax oil indefinitely, legally. The the quest and when somebody when a developer puts solar panels in a field, part of their certificate of public good is they promise to decommission the site at some point in the future. That's the potential legal fictions. Never happened. That solar field is that solar panels have never come out. They probably will at some point, because they'll probably be replaced by something better. But the question is, does that go back to a farm field, or does it go to some other kind of energy development? No one really knows. So there is there is some solace, and right now, those anything that has solar on it on primate soil, it is still legally protected. But, of course, laws can change in the future. Who knows what will happen? And the more that you pepper farmland with solar panels, the the the more that you make the other land that's left more valuable and and increase cost. So there, you know, there's a lot of factors to balance in that, but it's a really important topic. I don't think we've gotten it right, but but I don't know how and how we'll be able to.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, we're gonna keep on putting some thoughts to it and and keep on asking the questions and keep on bringing in people to further that conversation. And I know, again, if I could tell you that I could have a clear path of how we're gonna go down through there, but we're certainly gonna have some discussions about it.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: There's some good ideas out there, whether they're politically viable, I don't have no idea, but but there are some it's keeping in mind, at least in my opinion, the most important crisis for farmers is ongoing economic liability.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Right.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: When you're dealing with commodity prices that you input costs that you can't control, you don't set your own commodity price for most farmers in Vermont, and you have to face natural disasters. You know, we have three years in a row of really significant natural disasters, and you have increasing land prices, and you have our farmers getting older and fewer coming in. It's over. We really need to do something to to restore the sanctity of farming in Vermont, and that's not something you can compel, it's something you have to entice. And so, there fortunately, we have a proud history in Vermont, and we have many people who want to farm. And when you see people who want to farm, like we just saw a dairy farmer in Shoreham, there's a news story that maybe some of you saw, who, because of the drought, couldn't buy his feed and sold his cows. Like, that's happening. It's been happening for decades. Anything the state of Vermont can they can do is try to allow farmers who were good at it and want to keep doing it to be able to keep tilling the land instead of using it for something else. Like, that seems like the threshold. To me, that's the most important thing we can do, is enable those who want to farm and are good at it to be able to. But it's not easy.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I mean, there's a lot

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: of factors that are completely outside of government control and probably should be, but there are things we can do now. He worked at it. Yeah. Well, on we go. Okay. So the other ones are a little bit more perfunctory, but one so there's a so I don't know if you are with some sort of thinking about in our installing electronic shelf tags in their stores. One of the things we do is regulate through our weights and measures department. We we regulate department. Sorry. But for our weights and measures section, we regulate unit pricing, which is the amount that you put on a label for for per weight or measure. So how how much is something by pound? How much is something by ounce? So that shoppers can compare shop, and so they know if there's things in different sized bottles they can look at and say, oh, this one's cheaper, it's not this much smaller bottle, it's also less expensive. And we also regulate stores to ensure that they're accurately charging the prices and being forced on that.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So Okay.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: As you well, anyone who's going to a grocery store knows that things don't ring up always as they say on the shelf. So one of our functions is to do that, to make sure the stores are accurately charging people. Most of them are, but there are some people who don't and don't do it as a as a business practice because it's they make more money if they don't. That's rare, but it does happen. So, anyway, those those are some of our functions. Retail pricing is unit pricing. Our statutes on on in that area are very updated. The unit pricing statute is over 50 years old, and it just needs to be updated. It's confusing. I mean, I I'm a I'm a reasonable lawyer. I won't go any farther than that, but I I have trouble understanding it. And so it's hard to get it's hard to ask people to do things that they can't understand. So we just wanna update it. Correct. So so we wanna reform it, brand it, modernize it, make it better, but also there's a

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: new thing that a lot

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: of people are worried about with with electronic shelf tags, which can be great, because a lot of times the reason that prices are wrong at the register is the shelf tags haven't caught up with the register. You know, you download something in your system for your your cash register, but your shelf tags haven't caught up. That's where a lot of the errors can come. So with electronic shelf tags, you can be having the same system. So when you're putting when you're changing it to register, you're also changing out the shelf. That's great. But one another thing you can do though with that is something called dynamic pricing, where you can actually, at any moment of the day, change your pricing based on demand, based on what you think you're what you think you can get for it. So what we don't want is we don't want anybody in the store taking an item off the shelf that says it's $2, and then get to the register and it's $4. Because you could do that with dine plus your with dynamic pricing. So that's I mean, I don't think that's controversial, but we just wanna make sure that it it doesn't happen. And so what we're we'll propose is that you can't change your prices while you're in operation. You can do it at night, and then you can charge whatever you want. It's just that you can't change it so that it's inaccurate when somebody takes it out of the shop. So that's there's you know, there'll be a lot of language there, but it's basically just modernizing, updating.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Do we, as legislature mandates, some changes in that? It seems to be do we did we pass something? It's or not? No. This is something you were just doing yourself. I don't remember anything recently, but there's there

