Vermont Tiger

Leadership Needed

the state's agricultural universe could use a star

 Politics by Emerson Lynn

When Neale Lunderville gave his final report on the damage wrought by Tropical Storm Irene one of the expected casualties was the damage caused to agriculture. Less expected was the sense that many of the farmers – particularly those involved in fruit, produce and vegetables – operated in a vacuum. They were not connected to a system larger than themselves. As Mr. Lunderville noted, the crisis exposed their vulnerability. It also points out the obvious; a limited, self-centered network stunts their potential.

That would seem counter intuitive. Vermont has agriculture as part of its historical center. The production of food, writ large, is the state’s vanguard movement. How could it be that any agricultural group is not connected to the whole?

Working the System

about that working lands investment bill, cui bono

by John McClaughry
 
A group of lawmakers, flanked by a larger group of advocates,  has announced their support of a Working Land Enterprise Investment bill (H.496, S.246). If passed into law it would distribute $3 million in the first year, eventually reaching $15 million a year.

The new program would seek to expand production of higher-end manufactured products, such as specialty cheese, furniture and cider, from raw materials, like milk, hardwoods and the flagging apple industry.

The bill would create a Vermont working lands enterprise board to build a major campaign “to celebrate the working landscape of Vermont and  engage Vermonters in celebrating the foundational role working lands play in the culture, economy, health, and heritage of the state”

Working the Working Landscape

by Wendy Wilton

Recently, The Council on Rural Development has sounded the alarm on the loss of Vermont's working landscape.  The council correctly understands that unless the land owners are encouraged to maintain that working landscape it will be lost. While open land, especially outside Chittenden County, is not at risk of development primarily due to economic factors, the working landscape of Vermont is at risk and the state helped to create this problem through its current use tax exemption program and social and economic policies developed over the last two decades.
 
Current use was created to support farmers and preserve high-value agricultural soils (the working landscape). Forest land was included but in the early years comprised a very small portion of the lands under the current use tax exemption. Today, there is much more forest land under current use than agricultural land as investors understood current use provided the same tax break to forest lands. Hence, we have encouraged preservation of forest soils at the same "price" as agricultural soils, encouraging the conversion of farms to forest. The fix to this is to reduce or eliminate current use exemptions for those who are the "buy and hold" forest owners, and maintain full current use benefit to those who are actively farming or very active in the timber business.   Like Act 250, the intent of current use was a good concept but it got fouled up in the implementation.

B is Better

by Art Woolf

We Vermonters know not to buy fancy grade maple syrup.  Now, thanks to an article in the Atlantic, the world knows our secret.  Darker is better. Actually, the article has a nice history of maple syrup, with a heavy emphasis on Vermont maple syrup. 

Even in the early 1800s, Americans apparently were into a precursor of  what we would now call "fair trade" syrup:

Adherents of the Free Produce movement shunned the products of slave labor, and sought out maple sugar. "So long as the maple forests stand," urged a Vermont almanac in 1844, "suffer not your cup to be sweetened by the blood of slaves."

And adulterated maple syrup.  That's been going on for more than a century.

The continuing emphasis on a light, delicate flavor, though, made the product particularly susceptible to adulteration. Shelves filled with syrup cut with glucose, sorghum, or corn; some purveyors added decoctions of maple wood, hickory, or even of corn cobs. Others relied on appearance alone, boiling brown sugar.  By the beginning of the twentieth century, one reforming scientist estimated the amount of Vermont Maple Syrup sold every year at ten times the actual production; another cracked that a dense maple forest must stretch from the east coast to Chicago, just to supply the necessary sap.

I only wonder why The Atlantic ran the piece this week, and not during sugaring season.

Say what?

by Art Woolf

I'm all for economic development, and am glad to see it happen in Burlington.  So when I read that another hotel will be built near the waterfront I thought it was a positive indication for the city's economic future.   But what puzzled me was this:

NBT Bank and the US Department of Agriculture collaborated to finance the project. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture?  Financing a hotel in downtown Burlington?  Silly me.  I thought the Department of Agriculture dealt with farmers, and agriculture, and things like that.  

