richmond to talk about various topics that are happening on at the state level chuck ross was appointed the secretary of agriculture food and markets in january twenty seventh by governor peter shumlin prior to his current role a secretary he has served as u s senator patrick leahy state director for sixteen years he's currently the chair of these sustainable ag council the chair of the farm viability advisory board a member of vermont housing conservation board a member of the council on rural development and serves on the vermont sustainable jobs fund farmed steering committee he has a full plate  native born here in burlington and working out statewide on behalf of vermonters and agriculture and really welcome to talk about the working landscape in vermont one of the and this whole reason that i invited you here was sitting on the house appropriations committee when we hear testimony from the various secretaries and agencies it's really interesting and exciting to think about the breadth of things that happen in state  the number of the agriculture industries in the state where they see that make sure that the farms are inspected for on dairy farms and make sure they are meeting standards we work with the meat processors and slaughters and make sure they're meeting the standards for slaughter and processing the meat so we have a food safety safe food supply those are examples of some of the regulatory activities we are involved in regulating the pesticides as well we also have weights and measures which were the ones that go and make sure your gas pump is reading the gallonage correctly so you get get what you pay for and that's that and many ways much of what we do is make sure that that the standards that you believe you are buying are met by the providers of those products on the other hand the thing we do is we promote agriculture and the food products of the state of vermont and we have some great products as you know maple and cheese are among the top and we work with the folks the producers in the state of vermont and their business organizations to try to promote the sale those products some people often ask so how can you regulate promote at the same time actually good regulation is great promotion because you know what you're going to get as a consumer in a good regulatory framework and that is a promotion of those products so agency things i think is interesting is that even the title of your agency it's not just the agency of agriculture but it's agriculture food and markets and i wonder if you could just talk about that like what is the market agriculture is reaching well at the end of the day our farmers are only profitable if they have markets to sell their products to and so we're very much about helping them access and serve those markets and when we serve those marke effectively the farmers get a return on all their work and they can be profitable and stay on the on the land and you know today when we're looking at food systems the third word in our title we are understand food systems are very in to many things that we do in the state of vermont so we are taking every cultural products we are marketing them as a part of the food system and what we're discovering is that we are we producing wonderful products and they are very sought after in the marketplace not only here in vermont feeding ourselves but also feeding people in the region and around the world so what are the kind of measures i can as i mentioned earlier to you before program went when you came in and spoke to us in the appropriations committees talked about vermont taking the lead on some of these agricultural quality issues and could you just talk about some of those are s vermont agriculture is small by national standards but we are an interesting state in that we are farmers are producers in our food system is leading in many ways what people may or may not know is where the number one direct marketer in the country on a per capita basis meaning our c s a's are farmers markets roadside stands sell more produce moamar food directly to consumers in any other state we are also a top quality producer of products as measured by the number of awards our cheeses garner in international competitions we bring bring home not just  place no we actually bring on a lot of first place because our chief is that good we are a leader on farm to school our programs are looked at from up across the country is how do you set these farm school programs up to be effective in achieving the goals that are set up by them getting back to the cheese piece were recognised as one of the top three artists all cheese regions in the world so we are now exporting cheese to france which is an interesting measure we are leading the way in institutional purchasing of local food in vermont we have flexeril health care very large very large organisation in it is that one of the top two  health care providers or systems in terms of accessing and buying local food into their system that's happening here in vermont and of course we all know maple we're number one in maple production the united states of america and it is our marquee added specially crop that is recognize around the world so those are some of the things we do and you know i can't forget that by the way we're also a leader in bio digesters which is the process of using animal manure to generate electricity and burn that methane gas into carbon dioxide which reduces the greenhouse gas effect of methane by twenty four because methane twenty times worse than c o two so so these are the kinds of things we're leading on in a little tiny state like normal so each of those kind of has its different path of a question so when we just ask you about the maple this whole idea of grading maple differently or using an international