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: may have been, though, that I'm not thinking of. But not not anything broad scale, but there's always little tweaks here and there.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: K.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So that's any no questions on that? Okay. Is there sorry. So the notes here. So there I'll I'll raise this briefly. There's no. I guess I won't. This is a big issue. Neonict treated seeds. I think it's better to talk about it a different day. This is a big issue. But we will be talking about that and some plans that we have about that. That's an ongoing issue, but I don't think we plan on proposing language. I think we just wanna explain where we are, but we'll do that another time. That is fair enough. So so there's this is a really simple change that we just discovered because because of something that happened in summer. But in current law, a milk buyer, so someone who's buying milk from a farmer, can't cancel their milk contract termination without giving the farmer a right to a hearing in front of the secretary of the agency of agriculture. So basically, if you have a contract with a farmer to buy milk, there's some statutory protection that doesn't allow, the the milk buyer to do that without cause, essentially. There's there's different standards. It's either sanitation or other reasonable grounds. But if a milk buyer does that, the farmer can contest it, and the secretary of the agency of agriculture has the decision to decide what makes the decision about whether or not the grounds are reasonable, and then that can get appealed to court. There's a there's a provision in that which basically says that if a milk buyer cuts off a a farmer, then the the the decision has stayed until that hearing. So, basically, the idea of that is you hold the farmer harmless until the secretary makes the decision. But there's an error in that statute that says if the milk buyer I think it actually says purchaser. The milk purchaser requests a hearing, then the then it's then it stayed. That's an error in the statute. A milk purchaser is never going to ask the for a hearing to contest its own decision. So it's just that we just found the error. It's an old statute. It just needs to be corrected so that we we've been, I think, implementing it that way, but it's not what the law says. So when we tell somebody you have to wait, they can reasonably say right now, no. I know. Yeah. So we just wanna fix that. It's changing, I think, one word, maybe two. How old the law

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: was that? You know, I

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: think it's from the sixties maybe.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: It it was fixed there too, though.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's pretty old. Yeah. The the old laws are interesting. I'd say it's '67. There were a lot to you over on that. There were some good to that. Any no questions about that, we have a farm to school grant program, which I'm sure you're all familiar with where we try to get schools to buy more local farm agricultural products. That right now is set up as a grant program where we can give grants to facilitate that. We've been doing this for a long time. There's some aspects of that which would be better accomplished through a contract than through a grant, specifically providers who sometimes we hire providers to try to educate schools about how to do it, how to get them more familiar with how to do it, and that really should be done through a contract with the state because you can set different terms and conditions through a contract than you can through a traditional grant where you're just giving money. So we just want to tweak that language to make it clear that in that program, we can accomplish our objectives through either contract or grant. So that's really all we want to do is add that ability. Arguably, we could just do it now and say grant is contract, but we'd rather be express about it. So that's a so that's a perfect housekeeping chain, I think. Any questions? We in our so in chapter two fifteen in the water quality section, we have some ongoing farmer mandatory training requirements that that have been in place since the water quality standards were significantly ratcheted up back in 2015. These farmer farmers were required to we were required to educate farmers for free about the requirements of the RHEEs, but these were the RHEEs were instituted in 2015, and we have trained we've provided I forgot the numbers, but thousands of trainings. We we believe that farmers are educated about the RHE's now, but these ongoing mandatory requirements are there. It's pretty administratively burdensome for farmers to have to continue to do it, and for us to have to do it, we do because of the it's in statute. But what we'd like to do is take away the mandatory requirements, but give us discretion to require training when it's necessary. Our our our belief is that farmers understand the RAPs now. They don't always follow them. They usually do, but they don't always, and when we don't, you know, we we have ability to to to take enforcement action. But what we'd like to do is just not make everybody do training they don't need. And so that's the that's the request there.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Is it the same RAPs? You're just continuing to train to the same standard? Well, there's a lot

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: of different areas you can train in in water quality, so there's a variety of trainings that we can do, and Laura DiPietro, our water quality director is much more familiar with the specific trainings we do. And and I'm not we very much believe in education, and we shouldn't be stopping education in any way. It's just that these mandatory requirements, like, are lot of novel things that happen, and I think we'd be better off talking about how to implement those than how to just meet the mandatory requirements that are in statute now. So, but what I think there's, I think, think, if I'm going from memory, maybe we've had 32,000 farmer attended trainings, which obviously is a lot of repeat farmers for that sort of number, but we just don't feel like the stat sanctuary mandate made sense at the time when it was all new, but right now, it just feels like it's kind of a waste of heat exposure.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: But you make it sound like once a student learns the multiplication tables, if you try to just keep grading them, that there isn't anything more to learn.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: If you understand them, you understand them. Well, senator Collamore, still forget them. So I You might be disproving me. Oftentimes, 11. Thinking about that one for a second. You should. Okay. So you yes. Exactly. We just we don't we don't wanna do things that we don't think are productive. Yeah. We do it because it's

