Meetings
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[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good morning. It is January 13, nine a. We're meeting before floor session today. We've got about twenty two minutes, so we're not gonna make a big long presentation and introductions of all of us. We're gonna let Vermont Farm to School get at it. So welcome, the floor is yours.
[Kayla Strong]: Awesome, thank you so much, both community members. For the record, my name is Kayla Strong, I'm a resident of Richmond, Vermont, and I'm the Farm to Institution Program Director at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. And I'm also here as a representative of the Farm School and Early Childhood Network. So thank you all so much for the opportunity to be here and share the impact of Farm to School and Early Childhood programming in Vermont. This work supports schools, our farmers, our local food economy, and our communities. We're here today to ask you for a level funding of two critical programs in FY27, the Farm to School Early Childhood Grants Program and the Local Foods Incentive Program. Together these programs connect young people with food systems education, Vermont agriculture, while simultaneously supporting farmers and food producers. And to offer a bit of context, the Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood Network was created in 2008 as a response to a growing movement of schools that wanted to serve most of food in their cafeterias, while using food and farming as an integrated education tool to support student learning and engagement. This approach is reflected in our three C's model of change: the classroom, the cafeteria, and community. For long term impact, these three elements must be connected, creating a win win win for students, farmers, and families. I've seen the impact of farm to school firsthand. In my role, I worked closely with school nutrition programs across the state to increase local food procurement while ensuring these institutional markets work for Vermont farmers. And again and again, I hear that food nutrition professionals are connecting with local farms, bakeries, and food businesses. It's all made possible because of these programs. They're proud to support their neighbors and kids are growing up understanding what it means to be nourished by their communities. These programs are not just feeding students, they're shaping a generation that values local food, supports Vermont farmers, and strengthens their local economy. So we have three cornerstone programs that work together to improve student health and learning. Those are first, the Rose McLaughlin Farm to School Grants Program, which was established in 2006 and has served more than 300 schools in early childhood programs in every county of the state. It provides capacity building and technical assistance to help programs develop and strengthen their farm to school efforts. Second is the local foods incentive, which supports increased local purchasing, so that approximately the $25,000,000 that's spent on food in schools can stay, we can have more of that staying in our local economy. And third is universal school meals to ensure that equitable access to meals for every student in every zip code. For many students, school meals provides nearly half of their daily calories, making access to nourishing food essential for health, learning, and success. And I also want to note that today School Nutrition Association is in the house, state house, and we have many school nutrition professionals here with us celebrating five years of universal school meals. And that's five years of ensuring that every student has access to food that they need to learn, grow, and thrive. So these three programs, the Farm to School Grants Program, the Local Food Incentive, and Universal School Meals work together as a virtuous cycle. And Universal in school meals and Farm to School increases participation in school meals, which provides program revenue, and that revenue allows schools to purchase more local food to prepare more scratch meals, which further increases the participation and increases that virtuous cycle. So in previous years, we've had the Agency of Education and also the Agency of Ag Food and Markets here to provide reports about the Global Food Conceptuals and the Grants Program. And it's a little early in the session this time, so we don't have those reports prepared, but we'd be happy to come back later in the session to dive into the details of last year's data. But today, you'll hear directly from students, school nutrition professionals, a farmer, about how these programs are making a difference on the ground. I also wanted to highlight a couple other events happening today. At 10AM, Representative Richard Nelson will recognize Farm to School Awareness Day on the House floor, which we're really excited about. And then at 11AM, there will be a Universal School Mills press conference in the Cedar Creek Room. So I urge you to continue supporting these efforts with level funding of $500,000 for both the Farm to School and Early Childhood Grants Program and the Local Foods Incentive. And at the network, our goal is to reach 30% local purchasing by 2030. So to get there, we must continue investing in these programs that help schools access the forward to integrate local foods. So thank you so much for your time. I'll introduce our next speakers. We really appreciate your commitment to strengthening Farm to School Wounded Childhood efforts in Vermont. So we're happy to take questions after each speaker. I know we have to get out of here pretty quickly. So we'll have Olivia.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Just make sure everybody got any questions for Kayla? Yeah.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: So 25,000,000 is spent on Food. Food. Mhmm. And what percentage do you believe is going to
[Kayla Strong]: About statewide, it's 14%.
[Carol Kent]: Okay, good. Is local purchases.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: And our 500,000 that we hope through for you does what?
[Kayla Strong]: So the 500,000, there's two programs that are each funded at 500,000. The local foods incentive program, and that provides school districts a reimbursement if they reach certain local purchasing targets. So if they get 15% local purchasing, they get a certain grant reward, 2025%, they're different tiered. And then the grants program for the Agency of Education is also $500,000 which has several different grant structures under that.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you.
[Kayla Strong]: Yeah.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So when you're saying reaching levels and all that, this is match dollars, you're using this to secure other dollars from the federal government or anywhere else, any other programs?