standard i know that's being considered in vermont is what is agencies position on that well the agency had had engaged in conversations with the community of the maple community this last winter they made the community said we would like to change our grading system to an agreed upon international standard that they had negotiated with canada and other major producers in the world and they asked us to to if we would do that i said no wanted to take that to the legislature because we don't want to be the one changing it we'd rather have the industry of the community change it ran into some concerns and not everybody had been heard so we said hold the phone let's stop that process let's hold some public ariens and is what we've done we've helped three of them last week or inviting people to give us input on the changes in labeling why the changes in labeling because the community has argued that with a standard labeling for syrup around the world it will improve our ability to export our service and what is interesting is maple production is the fastest growing sector of agriculture in the state of a lot of people already in pens ten thousand twenty thousand pap's a year because they're such a good market for maple that's all sold and that not every drop and most of it's sold out of the state and so there's an interest in and seeing if we can get a standard labeling to enhance the ability to sell to sell that other state the other side of the coin is there are many other concerns that we many have concerns or will lose are traditional labels and that's an interesting important point but it's something we've done before i remember our own sugar house changing over from the old old system to the current system and now we're looking at that as a possibility again so you've been here doing the public hearings and then we'll come back  that would involve a public process as well but not the legislative process we can also work with the maple community and put it into the legislature to have the representatives consider such changes on the third would be  given the input we might receive we could choose to do nothing at all so those are the three alternatives and i'm in the process of evaluating which one of those would be the most appropriate thing for a path to pursue given the improve we're getting so right now today what would you say are the biggest issues facing vermont's farmers well you know one issue is seizing the opportunity of the market in the desirability of four from our products there's a that's  really positive issue and i would want to underscore that we are we are a community based agriculture system that competes in the global marketplace successfully not only do we feed ourselves home at home with through the direct marketing we compete in that way in the global market every time we sell a tomato in boston every time we sell produce in washington d c or new york we are competing successfully in the global marketplace that's a positive  issue some of the challenges are that we have a challenge around water quality this is not unique to vermont water quality in agriculture is an issue across the country and it's typically generated from a combination of  confirmed that's not the only issue that we have we have an issue around what i call agricultural literacy while we think of ourselves as an agricultural state we have been changing and fewer and fewer people are involved in  agriculture don't understand all the mechanisms all the processes that are involved and so they don't always appreciate the what's needed to be done at a farm like managing  and that it's a process of raising animals that are oftentimes raised for meat consumption which means they are going to go to slaughter and they're going to be processed it means management or on the farm it means diversifying one's portfolio of enterprises on the farm that may now include putting solar panels on your farm to generate electricity that you could sell to the grid those are some of the things we are looking  at now the national standpoint we have some issues that reverberate in vermont and that is the dairy pricing issues are problematic what we in vermont need to understand is we're the most dairy dependent state in the country in terms of percentage of our agricultural receipts that are connected to dairy and as a consequence the national dairy pricing has a significant impact on our economy and given the fact that we're located at the end of the grain train so to speak our farmers struggle with a pricing system in that it doesn't always provide a level of pricing that allows them to be as profitable or profitable at all and that's a real problem there's a real cycle that is difficult to manage as a business person and i need to underscore that the farmers in the state are business people they are running significant enterprises that involve tens of thousands of dollars and in many cases millions of dollars a year on their farm and so when they have a national program that fits tries to fit everybody that's pretty hard sometimes to  make that work for you on that farm so that's that's a real challenge and then right now we have a real problem with the price of feed we've had dairy farmers have gone from typically having thirty percent of their milk check being spent on feed some are now pain upwards to sixty percent of their milk that's an unsustainable situation to be in so those are some of the challenges we're facing right now so what are potential solutions to that i s if it's a national issue it's an issue that congress needs to act on i proud to say that the vermont farmers the farmers the dairy farmers of vermont have helped lead a conversation that led to a proposal called the dare security  new national pricing system for dairy that has been widely