Vermont Badly in Need of a Plan for the Future

I recently read the commentary by Jock Gill in VTDigger in which he says that the state is at a fork in the road and that new roads for the future are opening up.  In reading his commentary, I am reminded of a list of the top 20 Vermont stories of the 20th century by Chris Graff in his book “Dateline Vermont.” One in particular on that list relates to a plan for the future for the state in the Report from the Vermont Commission of Country Life, 1931. Graff says that he believes the recommendations in the report in many ways set the agenda for the following few decades in our state.

The commission was established in 1928 after the 1927 flood that destroyed a great deal of the state and its infrastructure. It was chaired by former Gov. John Weeks. It is said that “the flood and its impact awakened in Vermonters a fuller sense of their collective power and gave them a new impulse which will be felt through the years.” 

The commission did a very comprehensive assessment of all aspects of the state: the people, the topography and climate; the soils; agriculture; forestry and the woodworking industries; summer residents and tourism; fish, game, and the preservation of wildlife; land utilization; rural home and community life; recreation; medical facilities for rural people; educational facilities for rural people; the care of the handicapped; the Vermont Foundation; rural government; citizenship; religious forces; and the conservation of Vermont traditions and ideals.

There is a need for a similar approach today. As Gill’s commentary states: “new roads are opening up for the future of the state.” Administrations and legislatures often go from one crisis issue to another without clear longer-term strategies that deal collectively or comprehensively with all interrelated issues, as was done in the 1931 report.

 

When I was secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets for the state, National Geographic stated that Vermont was the number five place in the world to visit, and number one in the U.S., due to our landscape and quaint villages, and that we had a plan for the future. I often said publicly that I liked the first two but that I was not aware of the last.

 Certainly Covid-19 has changed the landscape and has brought to the surface the many issues that confront the state, our local communities, health care, education, agriculture, land use, food security, tourism, jobs, and more. Perhaps Covid-19 too has awakened in Vermonters a fuller sense of their power and has given them a new impluse that will be felt through the years. 

As Gill states so well in his commentary: “Vermont will be more resilient if we can find ways to create opportunities to energize the many talents we already have in Vermont, the many innovators, trades people, farmers, foresters, entrepreneurs, activists, and creative thinkers and others ready to take Vermont into the future that is rapidly emerging.” 

  

Things have changed very significantly since the release of the assessment by the Vermont Commission on Country Life in 1931, “A Program for the Future,” by 200 Vermonters, but it is time again for a similar bipartisan assessment involving Vermonters from all interests and backgrounds that might again be a blueprint for the future of our state.

VERMONT’S HISTORIC PUBLIC EDUCATION LEGACY

A Brief Summary

It is difficult in this short article to cover the rich history of Vermont in addressing public education.  Some of us who are the first generation to go to a public University, and before it to a one room country school for eight years and then a very small public high school, understand how fortunate we were, both for the experience and for the education.

Vermont’s 1777 Constitution is said to be the first in English speaking North America to mandate public funding for universal education and to provide public education for girls. It is the only governmental service that has ever been accorded constitutional status in the state. It is said that Vermont Governor William P. Dillingham in the 1890’s described “the board proposition that the education of the masses is absolutely essential to the safety of the state and U.S.”  Over a period of time others have made similar statements.  George Aiken from Putney, Vermont, a former Governor and U.S. Senator, once said that “advanced education is a New England Tradition.” Calvin Coolidge, the 13thPresident of Vermont from Plymouth, Vermont, stated that “education is the one thing which we cannot afford to curtail.” One source stated that the Vt. Constitution “has made education as much a Vermont tradition as maple syrup, winter sports, and the green mountains. It was the first state to constitutionally guarantee a clearly articulated system of education beginning with primary schools and concluding with a University.”