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: in law.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: But we think there are better ways, and we'd rather train people who need it rather than just and and also, most importantly for the farmers, we don't wanna make them attend trainings that they're are a waste of their time. So, yes, and somebody who knows the multiplication tables. Three ways. Another so this is very simple. There's currently in statute. We're a member of something called the the Interstate Pest Control Compact, which was a way for states to work together to control pests. It was very well, it existed, but it dissolved in 2013. So in statute, we're still a member of it. We're supposed to be providing an annual report about it. It doesn't exist, so it feels like it's time to get rid of that. Should sound. There's so I because of your help two years ago, I think it was, maybe it was maybe it was 2024, I think, we now have the ability to provide pesticide exams for online. So as you probably know, you're applying certain kinds of pesticides, you have to go through training to show that you're qualified that we administer. And we used to have to haul people into the office, and some people are not even in the state because Companies get hired, and sometimes they come to Vermont to do it from not in the state. So it was a real a real challenge for some folks to do it, and we now can do it online or we'll shortly be able to do it online. We have the contract signed. So there's just there's some things we wanna streamline about our testing process. We wanna just consolidate some categories, make it a little bit simpler, who pays for the test when, and also take away. Right now, if you don't pass the test, I think it's in your fourth trial, you have to wait a year, and we we there's arguments for and against that, but we don't think it's particularly helpful, especially once a company's already hired somebody and you have somebody ready to go, and we we we don't we don't think we need to have the cap on exam taking, but but that's something that we can all discuss. So we'd like to just change the the testing requirements a little bit to streamline them, to make our online process a little bit easier. We still provide testing opportunities in the office too, and but people who want to do it online will be able to do that, and we expect that most well, and it's a lot easier for them. Any questions about that? No? And the last one, it is the the seed law. So there's a a chapter on seed law and how we regulate it, and there's also a uniform seed law that all of the states all the states are a member of association about regulating the seed. And like with many of these kinds of endeavors, the idea is to try to get standardization across the country so that when you're selling seed or or fertilizer or a range of things, that hopefully the state's laws are aligned so that we're not making it more difficult for interstate commerce. Our seed law just we just wanna update it to be more aligned to the uniform seed law. So there will be quite a number of changes, but the whole impetus is to try and get aligned with what the uniform seed law proposes from the association that we're a member of. Okay. So yeah. So that's it for the housekeeping issues that we're hoping to propose.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: At some point in time as well, I don't wanna get into I don't wanna get into a feud of a bitter lawsuit that seems to be going on about tile drains and stuff like that. Or Or we ever going to wait into any of that stuff or we're to wait to see what the water details over at Addison County or is there any need to even be talking about any tile drains and pollutants and all of that stuff? Or has it is it already precedent law? Is there any need for us to to delve into that?

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I have a lot to say about that. I I'm not sure right now.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And nothing has to be said now. To put it out there as far as we have plenty on our plate this year, but we will tackle anything that is I think one of the greatest things that I love about this committee is that they are committed to protecting farmers in the state of Iraq. So we've got to take be bold and take any approaches to to do what we've tasked each other with, then we're willing to do that. So it is nothing that needs to be solved today or whatever. But if we can play a role in it to protect farmers, we're willing to do that.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Well and that's incredible to hear, and I do think it's a really significant issue. I don't think it's about Plunkett. It's not. No. It's about Right. About tile drain. Right. And my expectation, and this is just a hunch, I don't know this, but I believe that the legislature will likely be asked to increase regulation on tile drain this year. I may be wrong about that, but if I were to guess the whole lawsuit is a prelude to to ask for legislative action to more strictly regulate tile drain. So I think that request will be paid because it's not regulated right now under federal law or state law, provided farmers are properly following the nutrient management plan. Farmers do. What they spread in their fields is very closely regulated, but storm water under the Clean Water Act is exempt from regulation, whether it's coming off the top of your land, this is my opinion now, coming off the top of your land, or whether it's coming through tile drain. The question is whether or not when you spread things onto your land, whether or not you're properly doing that because and that is what farms have to do. If they are properly doing that, then whether the water is coming off top water water's always coming off. You don't stop the flow of water. You you can control what's in the water to some extent, and and what farmers have to do is that that's what that's what they have to do, properly manage their nutrients so that so that when there is runoff, which is inevitable, it's at the proper rate of application. And if and if you have oversaturated soils with phosphorus, for example, we you have to test your soil, and we can have you know, we can reduce the application rates that are permissible, but that's the way farm water quality is regulated. Nobody's going to a tile drain and taking test tubes, testing them to regulate farms, because that is not what's required. What's required is that the farms properly apply materials onto their fields. So, it's a novel attempt, will likely have some significant sympathy in this building. It's a powerful emotional case that's being made, and I think probably you'll be asked to weigh in on whether or not there should be greater legal controls on tile drain, which impacts many, many Vermont farms and has a widely accepted agricultural practice throughout the country. And I think for for decades, and it's I mean, there's some real value to it. There there are some sometimes, if you don't do it correctly, there are some concerns. But in general, it's considered conservation practice if it's done correctly because the water filters through the soil, which the soil then collects a lot of nutrients rather than it coming out of the top. So when it's properly utilized, and Heather Darby, Josh Faulkner from I don't remember if they were in this committee last year or not, but they've done a nice presentation on it There are differing theories about tile drain, but the idea that it in and of itself is a pipe coming out from a factory, in my opinion, does not have any legal basis. So suspect I it'll be an issue one way or not this session, but