 

AgScam

The Department of Agriculture no longer serves as a lifeline to millions of struggling homestead farmers. Instead, it is a vast, self-perpetuating postmodern bureaucracy with an amorphous budget of some $130 billion -- a sum far greater than the nation's net farm income this year. In fact, the more the Agriculture Department has pontificated about family farmers, the more they have vanished -- comprising now only about 1 percent of the American population.
    Victor Davis Hanson

Well said.  But not something that hasn't been said before.

And before.

It has been said many, many times.  But still ... down in Washington, they can't find anything to cut in what they call, with a straight face, the federal budget.

Small potatoes?

by Art Woolf

According to an AP story reported on Vermont Public Radio

NOFA [Northeast Organic Farming Association] Vermont says the state has the highest number of farmers' markets per capita in the country with more than 85.

I was surprised to learn that there were 85 farmers' markets out there waiting to serve me.  WCAX brought me back to down reality with the same AP story:

NOFA Vermont says the state has the highest number of farmers' markets per capita in the country with more than 85 markets.

Amazing how one word can change the meaning of a sentence. 

The AP report also notes that sales soared last year: 

 gross sales from Vermont's farmers' markets in 2010 totaled nearly $8 million, up from $7 million in 2009.

Doing the math, sales at farmers' markets are about $13 per person in Vermont.  The U.S. Labor Department estimates that the average American spends $3,753 on food eaten at home.  So Vermonters spend about 0.3% of their food budget at farmers' markets.  That either represents a tremendous opportunity for local farmers, or it means farmers' markets are a very tiny niche market.  

 

 

How much for a job?

by Art Woolf

A new yogurt plant opens in Brattleboro today, promising to buy some 100 million pounds of Vermont milk yearly, enough to make 190 million 6-ounce cups of yogurt.

--Burlington Free Press

That's a lot of yogurt, and given that fluid milk consumption is dropping but sales of milk products like yogurt are rising, this is a positive for Vermont's ag economy.   The plant, which apparently was financed with $26 million in capital, employs 33 people.  But the government's fingers arms are all over the project:

U.S. Treasury Department's New Market Tax Credits [were used] to provide a portion of the equity funding in addition to participation by Wainwright Bank and US Bankcorp.

Locally,

The Vermont Economic Development Authority approved a $1.3 million loan to Commonwealth...

The Vermont Economic Progress Council approved up to $1,201,154 in Vermont Employment Growth Incentives for the company...

The Vermont Community Development Program approved a $639,920 community development block grant to the town of Brattleboro to lend to Commonwealth for fit-up costs...

And Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced last year he had secured a $300,000 federal grant for the project. The Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) used the grant to complete a $1.15 million public-private partnership to build a $1.15 million water line to Brattleboro's Delta Campus, a business park located to the west of Interstate 91.

That means that the state, directly or indirectly, contributed more than $3 million to the company's financing package, or $100,000 per job.  Nice job, if you can afford it.

 

Myths and Realities of the Vermont Economy II: Agriculture

by Art Woolf

The second is a series of occasional posts on the Vermont economy. The first was about manufacturing.

dairy farms make a crucial contribution to Vermont’s economy                                                  --Vermont Agency of Natural Resources

A strong dairy economy is important to the overall economy of Vermont                                               --former Governor Jim Douglas

In Vermont, the dairy industry is a pillar of the state’s economy...                                                          --U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy's website

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2009 the agriculture sector contributed $282 million to the state's $25 billion GDP--slightly more than 1% of the total. 

The 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture counted a total of 6,984 farms in Vermont, but three quarters of them have gross sales of under $50,000.  Most of those are "hobby" farms where the owners do not earn most of their income from agriculture. 

Only 1,100 farms have gross sales of over $100,000.  Gross sales means total revenue, before any costs of operation, materials, or hired labor are included.  Only farms with this level of income could have the net income needed to support an individual, much less a family. 

More than half the farms in Vermont reported negative net farm income. The average "net gain" as the Agriculture Census puts it, was about $70,000 per farm for those with net gains.  But that doesn't include depreciation or any payment to the owner of the farm for his, or her, labor or capital invested.  

Farming is physically demanding, dangerous, not particularly financially rewarding, and not a very large part of the state's economy.

 

 

Trade Is Good

New England farmers can look around the world or to the next town to sell a huge range of products, agriculture experts said at a farm conference Thursday.
    Reformer

We just hope they don't decide to launch "buy local" campaigns.