Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good morning. It's Thursday, January 29. Little cool out there. It just seems to be the word of the day. We are going to spend some time with one of my favorite persons and I say that because of what we have as a committee believed to be very important, which is to make sure that we support up and coming farmers as they try to find their way into the marketplace. John Ramsey, Executive Director of Center for an Agricultural Economy, has led bravely a group in Hardwick, we appreciate what you do, a farmer and himself from the area. Been around for a long time, setting I'm off. The floor is yours, sir.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Well, thank you very much. It's a real pleasure to be here this morning and talk with you, and I prepared some remarks to give you some updates about our organization, the Center for Agricultural Economy in general, and some updates regarding other food hubs in Vermont, and some updates on how we're doing with funding. But I thought I would just start with, I do have a, it's a very simple info packet, and there's one for each of you, and you can save it to the end of the meeting, but it kind of gives you a little bit of a more in-depth overview of the organization and what we do, and I will send electronic copies of everything to Linda later this afternoon. So, as a general update, as Senator Ingalls said, one of our major accomplishments this past year was the completion of the Yellow Barn project, which is a two part project, the Yellow Barn, which is now a retail center for Cabot, and the adjacent Food Hub, which is a 25,000 square foot warehousing facility, we were able to finally get all components of that done just back in October. So, from the exterior, it looked like it was pretty much finished for a long time, but some of the internal components took a little longer to get completed. And the last big push was getting a half an acre of solar installed on the roof of the new building, and we were able to get that done in late October, so just before snow came and the weather turned. So it was a major accomplishment, and this year between the Center for Ag Economy and Jasper Hill, we're the two tenants in that new building. We each share 50% of the new building. Over 20,000,000 in Wolf's Food and Ag products will flow through that space alone. So that's not even counting what economic impact the Yellow Barns will have for Cabot and products that they sell there.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Is that annually, 20,000,000?

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Oh, it's 20,000,000 annually and growing. Okay. Yep, yep. So for our part, that represents, I'll get more into it a little bit later, but it represents a huge number of local farms, huge number of farms that are obviously employing a lot of folks using a lot of working land, and you know, are new and beginning operations, and some of them are new enterprises, on family farms that have been around for a long time. We've had some farms that, you know, have transitioned from dairy into new enterprises, and that has been part of Vermont's response to the loss of dairy is diversification. Can we diversify our farm economy and encourage more types of agriculture, more types of agriculture that directly connect with consumers, those are really good and solid goals to have. There are inherent challenges around that, especially as you're trying to convert old dairy infrastructure into any kind of new enterprise. That is a challenge. You know, access to markets, and not just markets, but viable scaled markets. Especially in the Northeast Kingdom, we have an opportunity to grow a lot of food there. We also need to export food out of that region to to markets. Yeah. Ben, so, you said that some of the challenges, are are some of the challenges also some of the farmers as well? I mean, if you've done something for, you know, done dairy for your, you know, pretty much your your entire life, and that's that's what you've done, and that's what you love. Right. Sometimes, you know, to see a diversification of it may be difficult, at least it would be for me mentally, know, to get through that. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a challenge a lot of I folks, you mean, I think our Vermont farmers love their land, you know, they love Vermont, they love their land, they love their home. They wanna, you know, be able to stay there. That's really rooted in their core, in their heart, is, you know, that attachment to place land. And change is hard. Change is very hard. And it's hard to make those changes, and it's hard to make those changes, especially if you're carrying residual dairy debt. You know, as a state, we have goals to see our own population increase the amount of local food that they consume, and there are challenges around that. So, very broadly, that is the work of the Center for an Agricultural Economy, like that is the work that we're trying to do every day, sort of move the ball forward on those challenges, so that we, yeah, maintain strong rural economies, our working lands are working, you know, the state has invested heavily in conservation, and conservation of a lot of those lands. A lot of the farms we've worked with are on conserved lands that the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board has supported, and a lot of the farms that we've worked with have gone through the Monmouth Housing and Conservation Board's Farm and Forest Liability Program. So I sort of see a real link to some investments that the state has made around, you mentioned the challenges, BHCD is sort of tackling some of those business advising challenges with the work they're doing there, and we're part of that cohort of service providers as well. So our work I see as a real continuation of some of those really high level goals that we, you know, set as a state in the Farm to Plate Plan, and you know, back in 2021, Governor Scott had the Commission on the Future of Agriculture, and that really set some goals in place. So the Center for Agricultural Economies work, the work of the other food hubs around the state, I see as really sort of moving the ball forward on some of those really big statewide goals around local food and agriculture. Sure. Yeah.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So one of the things that I see, and I think that you guys do so great, is that when you have these businesses that are starting up, have a big struggle to put capital, and there's, in business, especially on a startup, there is a time to where you can stay stagnant for a little bit as you're trying to figure it out, you're trying to get everything going, but as quickly the money runs out and you've got to make sure that whatever you're producing, whatever you're growing, whatever goes on, it's got to get to market. You've got to scale. I was talking with a gentleman last year on an event across the road and he was talking about, he was in Hardwick, living in Tinney County, traveling over every day, and talking about what it was so hard, what it was to get his product out there just trying to struggle in Vermont. I said, You need to get on those trucks that are going to these big markets pushing it out there. And that's what I see that you guys have done very well. Can you talk about that a little bit, about how you're pushing these products into the places where there's more people?