Vermont education has changed over the years, and Vermont history is full of advances that have been made at all levels, primary, secondary, and at the College and University levels.  In the mid 1800’s, for example, Vermont had more than 2,000 school districts, and as many one room schools, and as late as 1913 one-half of the country’s schoolchildren were enrolled in over 2000 one-room schoolhouses like the one I attended. Educational reform has taken many approaches over time. A few of the major changes have included the following:

• The Federal Land Grant Act of 1862 signed by President Lincoln and authored by Vermont Senator Justin Morrill of Strafford, Vermont, brought University education in agriculture, the sciences, and mechanical arts to the masses. Before this, many of the private Ivy leagues, like Yale, Harvard, and Amherst had agricultural science courses, but these were limited to those who had the financial means.  The University of Vermont, then a private University founded in 1791, sought and received the Federal Land Grant designation and the federal scripts of western land to sell to support this endeavor.  The Act was considered a historic achievement that changed the course of Agriculture as well as education in the U.S. and in Vermont.

• Normal Schools were begun in the early 1800’s to address the shortage of qualified teachers in the state. The first one in the United States was founded by Rev. Samuel Read Hall, as Concord Academy in Concord, Vermont in1823.  Others followed to include Castleton in 1867 (was also the first medical college in the state in 1818, and the first degree granting medical school in the U.S.) which began as a grammar school in 1787; Johnson began as Johnson Academy in 1828 and became a normal school in 1867.While Lyndon, in 1911, was established as a one-year normal school, the state legislature authorized it to become Lyndon Teachers College in 1955.  Randolph, which began as an Orange County Grammar School in 1806, became the state’s first normal school by legislative mandate for training teachers in 1867. 

• Vermont School for Agriculture in Randolph, Vermont was created by the state legislature in 1910.  Theodore Vail, the President of AT&T had endowed a school of agriculture in conjunction with Lyndon Institute for practical training in agriculture.  The institute was turned over to the State in 1915, and agriculture was dropped from its courses in 1921.  Since the University of Vermont Land Grant had not granted a degree from the Land Grant in over 50 years (since it was first established), the need for technical training in agriculture was advocated by the Vermont Grange as well as the Vermont Dairymen’s Association. Vermont Technical College almost closed in the 1950’s due to the decline in the Vermont farm population, but added additional technical courses to serve Vermont’s workforce needs.  For example, VTC’s Practical Nursing Program is the longest running one in the United States (it was started at the Thompson School of Nursing in Brattleboro in 1907). 

• The Vermont State College System was incorporated in 1961 as a comprehensive,

    interconnected system of public colleges to include Castleton University, Community College of Vermont, Northern Vermont University (created by the merger of Johnson and Lyndon in 2018), and Vermont Technical College. In 1970, the State established the Community College of Vermont, that now has twelve locations in the state and is the second largest college in the state.

On the funding side, according to history, it has never been easy.  Prior to 1890, each school district provided funding for its own grammar and high schools.  A state law in 1864 made the payment of taxes to the local school compulsory for all landowners regardless of whether or not they had students in the school district.  In an attempt to equalize state educational funding, the state enacted a statewide property tax in 1890 and also companion laws aimed at improving teacher training and consolidating school administration.  This tax remained in effect until 1931, when it was replaced by a state income tax, with educational costs reverting to municipal property taxes and equalization methods. Changes have continued through the years with the most recent being Act 46 in 2015 that is intended to improve educational outcomes and equity by creating larger and more efficient school governance structures.

Today education at all levels in the state is being challenged.  It has been estimated that Vermont’s high school population declined approximately 20 percent from 2009 to 2011, one of the biggest drops in the nation.  This was attributed to Vermont’s low birthrate. In response to these demographic trends, the high costs of education and in maintaining five college locations, as well as the low level of state financial support for higher education compared to many states, a plan to close or merge many of the state colleges was scheduled this spring for a vote by the Vermont State College Board but was soon withdrawn because of public opposition.  The discussion has again brought to the forefront the importance of education as articulated in the 1777 Vermont Constitution as a basic need and right.  In a survey done by Advance Vermont in 2020, it shows that 40% of today’s students in Vermont are first generation college students.One-third are 30 years old or older, 80% work, 25% are parents, 55% commute, 52% receive little to no financial support from families, 35% are food insecure, and 33% experience housing issues.   It is known that 70% of students attending Vermont State Colleges are Vermonters and most live close to the schools they attend. According to the same report, it is stated that social scientists like Richard Reeves at the Brooking Institution say that helping low-income students attend and graduate from college and career training is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet in advancing economic activity.