endorsed that was in the senate bill that the senate farm bill passed the senate it was in the farm bill that passed the house agriculture comm and did not get passed by congress in the way the farm bill and as a consequence we don't have a new national dairy policy and worse yet is the m i l c program that is the safety net that has been in place for farmers for a number of years expired and now farming and dairy farming is operating without a safety net without a program to mitigate the poor dairy prices and congress didn't extend that either so that issue we have exerted inordinate amount of influence because we have a great congressional delegation that led that conversation supported by wonderful group of from a dairy farmers that worked nationally to get the dairy security act in both the house and senate versions of the farm bill unfortunately the house leadership chose not to move the farm  is unfortunately just how that plays for vermont one of the things that i am thinking about the program today you know having grown up here and lived here all my life and like the numbers of dairy farms is kind of declining over time in that changing landscape about this working landscapes bill that we passed last year to start to put some resources towards you know innovative creative other other types of farming or you know developing the working land but the decline of the dairy farm do you see that as continuing our do you think that kind of leveled unfortunately i think we're going to continue to see the erosion of a number of dairy farms in the good news is many different farms and they go out have their assets utilized by other farmers but not all their assets not all their land the good news is that the dairy farming communities diversifying in the kinds of activities they are some investments in the shape of action we might further this so called renaissance of agriculture speeded up expand it in we were the expansion of meat slaughter processing is an example of that and the others that work in program that's not yet up and running where and in the process of constructing that as we speak so we're going to continue to see the farming landscape change it's going to in my view likely to diversify we're going to see some potential reduction in the number of quote unquote dairy farms but we're going to see i think in the ongoing increase in the number of other kinds of farms  it's going to be very interesting time and what's clear to me is the good dairy farmers are are just that good and they're going to be able to continue to produce milk in this state and we're seeing a really great influx of not new young energetic  and i say new and i say young because some of the people that are jumping in are not there but they're new to agriculture doing a great job with a whole range of products and this whole idea of agricultural renaissance or  is very exciting really i mean there's a lot going on in the state that at that time even at the local foods and richmond you touched earlier on the farm to school program could you could you talk about that a little bit i know richmond schools are prepared in then served to the kids and then we have education program that also connected the school curriculum in their class work to the farm include visits oftentimes so kids in the school understand that milk doesn't come from a jug and bacon doesn't come from a package and apples don't come from a shelf but they actually come from a farm and so this program does a number of really wonderful things it  certainly provides nutrition nutritious fresh food and sometimes because just because of the freshness the more sometimes because they know where it comes from they eat more or trying new things that's great because then when they eat food this particular school lunch and school breakfast if they're in those programs then they're ready to learn and it also improves the very issue of talked about earlier the challenge of agricultural literacy they begin to understand the food and agriculture systems from which the food comes from the understand cows generate manure and the new or when managed correctly is actually actually a supplement to the soil and makes for better crops the following year so that's  really wonderful program that touches on many things and we do it really well in the state of vermont so so this thing about manure and energy you know we're doing a lot of talking about energy and how to decrease our dependence and it's burned in a generator to generate electricity so that electricity can serve the farm and or can go on to the grid and be sold to the grid to you and me there's a program called cow power that was started by for the former central home of public service corporation that has led the way which is one of the reasons why vermont again is one of the leaders and bio digesters so it's a way to diversify the farmer's income it's a way to make them energy secure it's a way to create baseload renewable power in the state of vermont for vermont it's a way to distill have distributed generation and it's a way to extract more value out of the manure because when you invest in that kind of silica you're able to better manage the moon or that's in your barn yard and and better manage the timing for application purposes so is that experimental or is that sort of how many actually if not a day were piloting that or is that a full force program it's a it's a not a program per se of the state it's a program within agriculture broadly speaking it's been around for a while your the europeans use it we use it in vermont but there's improvements that are can be made and you know what's exciting is the university of vermont is currently involved in a research effort to figure out how to make bio digesters more efficient by figuring out what