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Yes, yes. So in the bucket of products purchased and distributed last year through the Central American Public Economy, we worked with 105 farms from all corners of Vermont. It was over 12,000,000 in products, and we ourselves, with our own fleet of trucks, go to a little over 400 locations throughout Vermont, and we touch the Western Part of New Hampshire. And that's weekly, That is weekly. So, we're doing the start of the supply chain, middle of the supply chain, and end of the supply chain. What I mean by that is, we are driving out to these rural farms on rural back roads, picking up product, we are bringing it to our facility, in some cases we're cross docking it, meaning, we pick it up, we do the first mile pickup at the farm, it goes to our facility, and a larger distributor comes and picks it up there. We, you know, we are a very small nonprofit located in Ardwick, but we have larger distributors like Black River Produce, Performance Food Group, UNFI, who do come to our facility, and while we're a small nonprofit, like we need to work with those bigger distributors as well. And so as an example, now, Butterworks, pretty well known organic dairy farm in the Northeast Kingdom, they also work with UNFI. UNFI is not going to drive its 18 wheeler up the dirt road right now in the middle of winter, so we pick up all of their yogurt and all of their liquids for all of their local accounts, and we do all of that distribution. We also pick up the pallets that are going to UNFI, and we bring those pallets back to Hardwick, and UNFI comes to our facility and picks those pallets up there. So that's a win win, it's allowing the farm to gain access to a larger distributor who has, know, up and down the East Coast, all across the country, you know, distribution channels, and we're getting it on a truck, our local country stores, you know, Marty's Quick Stop in Danville, and Crasbury General Store, and like all those places, we can get the product into those places as well. So that's an example of beginning of the supply chain, middle of the supply chain. End of the supply chain is, are those deliveries, you know, are those deliveries to those small rural stores, schools, hospitals, colleges, farm stands. We want to encourage really any kind of market that a producer can tap into, you know. We are not the exclusive market for the producers we work with, we are filling gaps that they have in gaining access to markets. So, as the chair was

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: saying, you're widening their scale of their market, and so you going up and picking up their product, you must have a slight fee to be charged to be able to stay, to stay, okay.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Do, yep. So, again, we're going to about 400 stops, 105 farms around Ravant, but we also purchased last year 180,000 pounds of produce from mock growers. So we signed, actually right now it's January, so right now we're signing contracts, agreements with farms all across the state. We actually have work with some farms down in Rutland as well, and we contract with them to grow carrots, beets, cabbage, and over the course of the fall, winter, and spring, we buy those tens of thousands of pounds of produce from them, and again, we're not buying their retail grade stuff. We're buying oversized stuff, we're buying stuff that, you know, is not really, you know, gonna be going into that high end retail market. So again, it's creating an avenue and a market for produce that is imperfect or oversized. That comes back to our other facility in Hardwick, the Vermont Food Venture Center, and our staff process that into ready to use products and all of that goes into schools, colleges, hospitals, and I know that's been, again, thank you for the continued support around local purchasing to our institutions. That really good, so thank you for that.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: So we had that vegetable farmer that was in here from Cabot, was his concern, he had a lot of, he makes primarily his income, prime vegetables. Yep. And he said it wasn't worth picking up the imperfected because he wasn't getting paid. Yep. But I take it now, you produce the market for that so that food's not going to waste and it's getting picked up and used in the pest, you know? Yep, I mean, we ask farms to try

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: to grow to some specs, but it's in Vermont, growing produce is tough in some places for sure. And so the produce that we're getting, whether you want to call it surplus or grade B or whatever, it's oversized, it's imperfect, but we're, again, we're Still vegetable It's still vegetable You're chopping

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: it and putting it a product, it's perfection, you know?