[Kayla Strong]: We have a lot of other initiatives and there's a lot of USDA Farm to School Grants Program, there's a lot of recipients of that in the state. These programs aren't necessarily matched though.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay, that's a million dollars, just to be clear, it's a million dollars, it's $505,100. Okay,
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yep.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: And I'm more concerned with the education for Mhmm. If we're using farms at an alarming rate.
[Kayla Strong]: Yeah.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: And so the fact that we're educating our young people to go into farming, I think is important. At some other point, I'd like to learn more about how we're doing that, and the cost of that as well, and are we bringing in farmers to show them what the actual business of farming is and things of that nature. We don't have time today, but I'm extremely serious about that because I, you know, I think everybody in this committee wants to grow our farms and not reduce it, and that's that's the a a key way of doing
[Kayla Strong]: it. Absolutely.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Everybody good? Yep, thank you.
[Kayla Strong]: All right, we'll bring up Olivia, who is a senior, where are you? A senior at Champlain Valley. Good
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: morning. Morning.
[Kayla Strong]: Hello. My name is Olivia. I appreciate your time and allowing me to testify today. I'm a senior at Champaign Valley Union High School, and I've been leading our Farm to School program for four years now. Through Farm to School, I've been able to connect with my peers and build community, but I've also been able to make an active difference in food security and environmental initiatives in my town.
[Olivia (Champlain Valley Union High School student)]: I'm here to encourage you to base on the Farm to School and Early Childhood Grant Program and the Local Food Initiative Program, each at $500,000 because these programs have allowed me to connect with my community and accomplish my various social and environmental goals. Swell has provided me with a close knit group of students I can depend on in turn two. In fact, Far to Swell has given me some of my closest friends. Freshman year was all about trying new things, but I hadn't quite found my place at the school yet. Then one of my friends, Yvonne, found a club called Farm to School. Even though we barely knew each other, I said yes to joining. Farm to School has changed my life for the better. I met some of my closest friends and become more confident and vocal about issues I care about. Through the week, friends and I would brainstorm solutions to environmental issues, food insecurity, and anything else we learned about. And through the years, Farm to School became our outlet to help with these problems. We've done the leaning and worked at farm stands to help with food insecurity. We've attended NOFA Vermont conferences to educate younger generations on the importance of fresh produce in the environment. And we've been able to work on both farms with plants and animals to understand ecosystems and agricultural practices. And we have attended and planned FEAST, which stands for Food Education and Sustainable Thinking. This allows us to organize a day for 75 high school students running workshops to each other to educate their peers on sustainable practices and solutions, while also raising awareness of food and farming and environmental problems. Personally, I've experienced firsthand what it feels like to be helpless when there are so many issues around food insecurity and the environment. Hearing all these problems can get really overwhelming. That's why it's great to have an outlet like Farm Farm and School Club so I'm able to make a difference and have a community which understands my frustration and will help me come up with solutions to solve these problems. I don't know exactly what my future will look like, but next year in college, I'll be working on the environment. These experiences I've had in Farm School Club have had determined my future and direction that I'll be moving forward to. Once again, ask you to support the Farm to School and Early Childhood Program and the Local Food Initiatives Program, each with a level funded approximation of $500,000 thank you to all the committees for listening to my story, and I would like to answer any questions if you have.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I had the pleasure of coming down to CDU and touring your school, and I was amazed how many clubs you have and how the diversity, how many people in your club?
[Olivia (Champlain Valley Union High School student)]: Club is, farm
[Carol Kent]: to
[Olivia (Champlain Valley Union High School student)]: school is 30 students, but then we have a program that's a little bit off of farm to school that's about 15. Wow.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: And do you often get out to the farm in the field to see what's going on there as well, or is it pretty much just in school?
[Olivia (Champlain Valley Union High School student)]: Yeah, almost every day. Oh, Are
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: you from a farming community? Or a farming family?
[Olivia (Champlain Valley Union High School student)]: No. I do have a farm next door to me. So I grew up working there and helping out there.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Which type of farm?
[Olivia (Champlain Valley Union High School student)]: They raise a lot of cows.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And what are your plans for after graduation?
[Olivia (Champlain Valley Union High School student)]: I'm kind of unsure. I want to do something with the environment, so I'm leaning towards marine biology because I was able to learn that through school.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Well, Any more questions? Thank you for your time.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you, Elizabeth, You for a nice did well.
[Carol Kent]: Good morning, everybody.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good morning.