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I don't believe you're wrong.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's something that certain groups have won for a long time, and we'll see what happens. Do other states regulate Well, we regulate it. We just don't regulate the way that it's being asked to to Understood. Do other states I the all states are subject to federal law, and the federal law creates the standard. Vermont has much more has a the whole thing that the agency of agriculture does is above and beyond federal law. It's it's we regulate when you're not when you're not discharging to to water. That's when the federal law regulates when you do discharge the water. We we say you can't discharge the water, so we have that whole universe. That applies in every state, and the Clean Water Act is the same in every state. I haven't specifically researched state lawmakers to see if anybody else regulates the house specifically. I'm not aware of any. I have looked at federal cases to see how other federal courts have interpreted this, and, you know, very clear in in federal law is that there's an exemption for storm water or for irrigation runoff. And so so but but if you're not managing your property correctly, then you're not keeping the nutrients where they're supposed to be. To me, that's that's a legitimate potential claim. So when you're putting you're oversaturating your land and the water's coming out, whether it's over the top or I think through tile, and I haven't seen a court that said that, but I think it's a reasonable position that if you're not managing your land appropriately, and because of that, there's discharges through your tile, I think that could arguably be a Clean Water Act violation because you're not following your nutrient management plan. But the fact that it's coming through a tile or that it's coming off the top is is not a differentiation of state law I mean, federal or state law currently. That's good. And and I don't I'm not aware of a good policy reason to do that other than it's you can, you know, big big farms are a lot of people don't like big farms, and that that that may be the case, but, you know, big farms get big because they can't survive being small.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So Yep.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, good. Many questions? Anything else that you guys would like to tell us today?

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Do you want a quick update on the drug survey to see Absolutely. Alright.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So maybe Abby and I can give you a quick

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: we got some results from a preliminary survey that

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: we did out this fall. And Mhmm. So Well, good morning. Y'all look

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: wonderful. Not expecting it sooner than you are. We'll do a check-in the week before town meeting, and Sam and are all looking.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So it's great to meet you. Anson Davids, Agency of Agriculture Food Markets, Abby Willard's with me as well and Nicole, Dubuque Operations Director and also you met Steve earlier. So just a quick update on it it was in, you know, every county and some counties were worse than other counties as far as the the drought this year. So I just wanna share some results that we have for you. We put out a survey to our farm community. We got about 200 responses. It closed the December. So Abby and and her team are going through that data, and they got some preliminary data they can share with you. About 79,000 acres impacted because of the drought and the estimated losses from this survey about $15,900,000. 15% of the respondents said this was the worst drought they had ever experienced. And it's and it's it goes to all sectors. You're gonna see some information even on maple. You're gonna see some stuff on, you know, dairy with grass based operations, also forage and so forth. You're gonna have fruits and vegetables impacted. You had a number of folks that were hauling water, particularly down your way. Your way had people hauling water, drilling wells, and it has a impact. And this comes on the heels of '23, 24 of severe weather with rain. And just an overarching, you know, I think we're in a time and a place where some may be wanting our farmers to do more. And I think this is a time that they got a lot on their plate now dealing with a lot of things that have really added to control and weather being the top one that's impacted over the last three years. But you got some in and around this building that wanted to continue to ask them to do more. And I think we're at a point where they're doing alright. Then we never ask them too much about and and sometimes we're asking for

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: sure.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: They're doing their share. They're complying with the regulations. Sometimes people go sideways. It could be industry does that way. It says that. But they're all doing their share to to help our communities, employ people, feed us. So it's one of those times, I think, in Vermont that, with everything going on in the world, if it's issues with tariffs and trade, trying to navigate the way through that, actual disaster. So we're I think we're approaching this session as, you know, Steve talked about the municipal, that needs to be fixed because that's not making it easier for people to farm. We just wanna, you know, make some tweaks. You know, farming is not shouldn't be in every place since they were some were saying, but our places should be allowed to continue, and it should be allowed places where maybe there's a few acres in each farm. So I think we're kind of in that space, but back to the drought, I think Abby's got some slides she would love to share with you, and maybe she can share the table up here with me, and we can we can go through that.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Sounds good. Okay. Morning.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Good morning.

[Nicole Dubuque (Operations Director, AAFM)]: How are you?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good. Good. Good. How are you, Abby?