In reading the above statistics, I am reminded of one of the most significant educational thinkers of the 20th Century, a Vermonter, Dr. John Dewey, the father of the Progressive Educational Movement of the 1880’s.  The 1880’s was a time of increased wealth for a few and their big corporations but a loss of jobs and community life.  Dewey saw that with the decline of local community life and small-scale enterprises, young people were losing valuable opportunities.  He concluded that education would have to make up for this loss.  It seems like there is a similar need today and perhaps our state colleges can meet that need.

By Roger Allbee

Footnotes

1. Vermont’s Tradition of Education and The Vermont Constitution by Seth M. Zoracki, Albany Law Review, Vol. 69, 2006

2. Education Revolution of the Early 1890’s, by John A. Sautter. In Vermont History, Vol 76, no. 1, winter/spring 2008.

3. See footnote no. 1

4. See footnote no. 1

5. See footnote no. 1

6. Learning About Vermont’s One-Room Schoolhouses, by Erica, in Happy Vermont; Also seethe Vermont Schoolmarm and The Contemporary One-Room Schoolhouse, An Ethnographic Study of a Contemporary One-Room School Teacher by Jody Kenny, Ed Dept. St. Michaels College, 1990 by the University of Vermont, Center for Research on Vermont.

7. See the Historical Importance of Agricultural Education in the United States and in Vermont, blog whatceresmightsay.blogspot.com, Aug 1, 2011

8. Vermont Tech, The History of Vermont Tech; Also see footnote no. 7 above

9. See Advancevermont.org

10. Progressive Education-Philosophical Foundations, in education.stateuniversity.com

HOME GARDENS…CAN THEY HELP ADDRESS MORALE AND ISOLATION ISSUES DURING THE CORONAVIRUS…LIKE VICTORY GARDENS OF THE PAST?

It has been interesting to read two recent articles in the regional (Mercury News in Bay Area of California) and national press (Staunton News Leader) that have stated that now might be the time to plant yourself a Coronavirus “Victory” garden as a way to get outside, boost morale, involve the kids, and take one’s mind off the virus.

The History of Victory Gardens during both World Wars One and Two are well known.  During World War One, for example, a National War Garden Commission was created to encourage Americans to contribute to the war effort by planting, fertilizing, harvesting and storing their own fruits and vegetables.  Individuals and communities were urged to use all idle land to include school yards, parks, backyards and vacant lots. The then Federal Bureau of Education even initiated “a U.S. School Garden Army to mobilize children to enlist as soldiers of the soil.”  It is stated that due to this emphasis and focus, more than 5.2 million new garden plots were cultivated in 1918.  These were called Victory Gardens.  They emerged again during World War Two.  With the introduction of food rationing during this war, citizens had an even greater incentive to grow their own fruits and vegetables.  They planted gardens in whatever locations they could find: flower boxes, rooftops, backyards, and deserted lots of any size.  It is said that even amid protests from the Department of Agriculture, Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden on the White House lawn (some of us remember and encouraged the planting of a garden on the Vermont statehouse lawn a few years back).  By the end of World War Two, there were over 20 million victory gardens producing more than 40 percent of all the fresh fruit and vegetables consumed in the United States.

Today it is not the production of food for the War effort that is needed, but ways for individuals to deal with stress and isolation, while contributing to their own healthy food supply.  There is a great history of the community and local garden movement in Vermont.   For example, after the 1927 Flood, one of the worst tragedies in Vermont’s history, the report, "Rural Vermont, A Program for the Future", recommended that more attention be given to the vegetable garden for the family.  Likewise, the Garden for All movement started by Lyman Wood resulted in 100 Community Gardens being created in the state during the period 1975-1976.  Today there is a Vermont Community Garden Network, Growing Together, with a website that has a list of many on-line resources for those that want to grow their own food.   According to data from Food Tech Connect: The Platform for Good Food Innovation: Growing the Home Food Gardening Movement, 35% of U.S. homes grew their own food in 2012.  