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: So we're trimming, we're trimming, you know, right now, our big contract that we're working through is with Matt Linehan up at Sparrow Arc at Guildhall, you know, and he's got a variety of stuff coming into us, you know, we really like the large, chef sized potatoes from him, but he's also got some mixed sizes coming in from us, we're taking what we can and turning that into diced one inch cuts that's going to UBM and K-twelve schools and other cafeterias. So, and we're actually going be making further investments in that this coming year. We're bringing in a piece of equipment from Ohio right now, it's a belt slicer, we're actually going be doing a kale, a chopped kale product, and Post Crossroad Farm down in Post Mills and Honeyfield Farm in Norwich are gonna be partnering with us on that, we're gonna be seeing what we can do, and then if we can freeze that, that again creates another market, creates an additional product for state controlled schools and colleges and institutions. So in that bucket of distribution, I would also say, too, we're unique in that we're not buying and selling all of that, all of those goods, so we're allowing farmers to have direct relationships with each other. That I see as an emerging trend. We've got some great farm stands in Vermont that are doing well, providing a lot of products, but like, you can't expect those farms to produce eggs, milk, produce, all those things. I see a lot of buying happening between farmers, which is great, and again, we're a transportation service, so we don't interfere with that transaction. They pay us to move the product, and we do that. And in the 105 farms that we work with, I would say it's roughly half of those farms are dairy and produce. Those are our sort of primary customers. We move a lot of value out of dairy, a lot of value, folks who are bottling their own milk, making cheese, doing a variety of different things. We have a lot of value added dairy, a lot of produce, but we also work with grain producers, a lot of meat producers, maple, honey, value add food products. So we're a service that, like, if you're a small farm, large farm, you can use us to, you know, again, fill in

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: that gap that you're gonna need. Is Kirby Creamery working with you now? Kirby Mountain Creamery, I can't remember the exact name of it.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Yep, yep, yep, no, we've been

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: in touch with them, and

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: I think we're gonna get started working with them in a little bit. We see some opportunities to, they're doing a lot of self distribution right now,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Right, they've and that's seen that was just not gonna be the way, future for them, at that time. Yeah, Yeah. Do

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: you get, do you target specific farms or do they

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: come to you? How does it possibly do? We do a

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: lot of marketing outreach, you know, we'll be at the NOFA conference tabling all of our information, we're at the Veterinary Growers Association tabling all of our information, we put ads out. Senator Ingalls was encouraging us to do more advertising, which we're gonna do this year. So we're really trying to be accessible to everybody, you know, and that is hard, and we can't obviously fill the need or the gap for everyone, but again, we work with some of the larger value add dairy farms, Jasper Hill and Stratford Organic Creamery, we've worked with some other folks who are milking five or 10 cows, and some of the larger produce growers or the smaller produce growers. A lot of the other food hubs and other smaller independent distributors work with us as well. You might be familiar with Myers Produce. They actually have a facility in Massachusetts, but they do a lot of buying from Vermont Farms. They actually use our warehouse. We pick up while we're picking up at farms, we might be picking up for them as well, because it's back to our warehouse, again, you know, set aside for their orders. Green Mountain Farm to School, we do all of their pickup and order fulfillment, and then the delivery of that product. So we're very intentionally trying to stay in lanes where we know we're adding value, not only for our producers, but our other nonprofit partners and other distribution partners.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So we've established very well your distribution part of it, which is amazing, because you are, you know, you have, I guess the reason why I'm impressed, beyond impressed, is just the success that you're having, everything you're touching, which goes with a lot of thought and planning. You're making it look easy when other people are struggling, which is kind of a cool story. Can you tell us some about your commercial kitchens and what you're doing for these folks? I know I had a person that we are very proud of in the kingdom who's got some product getting out in the stores and all that. She's like, Russ, I really gotta buy a building in it. Well, I actually don't know if you're really ready for that. Have you talked to John Ramsey's group? And I think that she's been in touch with you. So can you talk about your commercial kitchen aspect and what that's doing for these people that really are looking to scale but just, again, don't have that money to do. Yeah, again, the