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Bring a chair up here. Abby Willard, ABC of Agriculture, Food and Markets. Nice to see you again. As well. So, yeah, secretary Tibbett said we have some preliminary results from the survey that we launched this fall and that closed on December 15. I'll say it's not finalized. We haven't gone through all this data to prepare the final report, but we have put the survey responses in what's called Power BI, which is like a very powerful data manipulation tool so that we can sort and search through the data and kind of in various different scenarios that we wanna look at. So, we could look at, like, geographic implications or business size or primary business type. So, of that work is here. You'll get to see some of the early stages of that, but also note that we don't it's not not finished. So, this is not yet available on our website in the Power BI form and our final report on the drought survey and the collective impacts on the industry. It's not yet finalized, but we hope we'll have it done in the next couple weeks. Happy to come back in and share that with you then and make sure you see the full final results. But, know, Secretary Tibbett started to share a little bit about some of the, like, big picture impacts. So, we heard from 200 different ag businesses from every county across the state, representing 110 different towns. As we shared earlier in the process, that was a pretty consistent representation of business types. About 25% from the produce industry, from dairy, from livestock community, and then diversified operations, including maple industry, Christmas trees, and, crop producers. When you look at where we see the the largest number of responses, it was from Orleans, Addison, and Rutland Counties. So, that was where we saw the most number of survey responses submitted. Most

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: of the

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: a growth majority of the responses are from small farms. About 78% of the total survey responses we saw were from small farm operations. We'll see later on that more of the financial implications were experienced, by large farm operations, but most number of respondents are small farms. So once this data is this is a PDF, but when you're working in Power BI, you're you have the ability to sort of, like, click on an individual town, and it will tell you how many responses were received, how many acres are impacted, so you can really kind of, like, manipulate the data and kind of, like, get very nuanced results by the way that this data will be viewed for for public use by the end of the month. So, kinda cruising through here quickly. As we had sort of expected and experienced during the flood responses, a majority of respondents do not have crop insurance. So it's a 135 of our respondents didn't have insurance. We were curious, when we curated the survey questions, we used some of the same language from the 2324 flood surveys, we could do some, like, longitudinal comparison. We added a new question around whether businesses had enrolled insurance within the last three years. So, that was one of the questions that we had was, as a result of multiple natural disasters occurring in Vermont, has that inspired businesses to apply for, nap insurance or other cough insurance? Sixty eight percent of the respondents to this survey said that they did not enroll, in insurance within the last three years, but twenty two percent did. So, we may have had some growth in the amount of insured and covered industry representation across the state.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Okay. You have to make the matter. Do you think there is a correlation with the respondents since they are smaller farm or is it they are less likely to have insurance, to the larger farms which just do care Right.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: So it's a great great question, senator Major. And if you look at this next slide, so again, this is not live and manipulative manipulatable because it's a PDF, but you'd be able to put in small farm and no insurance and to be able to see kind of like what that representation was across the state, or large farm and insurance and see if that correlation is likely to be true. That's the benefit of putting the data from the survey into Power BI is that you can really kind of do a lot of those kind of explorations.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. Deep does that get into the relief that they saw in the crop insurance? Is was there any metrics in there to say the ones that had crop insurance received x amount of dollars

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: for that? Oh, from previous weather event?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Or even on this event. Mean, because 22% of them had crop insurance. How did that benefit them?

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: That's a good question that we did not ask.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Okay. Yeah. Because that's what I think we found that

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: the produce

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: farmer said in Huntington that the insurance paid for it, but it

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: didn't cover anything. Right? We had the apple grower. Yep. The apple grower. Yeah.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We had yeah. So we had some we had some information as far as with that as well.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. Yeah. These are the federal programs that And it's a very complicated you gotta do it crop by crop. Right. Right. And there's it's a very challenging even to apply, and then the return on investment is pretty low. So that's

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: why We know exactly. So that's yeah. Just curious. The other before we and I apologize. Maybe you'll answer it, and maybe there's not an answer because you can't control who responded or not. Not very many respondents from Franklin County. I mean, the biggest ag county that there is and just not a not a lot that went on there. I know there's a lot of big farms there, but they're because they are the population of farmers that there are, there have been some smaller farms.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Yeah. So six looks like sixth or seventh largest response rate from Franklin,

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: but not not number one. Not what you would think. And and this is just a a theory. Mhmm. It was really interesting. You're like, it could be raining at one farm. Yeah. Right. And then it was they did not get the storm. Right.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I think of Rutland County. I I when we were down in Rutland County visiting a lot

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: of farms, they would see it across the lake Yeah. In New York. It would be nice rain and it just wouldn't come. So there's a lot going on. And using the USDA formula, there are only two counties that didn't make the severe level of clicking the disaster declaration. The two counties were Franklin and Grant Island. Gotcha. So maybe there was in pockets adequate rain at some of those Right. Farms, but I'm sure there there there plenty in Franklin County that had, you know, some severe issues. But that's just a theory that the only two that are not have not triggered yet will be triggered once we get the declaration will be Franklin counting in Grand Isle.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And I suppose it could be struck soil types too. Right? Yeah. You know, the clay land being a lot harder. And

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Yeah. And if you look at that top chart, that is sorted by highest economic loss reported, which again, you know, Franklin is the fifth state or fifth county down in the state, but it's this third highest amount of acres impacted. So over 10,000 acres in in Franklin County were impacted just behind Rutland and then Addison being, you know, the largest of 24,000. So, again, depending upon how you look at the impact, it could be number of respondents, could be acres impacted, or it could be dollars of estimated loss. And again, in none of those cases is Franklin number one. And I think all of those cases, Addison County was number one. But this data is a valuable way to be able to kind of explore how did this $15,900,000 of estimated loss kind of