kind of biological activities the bugs so to speak in the digester what kind of bugs will be most efficient in producing the methane gas from the manure so there's there's a whole technical field that is all valving as is often the case when you get into agriculture it you started one place and you are constantly adjusting constantly changing one of the issues that you mentioned earlier was water quality and i wondered if you could just talk about really for people at home what can we be doing about water quality issues as our monitors well there's a high water quality is or is it is a challenge  and there are many sources to the problem certainly agriculture has a role and responsibility so our residential development developers are now and our residential land users  certainly have a responsibility in how they manage their own construction of the homes and then maintenance their homes we have point source sources of phosphorous and i should say phosphorous is the main chemical that's the big problem watershed because it it's the the nutrient that creates these blue green algae blooms so when we have sewer plant the discharges that's a source of phosphorus and then we have an array of other  impacts and even the runoff from our roads doesn't do our water any good so so as an individual you can think about how you manage your lawn and what kind of chemicals you put on need to take responsibility for that water too because that's one of the problems is that the commercial and residential development create enormous in the mountains in pervious surfaces so the water runs over those services gets into a creek faster charges those creeks with more power to do more work carry the chemicals that they've collected in the runoff and they head right to that to the next biggest river and then eventually the lechon plain so  managing your lawn trying to figure out how to be part of a storm water district of possible encouraging farmers and supporting farmers in their efforts because to take us on and i'm proud to say the vermont farmers had one hundred percent oversubscription for funds to help mitigate water quality issues on the farm we didn't have enough money to meet the demand on the part of the farmers who want to do something constructive which is a great statement about the farming community i did put out an e mail to our community and i asked for questions and one of them that i wondered if you could comment on is the status of mandatory labor lane for products containing g vermont does it alone it will have its own label that may be different than other states and and quite likely that will who will be challenged in the court of law and the indications are that would be a challenging and costly process more importantly governor shumlin the agency believe that this is best done at the federal level so there's some uniformity so the producers and consumers can see and understand it's a similar set of rules what's also interesting right now is california which is among the top ten kind of these in the world california alone is looking at a proposition that would require g m o labeling if they passed that that may change the landscape in terms of whether or not the feds or federal levels are going to take this on so far the federal government has not chosen to take on g m o labeling is our hope that they would because that kind of uniformity would avoid the some of the costly processes that do it on a state by state basis i also want to ask you a quick follow up about irene how farmers are doing well you know years later a year later we've come a long way and i'll tell you that the farming community has been amazing as has the communities in which those farms exist they've been amazing there's been a real vermont quality effort to help one another we based on the statistics we could collect information we collected close to five hundred farms and frankly i think more more than that were affected by irene in a meaningful way meaningful enough that they reported self reported that they had damage on the farm we have been able to orchestrate an a of federal and state programs to help them we were able to raise two and a million dollars in partnership with the remote community foundation was been an unbelievable partner and we dispersed all that money to help farmers  with with grants not loans and grants in spite of all that work while some farmers have largely rebounded there are still many latent effects that you might not the road you might not see that farmer has not been able to resume their insurance program their health insurance program he might not see that they didn't make an investment in a piece of equipment that they need to make they're far more efficient you might not see the fact that they had to spend and borrow money potentially some cases to buy feed over the course of the last winter he might not see that their production on during farm has dropped and that costs them money so there is or there is a latent effect and and in that you know when the particularly the dairy community which is our big economic driver when they're confronted with that kind of impact and they're confronted with high feed prices from the midwest and dairy system that doesn't reward them very well for their work it's a pretty discouraging time at times but if there's one thing you can say about vermonters and vermont farmers is they're resilient bunch and they have really pushed hard and in the first four months after irene not one farmer i spoke to went out of business because of irene they all put their shoulder the put their head down and kept working quite a testament well and they're lucky to have a secretary of agriculture like you know to be to me sort of just paying attention to steering the ship so that we can really continue to have