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: barrier to entry for new businesses, new farms is when you're talking about buying commercial scale equipment and infrastructure, and providing infrastructure is a through line of the Center for Agriculture Economy, so our kitchens, our trucks, our warehouses. Right now we're working with about 17 or 18 businesses in our other facility, the Vermont Food Benefit Centre. These are food business entrepreneurs who have an idea for a product, might have been producing it at some, you know, scale, but need a facility to sort of grow it into a commercial enterprise or at least test if that's gonna be viable. So we don't charge for our technical assistance. Folks can come into the facility, learn about proper labeling and proper sanitization of equipment and, you know, batch size, they might say, they might come in and think, okay, you know, in my home kitchen I can do 100 muffins, and I want to do 500 muffins. Well, in order for it to be viable, you might need to do 1,200 muffins in a day. We're working with a business that's actually based in New Haven, Vermont right now, and you know, she really has sort of dialed in what commercial scale production is, so where she sort of started, and what her thinking was, you know, what a production day would look like, has now turned into, okay, production day one is crust, and production day two is filling and filling that crust, and I'm gonna hit 1,200 units, and I'm gonna actually be profitable with my time, my ingredients, pasta, the kitchen, and she's been working with us, it's actually a vegan cheesecake product that she sells frozen, we actually help distribute that, and we actually just provided a loan to her through our revolving loan fund, and now after a few years, she's actually gonna be setting up a small commercial kitchen down at New Haven. So she was actually driving, staying overnight at an Airbnb so that she could use our facility and gain access to the technical assistance there, and that's just like one story among many of these food business entrepreneurs who come test an idea, see if it's viable, and sometimes they find out it's not. And again, before getting into debt or going out and buying really expensive equipment, We've got another maple producer we're talking to actually from up in Luneburg who wants to come down and test some products in our facility. So again, it's like that opportunity to see what is going to be viable, but also like test some of your business assumptions. You know, again, those business assumptions. What we're finding is that once folks understand that like, if they want to make this value added product, and it requires some local ingredients, some non local ingredients, they have to sort of be at a certain scale. You're not going go into your local grocery store and buy your ingredients and be successful, so how do you access that? At what scale? It's actually quite a process to sort of think through all of those steps, and that's what we do at the Food Fence Center, provide that service. Sometimes we say, Take your idea, continue testing it, and let's regroup before you even come into the kitchen, you know, and really help them understand Vermont's cottage food laws, cottage food industry laws. Vermont really has done a lot to encourage, you know, the production of value added food in home kitchens and things, and so, you know, thank you again for thinking about all that. Sometimes it's like, what is feasible, so we, you know, in your home kitchen, if you give them that technical assistance to think through the steps before coming into the facility, we're essentially charging on a per hourly basis for the physical kitchen rental, but not our technical assistance. Yeah. That's great, yeah.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: So I'm curious, how many trucks, what size, where are the warehouses? I'm trying to imagine everything going at the same time.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Five refrigerated box trucks, 24 to 26 footers, full zone, frozen and cold. Tuesday is the start of our week. Tuesday, we're only doing aggregation. So Tuesday afternoon and night, we're picking up at farms in Central Vermont, Northeast Kingdom. Tuesday night, we're loading trucks, finish loading around twelve or one, all the trucks go out Wednesday, Wednesday trucks are going in five different directions across Vermont, picking up and dropping off product, product comes back Wednesday night, same thing happens, 03:30, 4AM, drivers come in after warehouse staff leave around like twelve, 01:00. Thursday, same thing. Friday, same thing. Saturday, we do two routes. Sunday we load for Monday, and Tuesday's the reset of the week. So right now we're covering all of Vermont, twice a week at least, and we're starting to get down more into Rutland actually. So we're not getting down into Bennington, and we're trying to do more cost stocking with the Vermont Farmers Food Center and Acorn down in Middlebury as they're growing organizations with some infrastructure there. We go to all of those locations. We also go to NEK Processing, Bro's Market, Vermont Livestock. Sometimes we go to Royal Butcher, that is also a natural pickup and aggregation point for farms, so we're actually going to a lot of our slaughterhouse facilities as well, and picking up directly there for producers, so that provides a lot of efficiency in some cases.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: I'm assuming that the Western part of the state might be a little more challenging with roads. You've got interstates on the other side, 91 and 89. So, yeah, we have routes over here.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Yeah, we're in Middlebury twice a week, and we're getting the Rutland route put together more, and so, that's a challenge. Food Connects, is in Brattleboro, they are going in through Bennington up Rutland and covering Southwest Vermont, and we're in Brattleboro on Saturdays, so again, you know, really trying to coordinate as a group of food hub organizations so that we're providing these efficiencies, and you might have a producer who's just getting started, that's a producer that a lot of these food hubs work with, you know, where they're not ready for the UNFI's or the PFG's, you know, and so they might say, well, we've got five cases a week, okay, let's start there and see what we can sort of grow into. We give them all of our list of stops, we give them all of our schedules so they can, oh, I didn't know you were going here. So it's a process, you know, and you sort of build it, and it builds over time. We're talking with Misty Knoll right now. You know, we're talking with Misty Knoll, we're, again, we're in Middlebury, right? Where does it make sense for them to sort of cut off their distribution, and where could we sort of be helping them out? We're talking to Monument Farms, you know, about some ways in which one could support some of their distribution, that again, gets to the longer part of their roots. You know, we all have concerns about cost and truck maintenance, and these are real, real things that everybody struggles with, and so, again, just like, you know, figuring it out step by step, it takes time, it takes energy, it's a lot of logistics.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: Interesting. We've seen the map, you're doing a very, do you see it eventually getting more, more firearm, Connexus down in Bennington and Rutland County? Yep. That's slowly growing?