[Carol Kent]: Good to be back with you. I've registered five years ago testifying for universal school meetings. My name's Carol Kent, and I'm school nutrition director for the school district. I also serve on the board of directors for the School Nutrition Association for Vermont. I've been in this field for about eighteen years, I'm coming from a restaurant and catering world. So, I found my journey and my passion in school nutrition. I'm here to say thank you, a really big thank you for all the work you do for University School Meals. I see firsthand every day the difference it's making in our schools, in our children, for our teachers and our families. And we have a growing farm to school program. This is my second year at Mount Mansfield. I was at Memorial North School District prior to that for eight years. We have a new growing farm to school program in Mount Mansfield. We just found out we were awarded the agency at the farm to school grant, which is fantastic. We're already seeing so much success. So many possibilities opening up for our program, and the way it's touching our students, and informing them where their food comes from. When I began here the year before I took this position, our local purchasing was at about 3% local purchasing. We're on track this year to hit 15% local purchasing. We greatly increased the farms that we work with. A lot of our farmers are also parents in our district. Their kids just love seeing their family's food on our trays. Our kids are very aware of the different farms in our communities now. If we're not serving chickens, apples for lunch, they know it. They'll ask which sugaring operation their syrup is coming from because we purchase from two different local sugaring operations. And, domestic chicken day is like a big, big day for us. So, these are you know, we've been able to really expand what we're doing through Farm to School. And, the local foods incentive grant gives us the opportunity to really reach for more local foods, get back to scratch cooking. You know, these are really uncertain times. Our district is on a budget spending freeze right now since late October. Where we're making our cuts is to processed foods. We're making our cuts to pre made products. And we are putting our energy and our dollars into increasing our scratch cooking. And we are not cutting our local foods budget. We are dedicated to increasing local foods and replacing pre made processed foods with local scratch cooked homemade meals. Why I'm here is to ask you, as everybody will be asking you, to support Farm to School and Early Child hood programs with level funding based appropriation of the $500,000 for fiscal year 2027. And also, to support local food incentive program at $500,000 as well. These programs are making a difference. They really are. And more districts need this kind of support to get their programs rolling to be able to make these changes. If we do not have the local foods incentive grant, I can't see that we would be putting so much energy into local foods. And it's just our children have a better understanding of where their food's coming from, from our taste testing in our elementary schools. We have the sustainability program with high school students who chose Farm to School as their independent projects. They came into the elementary schools to help with taste testing. So they're interacting with their youngest learners. And they're also getting out to the farms, contacting farms, and learning about there. Don't know that I have Well, I want to have one little project before I finish up. Tucker Andrews is one of our farmers who was in his farm, Long Mountain Farm in West Boulder, was pretty much wiped out by the flag. And Tucker has worked his holes for years. He partnered with another farm in Jericho, and they are purchasing squash from them. That's the farm upstream in Jericho. And Tucker also grows pumpkins, long high pumpkins for high mowing seed company. So, they're growing pumpkins for the seed. So, we teamed up last year, got a group of volunteers together. We took the harvested pumpkins. They collected the seeds, sent the pumpkin paws to us, and we had a group who processed these pumpkins that would have just out of compost. And we ended up with 300 pounds of pumpkin mash to make. Pumpkin muffins.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Oh, dear, that's really nice.
[Carol Kent]: This serves throughout the district all Very year nice. And we have pumpkin muffins for all of you as well. This was highlighted in an article in the middle of Chimaloid seed catalog, and we did it again this year. So there are lots of outlets by connecting with our farmers and purchasing from them. There are lots of outlets for us to really save food from going to compost, save on waste, incorporate more local foods in different ways. And so I really urge you to continue doing the great work that you do. I just really want you to know what a difference you make to the children in the state, to the schools, and for our farmers. Connecting the largest restaurants in the state, which are school cafeterias, to our farmers is just the best thing we can be doing. Thank you for your time.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Do you want to go ahead?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Are you around State House or are you taking off Yes. No, I'll be here. After the floor meeting with you. What what time is that gonna all end?
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, we're gonna be 09:30, but then Nine then we have the training. So we we should be oh, it's training should
[Unidentified Committee Member]: be about an hour. So yeah. Just like to speak to you
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: on some other stuff. I wanna get before we get going is Yvonne's here, our twelfth grader.
[Kayla Strong]: She actually has a midterm right
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I wanna make sure if we have
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: that senior here that we have them off.
[Kayla Strong]: And it looks like Tucker Andrews from the farm up to Greenwich Carol is just sharing about is not able to
[Carol Kent]: join Okay. As
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, problem. So any more, anybody else that have anything else to say or any comments? Were you able to tell us what you wanted us to know?
[Kayla Strong]: Oh yeah. I would love to hand out this year's handout, which is kind of overlaid some of the data that we shared.
[Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, you for taking all the folks coming in, working within our schedule. I thank my committee for doing the same. We're reachable. We are a committee that believes that farming is very important in the state of Vermont, no matter whether it's big or small. We gravitate towards small farmers as much as anything because we know heats greens started out as selling vegetables at the end of his driveway out of his family garden, and he's now one of the largest organic producers of vegetables in New England. On and on the story goes. We hear stories of people baking 12 loaves of bread all We're of all about that. We're all about trying to provide locally. We do appreciate you coming in. I would say to you younger folks, keep on pushing hard. And it's a good place to be. So we're gonna call it a day. Was So much.