As Joan Morris stated in her Bay Area News Group article of March 20, 2020 ("Plant a Victory Garden to Combat Coronavirus"), “forced with shelter in place, most of us are coming down with a bad case of cabin fever.  Instead of worrying about the future and what a scratchy throat you woke up with this morning is something serious, plant a Victory Garden.”

Re-establishing a Viable Vermont Dairy Industry: Report and Call For BOLD State Policy Change and Action

A number of you have asked for a copy of the Executive Summary of the study(Re-Establishing a Viable Vermont Dairy Industry: Report and Call For BOLD State Policy Change and Action) that was presented to the Vermont House and Senate Agriculture Committees on February 20, 2020, and has also been submitted to the Administration.  It was an in-depth two plus year evaluation of all data, background papers and reports,  existing programs, as well as future trends,  As is so well stated in the Dairy and Water Quality Collaborative Action Plan(a group of 22 Vermonters who came together in the spirit of trying to understand the complexities and inter-relatedness of farm viability and water quality):

The quality of our water, the viability of our farms and associated businesses, and the fabric of our rural communities are all at stake. Immediate, inclusive, effective, and enduring leadership and action are 

needed. That collaborative call to action further states that complex systems need an approach that Integrates economic, environmental, community and regulatory inputs and players.

Our over two year study concludes that BOLD State policies are needed to review or address Vermont’s dairy industry's future.  Without BOLD policy changes or dramatic response to this unchecked national and international market and federal regulatory pattern, the trend to fewer farms, and eventually to less milk production will continue resulting in the loss of economic activity, rural infrastructure and the working landscape that has been so important to the States culture, economy, and history.

We therefore conclude that BOLD State policy action is needed to RENEW and to ADDRESS the future of the Vermont dairy industry.   We conclude that the national market and regulatory pattern beyond the Vermont marketplace, which has tied Vermont raw milk pricing to unsustainable, inadequate and volatile, commodity dairy pricing, is not likely to be altered, and is in fact more likely to accelerate.  Therefore, Vermont MUST plot its own , new and BOLD, State-based course if there is to be a sustainable future for Vermont’s dairy industry and the working landscape it supports.

Re-establishing a Viable Vermont Dairy Industry: 

Report and Call For BOLD State Policy Change and Action

CALL FOR:     Blue Ribbon

Administration/Legislative

Vermont Dairy Industry Task Force

Task Force Charge:  

modernize and revise the State’s market regulatory authority 

to enable implementation of a Bold and Innovative State program of 

milk market regulation and economic development

Submitted to:  Honorable Phil Scott, Governor

     Vermont Legislature  

Honorable Phil Scott, Governor

·      Anson Tebbetts, Secretary, Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets; 

·      Julie Moore, Secretary, Agency of Natural Resources; 

·      Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development 

Vermont Legislature

·      Tim Ashe, Senate President Pro Tempore; 

·      Mitzi Johnson, Speaker of the House

·      Jane Kitchel, Chair, Senate Appropriations Committee; 

·      Kitty Toll, Chair, House Appropriations Committee;  

·      Robert A. Starr, Chair Senate Agriculture Committee;

·      Carolyn Partridge, Chair, House Agriculture Committee; 

·      Christopher Bray, Chair, Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee; 

·      Amy Sheldon, Chair, House Committee on Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife;   

·      Michael Sirotkin, Chair, Senate Committee on Econ. Dev., Housing and Gen. Affairs; 

·      Michael Marcotte, Chair, House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development

We are completing a three-year assessment and report on the status and future of the Vermont dairy industry.  We present a working Executive Summary of our Findings and Conclusions.

The Report finds the Vermont dairy industry and the working landscape it supports face the gravest crisis since the Great Depression.  

·      Chronically inadequate pay prices have caused the exit of over two-thirds of Vermont’s conventional dairy farms since 2000. (2000: + /- 1500 farms; 2020: 425 farms)  

o   A combination of market trends, beyond Vermont and unchecked by federal law or regulation, are causing the chronically inadequate pay prices that have led to this hemorrhaging loss of Vermont dairy farms.

·      Increasing direct and indirect federal and state financial support has been provided in the effort to alleviate distressed farm operation, and to cover the “externality” costs of harmful farm impacts also associated with inadequate pay prices.

o   As indicated by the continued hemorrhaging loss of farms, governmental support is not sufficient to keep farms in operation and cover, long-term, externality costs. 