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: I mean, what we really want to do is encourage more Orchard Food Connects in Rutland

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: County. And,

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: you know, they are already going to Bennington and Rutland Counties, as well as to Northern Massachusetts and into New Hampshire. Rather than replicating what they're doing, how can we work with them more, and how would we increase some of our inter hub logistics versus CAE driving down into things?

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And you can see, again, Senator Collamore's point that he's made as far as Rutland and we had a group meeting the other day. They were talking about that zone of Bennington and how hard to get to and how much more they could do down there. I can't help but to imagine, because of the proximity of Massachusetts and New York and the markets that are there, that there is opportunity there. How the heck do you get there? You can see the migration of following the interstate down the New Hampshire border, you and can see how you're pushing down through there, but you certainly can get there a lot quicker than you can get over to those other areas. When I was there this summer, you were doing a couple projects. I want to talk about both of them. One is the most important. Were in a round of fundraising as far as it continues completion of your building. You completed your building. How did you do on that round of fundraising, And and where did those dollars come from? Give us an idea

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Yep.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Of those those complexities of what it takes to build this business out. Yeah.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: So in direct infrastructure costs related to the building out the food hub at the Yellow Barn site, CAE had about 4,100,000.0 in construction costs. And we had raised nearly all of that as grants. We did lose more federal grant, unfortunately. I replaced that federal grant with some local fundraising, but I also worked with one of our donors who wasn't in a position to make a grant to us, but wasn't in a position to make a loan. And so, this person made a loan to the Center for Ag of 200 Dobby dollars at 4% for nine years, and that got our solar project done. And so as nonprofits, like part of my approach to being a nonprofit leader is to use all the tools in the toolbox, right? We have access to private grants, state grants, federal grants, private philanthropic dollars, you know, creative financing is a tool, and that allowed us to get the solar project done. Can

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I just ask one other question as far as that? Very glad to hear that. That solar project that you have there, because you have that completed, is that going to allow you to save more dollars? I mean, you've got big stuff in there that chuck a lot of energy. So is solar project going to allow you to actually make money or at least save money? Save money.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Save a lot of money. So our electric bill in August and September was running around $8,900 a month. And over the course of 2026, my goal is to see that solar array cover 80% of all of our electrical costs in that building. That is, and again, as a non profit, like, we're not gonna ever really, we're not gonna really ever make money, right? That's not the point of the nonprofit.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: You're gonna

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: stay in business. But, the point is, is like, how can we leverage all of the resources that are available to us? All these grants, all these dollars, all these private dollars, all these things, like how can we leverage that into impact across the community and for our rural farm economy? So that's the perspective I take, and again, if we're saving upwards of $80 a year, $70 a year in electricity, that keeps our cost of services lower for our farms. That's why I see that as a real win win situation. So again, when you sort of do the math on it, 4% at 200,000 over nine years, you know, like, okay, let's get this done, and you know, even if I'm paying back that loan, that's still gonna be a lot savings for us, so yeah. In terms of funding right now, you know, I will say one concern I have is that, you know, like I really hope that the federal government doesn't shut down again.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Right.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: You know, I mean, that really, you know, we're not an organization with an endowment or reserve fund of any sort, right? We're, you know, we're money in, money out, you know? It's another feeling. Yes, and you know, we were at a point this past year where, you know, our reimbursements of federal dollars was really getting quite stymied with, you know, the shutdown and other things, and so, know, just from a cash flow right now, I think we have two fairly large federal grants, one for farmers market and one for getting more local food into co ops, and right now that's probably pushing a little over $150,000 of reimbursable funds that we would be owed if we submitted a reimbursement today. If there was a shutdown, and, you know, let's just say, I don't know what happens there, if there was a shutdown when the government reopens, how long of a lag time is it to receive those reimbursements? That, you know, that is a concern for me just from a cash flow standpoint. Right now, you know, it's like, you know, we did all of our end of year fundraising, so we've got that, essentially that bucket of money in the bank, but as the year goes on, having those reimbursements come in on a steady basis is important to cash flow, and I know that is a fact also for other organizations, so my hope is that the government stays Do

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: you do anything? I don't really know. I haven't really found solution to my questions as far as what the organization is, but FSA, do you do anything with them at any way, shape, or form? I don't know. And the reason why I ask such a question is I look at this federal group, and I'm yet to find out where they're going in Vermont. Any part of that? Any funding, is that name familiar to you at all?