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: get distributed across states or, excuse me, across the state or across counties. Does it also show by town? Like in Addison, more southern towns got hit with the drought worse than like Beresford. Correct.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Yeah, so you can see and then that lower chart, that is by town. So again, you can see the number of responses, and again, is, if this were live, this would be scrollable. It's only showing the first seven or eight towns, but it could actually scroll all the way down to the total 110 towns that reported from 200 different businesses. You could be able to click on that town on the map that would show you the number of acres that were impacted, the number of responses, and then the sum of the estimated factual loss by time. Part

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: of the

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: data clearing that we're looking to still do is there was a few very large claims that I think could be considered or at least reviewed as outliers. Of them was that was up to me. Thank you. Thank you. One of them was from a maple operation that claimed $2,000,000 in financial loss, both a million dollars of estimated production loss and then a million dollars of coping loss, coping costs. I think that that operation took the opportunity of a survey at the beginning of the well, the end of the traditional growing season, but the beginning of the sugaring season to sort of identify that they're feeling quite nervous about if we didn't see any moisture kick in in the fall, what the sugaring season might look like. We don't obviously know kind of the productivity of this coming sugaring season. People are tapping. We might get some runs in this little January warm up, but we really won't know the impact upon the entire maple industry until April. We know that some operations really worried about the health of their trees based upon the limited amount of moisture they saw during the growing season. So, there's some of this data, especially when we're looking at the average estimated income loss and costs incurred by farm type, that could be influenced by some of those kind of, like, high claims. That's why this is still preliminary data that we haven't done kind of, like, all the the data sorting that we'd like to do before we make it public. I will say, you know, majority of respondents said that they need financial assistance. That's their greatest, need right now. 74 respondents said that they see their financial health as moderate, which means that they see themselves vulnerable towards another event, whatever that might be. Could be a snowstorm, you know, or, you know, ice storm could be the next spring season, with a flood or could be another dry growing season that they're feeling quite vulnerable about. There were eight businesses that responded to the survey that said that closing their business is a consideration for them. We saw, as Steve mentioned, the dairy farm in Shoreham that did close, did sell their cows. There was eight other or seven other businesses that responded to the survey that that are at least acknowledging that the financial hardship is, putting that option on the table for them.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Do we know specifically are they also dairy products? I'm very concerned about dairy.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Yeah. I think we are as well, and I think that's a way that we could sort this data.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: One of the last questions on the survey was asking the respondent if they were comfortable with our information being their their information being shared with technical service providers. And then which technical service providers were they open to us sharing their data with. So that's one of the next steps. So close the survey, finalize the data, prepare the final report, and share the information from the respondents with technical service providers to do the necessary follow-up. And I think that's the space where we could start to look which were those egg producers and who do they say they wanted to be in touch with, what type of primary business are they? Are they Aldeyri or something else?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So we're going get, I'm hearing that our Farm Resiliency Bill S-sixty is going to be making it out of the house. I don't know what travel path that's going to take.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It doesn't have any money in it.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I think this will prove that probably some type of fund would be very, very helpful to farmers in general. Do you have any comparisons to what the flooding numbers look like as far as the losses versus the drought numbers as well? Do you?

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Well, like the average, so this on the left hand side, you can see that the average financial loss per respondent is just under $80,000, and the total loss being 15.9. That's less than the losses from the floods, but but but about the same number of businesses that responded to the survey or that applied to the BGAP program for '23 and '24. 8,000,000?

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: 58,000,000 for the losses? 58. 58.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: '23. '24.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Okay. And what do we see, do we see any relief, any funding for anybody on that 58,000,000? Was there

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, we a had, we had a state program, program that covered some of the losses. AG was part of that program. You gave us

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: the numbers last year, I think.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It was good, but it wasn't

[Nicole Dubuque (Operations Director, AAFM)]: Yeah, think it was 7,000,000 combined that PGAT put out for AG over the two year period, but I can email you that.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And they were only eligible

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: for 30% of their losses, if I remember correctly, on PGAP.