The Report concludes this crisis is a pivotal turning point for the state’s rural economy, along with Vermont’s cultural and historic identity as a “dairy State”.

·       The greater dairy market forces beyond the Vermont marketplace are likely to continue, unchecked by federal law or regulation.

·       Without BOLD governmental policy change and action, by the State of Vermont, to resolve the crisis, farm attrition and distressed operation are likely to persist, and the Vermont dairy industry and the rural economy and working landscape it supports will continue to confront a perilous future.  

We further find that additional, positive, changes have occurred, amidst the crisis.  

·      The Vermont dairy industry has evolved into a multi-sector industry that now includes both a substantial new in-state processing and manufacturing sector along with the historic raw milk production sector.

o   The Vermont dairy industry has become a leader in the high margin, high-valued dairy products segment of the national dairy marketplace.  

·      **The newly developed in-state manufacture of a substantial volume of Vermont raw milk production has re-established the State’s regulatory authority over its dairy marketplace.**

The report is one of optimism, because we conclude these positive changes can support the BOLD State policy action needed to renew the Vermont dairy industry’s future.

·      If harnessed, modernized and innovative exercise by the State of its revitalized regulatory authority over producer pricing, milk production and farm practices, together with a visionary economic development plan, can overcome the outside market and regulatory trends and renew a durable future for the uniquely branded Vermont dairy industry.

·      Innovative State action can also reduce the public cost of supporting a viable Vermont dairy industry.

Summary Findings

Our three-year review has assessed the history and status of the Vermont and national dairy marketplaces, and the history and development of state and federal dairy support and milk market regulatory programs.  We have also reviewed the Legislative Clean Water Act, the Treasurer’s Clean Water Report, and the “Call to action” by the Vermont Dairy and Water Quality Collaborative Working Group.  We have also evaluated the Vermont Milk Commission’s proposed federal supply control program.

Our Report identifies three dislocating changes that are causing the pending crisis.  At the same time, our report also identifies two additional, but positive, transforming changes.  We believe these additional, if less apparent, changes provide the basis for the State to devise an effective response to the three disruptive challenges, and thereby to resolve the crisis and renew the industry’s future. 

We find first that the industry’s historic anchor position as raw milk supplier for the Boston beverage milk market has all but been eliminated.  Second, the regional and national dairy industries have been restructured by radical market consolidation and concentration, unchecked by application of federal antitrust enforcement.  This unchecked and transforming change is the primary cause of depressed producer prices. 

Third, the long-standing federal dairy regulatory program has not been adapted to the marketplace’s reconfiguration to commodity manufactured dairy products and away from beverage milk.  Most critically, the program has been unable to respond to the new national and international market patterns of inadequate and volatile producer pay prices, and the continual production of excess raw milk supply. 

As a result, the Vermont dairy industry is now tied to volatile and inadequate commodity pricing, set by national and world market commodity price patterns having essentially no connection to the Vermont market and over which the Vermont industry has no control.

Many federal and state governmental support programs have been implemented over the years to respond to the chronic financial pressures on the farm.  Among others, these have included direct subsidy payments, the purchase development rights, land use taxation reduction, loan interest reduction, business development assistance, and federal margin protection and insurance payments.  As indicated by the continued, hemorrhaging loss of dairy farms, these programs, while certainly beneficial, have served only to partially alleviate the chronic operating loss.

Our study further finds that cash flow pressure caused by chronically inadequate pay prices is the primary cause of excess, distressed milk production by Vermont dairy farms.  This is a critical finding regarding water pollution and other problematic dairy farming practices, which have intensified and complicated both the crisis facing the industry and its resolution.  

Dairy farms receiving inadequate pay prices often cannot afford to incur the cost of employing farming practices needed to prevent water pollution and other problematic dairy farm impacts.  As unpaid for “externalities”, these problematic impacts have then created need for public financing to correct.  

Inadequate pay prices and resulting distressed milk production may thus also be understood as causing these associated problems and the substantial public financing cost required to pay for remediation. 