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: FSA is very familiar to me, yes. We don't do a lot with FSA. We cross over with FSA is on the business advice. So our business advisors would be working with some farms who would be seeking some FSA loans, and we'd be helping those farms prepare those financial documents for those FSA loans. That's really sort of the extent of our crossover with FSA. We do work with the Agency of Ag, and our Agency of Ag has several programs, not a financing program, but the best management practices program, DMP. Our revolving loan fund is on occasion, with great frequency, in some cases used as the upfront funds for some of those best management practices, projects to get implemented so that the farmer doesn't have the out of pocket expense before they get reimbursed. But as far as FSA goes, my understanding is that when I was doing a lot of farm transfers, FSA and VIDA were very interconnected, meaning that they would share the loan or share the mortgage. Right. Know, FSA would do a chunk and VIDA would do a chunk, and often VIDA would be seeking a loan guarantee from FSA on their portion of the loan. I was talking to Sarah Aisham not too long ago, and she was saying that they're working less frequently with FSA, and doing fewer of those loan guarantees, and I don't know the for that. You know, I will say in Vermont, we essentially have three primary ag lenders. We've got Farm Credit, we've got FSA, we've got VIDA. Right. Those entities handle the bulk of our ag lending, and wasn't the case like, you know, when my folks went to get a loan, it was like you went down to the local bank in Hardwick and you, you know, you got a loan, you know. So that has, you know, definitely shifted over time, and you know, and I know BETA has really stepped in and done a lot, and I am on the customer service council for Farm Credit, and I try to give feedback to them about how some of their loan making is doing for the new and beginning, and the smaller diversified farmers, so yeah.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: You said that your interaction with FSA is that you're providing assistance to the farmers to apply for the well-being with FSA, correct? So FSA isn't doing that themselves?

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: No, I don't think that they can. It's like that's a separation of, you know, Is

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: it similar with Vita and Yeah.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Credit? Yes. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. I was gonna talk a little about couple success stories. I certainly want you to talk about whatever you like to talk about.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Apologize, but my judge will

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: No, no, I'll, thank you so much for the questions. You know, we understand that there are challenges with, you know, moving any form of agriculture forward, weather and markets and infrastructure, all those things. One the things I'm really proud of, the Center for Ag Economy did last year is we provided over 900,000 in direct financial support to farmers, and that was in the form of low interest loans and grants. And over the course of many years, we've been very fortunate to build a pretty robust revolving loan program. Again, are not big loans. They max out at 30,000 but they're 3%, and farmers leverage them for infrastructure, or it might be a $300,000 project, and whoever's financing that says, well, where's your 10%? They might come to us for that 10%. And so again, these funds are being leveraged a lot of different ways, and so that was for 39 farms, most of them in the Northeast Kingdom, but our MOAN program is available statewide. And was Webster Family Farm in Coventry, a dairy farm, helping with some new equipment and infrastructure. Salinski Farm in Sutton, another dairy farm helping with a heifer facility. Renee Baker, another dairy farm in Albany, she had a situation last winter where her roof collapsed under snowy We were able to get her some emergency funds to help get that roof put back up, and McDonald Farm, it's a small produce farm in Danville with some equipment to help them. So, it's really encouraging that these are all, like, you know, farms that are in growth trajectory and, you know, have folks that want to continue them, they all want to make improvements. So, I see that as, you know, despite the challenges of the drought, and the flood before that year, and the flood, you know, like there is a lot of folks out there who, you know, want to continue in agriculture, and I see when folks are making these investments in infrastructure and equipment, they want to keep progressing their businesses forward. So, that was a real success over the last year, just seeing that, because 2023 and 2024, we did an awful lot of emergency loans. And this year I think we did maybe two emergency loans related to the drought, and they were essentially feed shortages, yeah, so, yeah. And the other quick things I was gonna say, you know, in the food security and access and education bucket, we're really trying to bring, again, leverage the funds we're able to raise. We have a very small program at the center called Produce for Pantries, and every year we raise funds, we work with the Vermont Community Foundation, or other folks, and we buy, you know, produce, root crops from a lot of Northeast Kingdom farms, and we distribute that produce to food pantries in the Northeast Kingdom. And we bought, we spent, that last winter we spent $63,000 to operate the program, and it got 34,000 pounds of local produce into food pantries, and 80% of the funds that we raised went directly into the pockets of farmers. 10% went to staff time, and 10% went to logistics, trucking, storage. So again, like, how can we maximize these dollars, and how can we, know, against for greater accessibility to local food, we did 72 community meal events in Barton and Hardwick, which provided, I think, around almost 4,500 servings of community meals. We see that community meal not as just a here's a community meal, but it's really brought people together to talk about their community and talk about what's important to them, you know, as we're seeing schools close and other things, like how our communities, you know, the glue of communities kind of like hold together. We're seeing the community meal as a way to kind of keep some of the glue of communities together, and communities sort of, you know, they start showing up, and they are like, do they get excited, and then they start talking about, oh yeah, we got this project in town, or we got this other thing, and like how are we gonna, you know, how are gonna, you know, really seeing that as a way, again, sort of like keeping communities glued together, which is really important.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Just gets more people involved and more people excited, more people talking about positive things versus things that they can't control. Right.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: How to tackle are we this? I