[Nicole Dubuque (Operations Director, AAFM)]: 30% of physical losses.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, this is very helpful information to us as we gather in a tight bunch of years. I don't see where the money's going to come from, but we certainly wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't put a fish in. So to be able to compare and have that analysis should be very helpful. It's good we're going take a shot at it. Great.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: That makes sense to compare. There are some similarities, and I think a variety of differences between how businesses responded and have experienced loss from the drought growing season versus the two different flooding event years. But I think there's some interesting comparisons there. One of the questions we asked in the survey was around the most detrimental detrimental impacts from the flood, And then the top three responses have been consistent from the first kind of onslaught of responses, lower crop yields for market, lower crop yields for feed, and insufficient pasture for forage. So, again, some of the quick stories that we heard from businesses. They lost crops that resulted in a loss of gross income, in some cases in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range by reported businesses. We heard that corn years were small, crops didn't germinate, or crops died in the field. Either they were insufficiently irrigated, or they didn't have irrigation that reached the full extent of their farm, or they simply didn't have irrigation and the drought had been a condition that the farm had planned for. One of the concerns primarily in the dairy industry is acknowledging the additional feed supplement that they need to purchase having not been able to grow what they had anticipated on farm, and then having to take up loans to purchase that additional feed and worrying about the debt service on those loans given the milk prices going into winter. So that's all kind of, like, formulating into the perfect storm that the industry was really worried about. Knew that they were gonna have feed shortages, and that sort of started to play at the beginning of the growing season. So, we actually had, like, very wet conditions at the beginning of this growing season. So, a lot of first cut was very delayed because fields were wet, and then it got really dry, and a lot of operations were not able to take a second cut. Or if they did, it came off really late or it was really low yield. So that was a condition that kind of, like, was pretty ubiquitously experienced across the state. Not every town and not for every operation, but across every county.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: A

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: 125 producers responded to the survey that they anticipate feed shortages. And we're continuing to yield some of those calls and get some of those questions from the industry still that businesses are concerned about being able to feed their animals going through long term Or, being able to find a supplemental feed source that they can afford, or that they can even access to feed their animals. So, we heard from producers that were, you know, hauling feed out of Minnesota and Wisconsin, because that was the closest they could find their sources in New York and Pennsylvania that they typically purchased from, also had experienced drought and didn't have fees supply. Then the price was higher too because of They had to say for Trump being ban. Yeah. It was just like more, you know, market works that way and that they're just like a more premium demand because people were looking for feed. The last piece, guess, on this detrimental impact would be on pasture ground. A lot of producers rely upon their pasture as stockpiled feed into the fall to be able to delay when they have to start feeding, put up feed. That didn't happen for many operations because they just didn't have the pastures. So they didn't have the fall feed, they didn't have the pasture ground, and again resulted in that need for additional purchase feed. In some cases, businesses sold animals. So, they called animals or sold animals simply because they didn't see that they had the budget or the means to be able to feed them through the winter. In some cases, that was part of their business plan. In other cases, that wasn't part of the plan, and they sold at a low price or they sold, you know, at the at an age and stage of development for the animal that they hadn't anticipated, which will have lasting kind of, like, implications on the viability and revenue generation of that business. A lot of this data can be sorted, as we were saying, in comparing 59% of survey respondents said this was the worst drought they've ever experienced. We can sort that by business size. Looks like large farm operations feel that most acutely. We can also sort that by business type. It seems pretty consistent that whether you're a dairy farmer or a produce operation, about 50 to 60% of businesses felt, that this was the worst drought they've ever seen. And if it's not the worst, which is the red, the gross majority of that then saved was a significant event, maybe not the worst they'd ever seen. But it was a it was a big deal in Vermont. Yeah. And that's why when you looked at national trends, and then you all knew this, but, you know, there were times when Vermont was the most impacted drought state in the country, like above New Mexico, above Arizona and Texas. Unusual position for our state to be. We haven't seen that. That kind of drought conditions in quite a few years. There's a lot more that we can talk about in greater detail about what businesses did in the short term in response to losing their water source, so either seeing their irrigation or their water source is running dry or at least running low, as well as how they've responded to their feed shortages. There's a variety of conversations here that I'm gonna just kind of glaze over for now in respect of time, but we can certainly share more on these details when we have the final report. How

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: long was the survey? Did it take him to complete the survey? What do you expect?

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: I think it was open for two months, October 17 to December 15, and I think we expected that the average response time was about ten minutes. Okay. It wasn't a long survey. I think there were 38 questions, but many of those were pretty simple about, you know, business type, your location, size of

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: your farm, what crops you grow. A lot of data.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Yeah. There is a lot of data. Yeah. So it'll take us a little bit, to kind of sort through it and pull out the moment.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you for the way you've got that laid out. It's very, easy to read.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Very nice.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Yeah. Power BI is great in that way. We have a really good a few really exceptional data gurus at the agency that can sort through and visualize this really well, we're grateful for. Just to share with you what businesses said that they need. So, again, 50% of them said they need financial assistance. That's the most critical piece. But they also noted they're really worried about surface water recovery and what things are gonna look like for next growing season. They're concerned about their soil health and whether the drought conditions will linger and affect their pastures or their crops for next year. Businesses, if part of that financial assistance need is looking at investment in irrigation systems. So businesses that didn't have irrigation or didn't have sufficient of their irrigation system are looking at expanding that. Some businesses are looking at drilling new wells. Some businesses drilled new wells throughout the season, if they could get ahold of a well driller. They're looking at exploring different drought tolerant species, whether that's for, like, perennial pastures or even for their annual crop varieties that they might be putting in place for next growing season. A lot of just acknowledged emotional and mental health toil Right. Having been impacted by multiple events in consecutive years. I'll show one last slide that speaks to that, of the number of businesses that were impacted by multiple events over the last three years. And then we still have to wait and see, like, what will be the impact on the maple industry? You know, what about our Christmas trees and other horticultural crops that might be more of the perennial nature to see how they fare next season. This is the last, last slide to show. So this is where you can see that seventy five percent of the survey respondents were impacted by previous major weather events. Only twenty five percent of those were impacted by one other significant event, which means the majority of those were impacted by more than one previous natural weather event, of significant nature. So that was going back to the frost of 2023 all the way through the spring rains of 2025. So I think part of what we're concerned about is just the cumulative effect on the businesses, withstanding, you know, the the flooding impacts, their business still being in recovery, a pretty wild growing season in '25, starting with rains and then ending a drought, as well as many of the same things that Steve Collier was mentioning and thinking about cost of inputs, tariffs, trade, and other impacts for their business. That's what we have to share with you today.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, very nice. We look forward to that. I do at least. Yeah. And, yeah. Very nice. Thank you. Well, thank you guys very much. It's always very informative and, know, we like