This combination of transforming market change, legal and regulatory failure, and external financial pressure has had a severely negative impact on Vermont’s conventional dairy farms.  Today, the hemorrhaging loss and consolidation of dairy farms leaves fewer than 450 conventional dairy farms in operation.  

Unimaginably, St Albans Cooperative, the lead and enduring Vermont dairy cooperative, has merged with Dairy Farmers of America, the dominant national cooperative.  This merger leaves conventional Vermont dairy farmers with but two remaining major cooperative outlets for the sale of their raw milk product.  With the pending merger of DFA and Dean Foods, the two cooperatives operating in Vermont, in turn, could have but one other remaining large-scale beverage milk processor customer in the New England region.

We further find that there is no indication of likely change in these market, legal and regulatory trends at the national level.  To the contrary, all evidence indicates the federal government will not alter course to reinstitute aggressive enforcement of the antitrust laws, and that, in the absence of cooperative initiative, USDA will not institute significant change to the federal milk market regulatory program. 

To challenge this trend, the Vermont Milk Commission has recently called for institution of a national supply management program.  We agree that a national supply management program would directly address the most fundamental defects in the current operation of the nation’s dairy industry, and could go far to resolve the pending crisis.  Our review indicates, however, that implementation of this needed federal program is very unlikely to happen. Most significantly, the leadership group of the nation’s dairy cooperatives is formally opposed.  There is no indication that the federal government will pursue such a policy in the absence of major cooperative support, and every indication that no action will be taken without such support.  In view of this industry position and lack of federal leadership, pursuit of a national supply management program, even if a viable option, cannot be relied upon to sustain the future viability of the Vermont dairy industry.  

Finally, we find that the national cooperative leadership appears to be moving toward greater, entrenched support for the continued allowance of unchecked market-wide consolidation, which now also includes an accelerating trend toward greater scale and size of dairy farm operation.  This latest development involves the establishment of mega-scaled dairy farm operations in other regions of the country that have greater capability to withstand volatile and low commodity pricing.  This recent development is further problematic for the Vermont dairy industry because, even if desirable, both natural and market forces absolutely preclude the establishment of similarly scaled, competitive dairy farm operations in Vermont. 

In sum, our study finds that Vermont dairy farming as we know it is being dismantled by market forces operating beyond the Vermont marketplace, unconstrained by federal law or regulation, which have left the operation of Vermont farms tied to chronically volatile and unsustainably low, commodity-based, pay prices.  

We further find that without change or dramatic response to this unchecked national and international market and federal regulatory pattern, by 2030, the Vermont dairy industry could have fewer than 100 conventional dairy farms and substantially reduced milk production, with associated loss of economic activity, rural infrastructure and working landscape.  

**************************

Fortunately, our review has disclosed that a positive reconfiguration of the Vermont dairy industry has also occurred, amidst all of the dislocating changes identified above.  If less apparent, we find that this positive reconfiguration has resulted in two equally transforming changes that, together, hold great promise for resolving the current crisis.  

First, we find that the Vermont dairy industry has been completely reconfigured into a multi-sector industry that now includes a substantial and diverse new in-state processing and manufacturing sector, along with the long-standing raw milk production sector.  The leading manufacturing companies combine with Booth Brothers to establish a substantial base for thus new manufacturing and processing sector. The sector’s diversity includes the significant leadership position of Vermont dairy farms and companies in the development of USDA certified organic milk and dairy products.  Vermont also leads in the development of innovative farmstead niche operations. 

This evolving and diverse new in-state processing and manufacturing sector combines to utilize more than half of Vermont’s 2.7 billion pounds of raw milk production.  This amounts to a substantial volume of raw milk production, process and manufacture, able to continue to support substantial economic activity, along with the significant, related rural economic infrastructure.  

Most importantly, the products of the State’s newly configured industry are leading competitors within a strongly differentiated, high-end, segment of the dairy industry.  Ben and Jerry’s Homemade, Inc., Cabot Cheese, and Commonwealth Dairy make high value, high margin ice cream, cheese and yogurt products, and the same can also be said of Vermont organic milk and dairy products, and the niche farmstead products.  The differentiated segment that includes these products is both very profitable and expanding in sales, in marked contrast to the remainder of the commodity manufactured dairy products sector, and indeed in contrast to the performance of the overall dairy industry, as a whole.  