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: know one of the businesses that I have, we are focused on that. We just did a food drive in St. Johnsbury where we raised five tons of food and distributed it out amongst three of the local pantries. Then we're working on another one in Derby in the February where our goal was 10 tons of food. But just as much of that is, there's a formula that we use to, not if it's not food, it's cash, for every dollar buy three pounds of food where we could come back and they can invest that into other people that you folks are working with that are supplying and all that. So yeah, we understand that. Yeah. Glue to the community very well.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Yeah, yeah, and again, as a non profit, how are we leveraging all of our resources and infrastructure? We're doing a very small under the radar project right now at Jasper Hill. You know, they're one of our larger operations in the area. They have access to their own facilities, they're taking some of their surplus milk, they're putting it into half gallon bottles, bottling it, and Center for Ag, we're distributing it for free in a food pantries. So again, it's a win win, it's again leveraging existing resources, seeing what's possible. We did a project with Hardwick Food Pantry when there was the gap in SNAP there for a couple of weeks. We think there's some opportunity to continue some work around that. Again, we have these kitchen facilities, and we have access to all this local food and produce. So, you know, we're covering a lot as an organization, you know, everything from education to trucks and things, but it fits together in the bucket of rural communities, local agriculture, and you know, our local food system. So, a lot of work. Do you

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: have some interest from other people that are in your business that, because you guys have scaled fairly quickly and successfully, do you have many inquiries from other places that have been in business for a long time wondering how you're doing it?

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: We do, yes, we do. We have, I mean, within Vermont and beyond. We actually just hosted 25 people from New Hampshire who came and toured our facilities last week, and again, just, you know, thinking of, you know, they're just there, you know, kind of just trying to understand like what we're doing and what might fit for them. We've had folks from Florida, California, Massachusetts visit us over the last little bit here in the fall, just again wanting to see the facilities and how they're set up. And again, in Vermont, like we're really trying to, you know, work together with greater efficiency with Green Mountain Farm to School and Food Connects in Brattleboro and Acorn and Vermont Farmers Food Center. So there's work right now happening through the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund that they're actually providing us with some business coaching so that we can look at our distribution as a business, and understand it even better as a business, and work with those other food hub organizations to help them understand their organizations as businesses. So, Jake Claro and Ellen Kaler are working hard on that, working with all of the organizations on that, and I think we're also trying to do a better job of articulating what that Vermont Food Hub Collaborative is and does as a collaborative versus individual organizations, I know that's probably in the future some work that we want to come back to all of you on after we've sort of been able to create that clear narrative to be able to articulate what are all these organizations sort of doing, and how are they all fitting together? We recognize that that is work that you should be doing a better job of, so that's in process as well. Again, just, you know, thank you for supporting, you know, local food and schools, and know, again, Vermont Housing Conservation Board is funding part of our programs through the business coaching, and I know S-sixty is in process, and I know state budgets are hard, it's gonna be very tough. You know, it's, yes, we fully recognize that. It's, you know, I think, you know, our forestry op- we haven't really talked about forestry, but like, know, our farm forestry operations, like, do create a lot of, you know, backbone for our rural communities, and, you know, so things that have crossover between our farm and forestry sector, I've seen be very effective in Vermont, and that's, you know, Vermont Housing Conservation Board's Farm and Forest Viability Program. It's, you know, working lands is a forestry and ag, you know, funding stream. They're in with us on Friday. Yep. Yep, yep. So those, you know, those things that are in place and, you know, shown to be effective and efficient. So, I just really appreciate the opportunity to give you these updates and share more about our work, and really just appreciate, again, all the decisions and tough decisions that you're gonna have to make, and just always happy to prepare and provide more information, so just please reach out anytime.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah, so S-sixty, we just updated on that. We haven't got that pulled back into our committee. Senator Plunkett is going to go over some of the changes with that on Friday, but one of the main reasons why we have that pulled back in here is to see if we can find some funding, at least some seed money, to do that. Regardless of it, we're going to do our best to get it passed out of this committee and at least make it law as an avenue to throw some monies into should they arise. We're being a little shameless as far as where we're trying to find monies for that, but we think it's very important to have, at the very least, have an avenue to park the monies in if something become available. But no, very impressive. It's very impressive. Really love what you guys are doing Thank