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: to Paul, if you need anything. Well, we, we like to stay online. Know? Yeah. And Are we still meeting today? If you'd like, we can.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Alright. So what planning on?

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. Okay. Then we're Yep. Yep. Definitely.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. The. Yeah. Yeah.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Appreciate that.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I'll see you this afternoon in in the.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. I will. Yeah. That too.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And you're just I know the big deal. I had a big deal. I had a wonderful time down in your county, but we I went to what's it called, the goat project. Mhmm. We supported her. She's got a Yeah. A good bridge. She's like, wanted to make a goat cheese. And then so I went to and learned about the heritage breed there, which is a fascinating story. Yeah. I gotta follow-up with them. They're looking for you know, one who wants to make cheese. They've they've got that. It's on pause now. They're looking for a cheese made They're looking for cheese. That he'll eat. And and they've got the goats already. They just need the goats are there. They just need some of the cheese. And then went to Maple Grove.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yep.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And they're continuing to innovate and do things like something to do with butter. Be coming out and just have fun. What's called? And and Christmas trees going to Panama and Christmas tree and talked to our friend. He also has a place in Bennington as well. There are a couple of places. Yeah. So it was great. Very good. It was a great day.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. Was that during the the for the Yeah.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. Yeah. We got to a little bit of that. Yeah. Yeah. We're working

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: on a state building. We go to the vet's house. You know? Pretty cool.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: They pick on me because I get to go. All I do is eat my way through the kitchen. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, everyone else has got, you know,

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: your world's You need more of a heads up.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Give me days to Yeah. Get ready for that. I know.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's You're good girl. Of things. But it was a

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: good day. Yeah. And our colleague that used to say that it's a good day when you go on a road you've ever been on before. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh. And I went in multiple of those. Yeah. And so, you know, when you get off to seven, See what's going on. A lot of nice backgrounds. GPS. You never know what's gonna take. I've got I've got the class fours, the back end of class fours, and, like, nope. I'm going through the pasture with that little car of mine. Gonna have to reroute this this thing. Down to Haven. Oh, That's how you yeah. Pick up a little bottle. You ever get that rubbish issue you have? In the flying spot with the customer's school buses. Did you hear about that? No. I didn't. That's you know, in in New Haven? Yeah. They got apparently, there's a there's a school, and what it it might be is it 116? Yeah. 17. 17. They have to cross.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And that has that head through right there.

[Anson Tebbetts (Secretary of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And it's and the way the road goes, it's like, you know, people are going really fast. So they were I think we were working on trying to get them one of those either flashing. Yeah. When you when you push, so that was one of the things we were hoping we were gonna solve because that was and one of the guys at the fire department was saying he he leads his kids across. He won't let them cross, you know, just the road. Thank you. Because they're supposed to be doing thirty five. No. No. It's not.

[Steven Collier (General Counsel, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: You wanna go back? Sure. Do it.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[Abby Willard (Director of Agricultural Development, AAFM)]: Having us.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Yes. No. Not for a second. A little piece of chair for a second. I make a lot of characterization about what video is. So if you guys disagree with that, certainly pipe in and go. But I think I'm fairly accurate as far as how we feel about things. Again, we got a very expansive list as far as what I've laid out, and I don't know what we're going to get to. We might get to some of it, none of it, all of it, as things come before us. I think there's going be long ranging discussions to be had that probably won't be settled in this session, and so maybe none of us will be around to settle any of it. I think a lot of the conversations need to get started, I think lots of times, as Secretary Tendence has said, these people that are out there with their hands on the soil need to understand that they had advocates in the state house who were willing to swing for them. So a lot of that goes on with that, but I like that presentation that he just did. See That has been said. We're going to take a swing at S-sixty. I don't see any money anywhere, but we certainly have more information available to us now to advocate for the reason why there should be money in there, and there will never be enough. With agriculture bringing $9,200,000,000 into the state, I think that you can't milk a cow and not expect to give away a little bit of cheese when it's all said stuff. That's that. Anything else? Sir?