This new multi-sector reconfiguration of the Vermont dairy industry should thus present dynamic market opportunity for all industry participants.  The industry uniquely combines high-valued dairy product offerings, brand strength, prime geographic location, and capacity for growth and expansion.  

This high-value, high-margin industry positioning thereby may, and should, also provide strong potential for restoration and renewal of the long-term sustainability of the Vermont dairy farms that provide the critical raw milk supply, and also for significant improvement across their farming operations.  

The second transforming change that has occurred with the multi-sector reconfiguration of the Vermont dairy industry is the re-establishment of the State’s comprehensive regulatory oversight of the Vermont dairy marketplace.  The new in-state utilization of in-state milk production equates legally to an in-state transaction between purchaser and seller, which establishes state regulatory jurisdiction and control over that transaction.

This is a most dramatic legal change.  Before, when the industry was dominated by the single-sector production of raw milk, Vermont was unable to exercise legal control over the purchase pricing by out-of-state companies, stymied by operation of the Interstate Commerce Clause.  This meant that the farms’ need for, and public interest in, adequate and sustainable pricing was solely dependent on remote federal regulatory oversight.  

Based on the new in-state legal authority, the State is no longer dependent on the exercise of remote, and now ineffectual, federal regulatory authority.  Rather, the State has the regulatory power to address the core financial pricing distress that now confronts Vermont dairy farmers when selling their milk product. The price paid for the substantial volume of milk sold and purchased in-state, along with price fluctuation, is now subject to direct state regulation.  In addition, the amount of that supply and the production practices employed to produce that volume of milk are also now subject to direct state regulation.

Summary Conclusions

We conclude that the national market and regulatory pattern beyond the Vermont marketplace, which has tied Vermont raw milk pricing to unsustainable, inadequate and volatile, commodity dairy pricing, is not likely to be altered, and is in fact more likely to accelerate.  

We further conclude, therefore, that Vermont must plot its own, new and BOLD, State-based course if there is to be a sustainable future for the Vermont’s dairy industry and the working landscape it supports. 

We also conclude that the multi-sector reconfiguration of the Vermont dairy industry presents a realizable opportunity for Vermont to so plot its own course and to overcome the destructive national market and regulatory pattern.  With BOLD State action that first harnesses the State’s revitalized regulatory power and then implements a combined program of innovative regulation and economic development, the industry’s unique and dynamic market positioning can be fully unleased so as restore a vibrant future that is consistent with its storied past.  

We also conclude that this opportunity includes the potential for sustainable operation of Vermont dairy farms of all sizes, along with growing sales of high valued Vermont milk and dairy products. This opportunity can also result in resolution of problematic farm-based water pollution and farming practices caused by distressed farm operation, with reduced reliance on public funding.  

Finally, we conclude that the proposed cross-government task force is the best means to achieve these objectives.  The power to do what is needed already exists.  What is now required is bold leadership by our governmental leaders, to harness that power. 

Background of Report Authors 

Roger Allbee

627 Brookline Rd 

Townshend, VT 05353

roger.allbee@yahoo.com                                                                                    

Former Vt. Secretary of Agriculture; Former State Director of Vt. Farm Service Agency; Former VP and Member of Senior Management Team of Former Farm Credit Banks and Bank for Cooperatives for the Northeast; Served on the Professional Staff of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, former appointed member and former Chair of the USDA/USTR Animal and Animal Products Trade Advisory Committee to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and U.S. Trade Ambassador, Member of International Market Team of Washington D.C. law firm and participant as NGO in Seattle Round of Multinational Trade Negotiations, Past Chair of the Working Landscape Council of the Vermont Council on Rural Development.

Daniel Smith, Esq.

16 State Street

Montpelier, VT 05601

(802) 229-6661

dsmith@dairycompact.org

Founding Executive Director of the Northeast Dairy Compact Commission; former Legislative Counsel for Vermont House and Senate Agriculture Committees; legal practitioner in specialized field of state and federal milk market regulation; special counsel for state regulatory action in a number of states across the country.