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: you, Mr. Chair. We're fortunate to have, at least in the general assembly, some folks who run businesses and understand the economics, while we all might have some great ideas, wonderful ideas, if you don't stay solvent, you can't reach your goals, the chair is a pretty good example of running a good business, businesses. But I'm wondering whether you have reached the scale of being able to go, for instance, if you've got five, six Fox trucks, to go to somebody and buy them all for a reduced price to use, an example, or plastic where I'm assuming you transport in big tubs, vegetable, whatever, paper products, whatever it is that you try to do different places, but if you could get better prices for all of that stuff, again, are better off.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Yeah. These are all individual questions. Right now, we actually are leasing all of our trucks.

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Okay, and sometimes

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: And that makes more sense the reason being is that we need those trucks every day. We ship a lot of milk that is being bottled, and just like, you know, the milk truck that shows up at farms, we're the milk truck for a lot of farms, and again, so if riders saying, we guarantee you a truck, that is worth something. Yeah. You know, and,

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: But

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: insurance, trucks, we talked a little bit about utilities, you know, didn't give you our specific example about health insurance. Every single fixed or variable cost is, you need to sort of look at and assess, okay, how are we gonna make a decision about this because those, yeah, those costs are real and a lot of them have gone up. And so, we're, you know, we're trying to think not about today, but also years down the road, and again, like, being adaptable and nimble, that's kind of the reason I've sort of chosen some of the lanes we're in, especially around the trucking, is because we can work with pretty much everybody, we can, you know, whether a larger distributor needs us to, you know, do more work for them so they can get that first mile covered, and we cover that for them, or Deep Root Organic Co op needs us to fill in from June to November so they don't have to go buy another jug, or, you know, I mean, are, yeah, I don't know if I answered your question. No, you didn't. It's just, there's a million

[Senator Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: And it sounds like you'd already anticipated it anyway. Economies of scale is a way to get more out of what you're doing.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: The thing that we would benefit from the most right now are better systems, better tech software systems. We're very, very manual in terms of all of the data we're entering. If you just think about just the sheer number of transactions day to that we're facilitating for farms and all the accounts, all the stores, all the product, and all the different things, that is definitely a place where, you know, and again, like that takes money to invest in, it takes time, and I think, you know, we're gonna make some very preliminary stuff. We're going through QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online.

[Senator Brian Collamore (Member)]: It makes sense.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: But, again, we know that that will increase the accessibility of data for our program managers.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: How many people?

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: At CAE? Yeah. 38 right now.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. You're doing a lot with all the people.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Yeah, but, you know, and again, not just thinking about our own systems, but how do we integrate with these other food hubs too? Again, if we had a software platform that we were all sort of very connected to, hopefully that's where we get to, but again, like those are the longer term projects, and in the short term it's making sure the truck's plugged in, but 20 below, and we get, you know, we get the truck there even when there's a big snowstorm and all those things, so, yeah.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, cool. Yeah. I wanna thank you for your inspiration.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Thank you.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: That goes without saying that I'm a fan, and I think maybe you've heard some more here today. Thank you for what you do. Thank you. We will support you in any way that we can. You're speaking our language. We believe that we owe it from the smallest farmer to the LFOs to make sure that we're everything in agriculture to see the successes in tough times. We're very proud of that.

[John Ramsey, Executive Director, Center for an Agricultural Economy]: Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, and thank you. Yeah, reach out anytime. Thanks, Appreciate it, yeah.

[Senator Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay, committee, let's take a five minute break before we move on. We're going to spend some time on the country of one. But as I said, once we get done with that, we're going to go down through all the sections and see what we can to get for witness