WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-YCQM - Chuck Ross - July 10, 2011

YCQM - Chuck Ross - July 10, 2011

June 19, 2011 -- Vt. Agriculture Secretary Chuck Ross joins Kristin Carlson and Darren Perron to discuss storm flood damage, recovery, federal aid, water quality and the federal farm bill.

TRANSCRIPT:

I'm Darren Perron. And I'm Kristin Carlson. Thanks for joining us.

Our newsmaker this morning is Vermont's Agriculture Secretary Chuck Ross.

Farmers were hit hard by all this flooding -- he'll update us on the clean up -- and what help is available.

Also your neighbors in the news. The sweet sounds of hand crafted Vermont guitars. He's only in 8th grade -- but he's now a Burlington Firefighter. A looney loon -- lands in an unusual place. And Irasburg gets a free church. It's all coming up.

But first -- our newsmaker.... .

The agriculture secretary chuck ross has been in the job now for about six months, before that he served as senator leahy's statewide director and now he's dealing with a huge problem, with all of the flooding.

Secretary ross, thanks so much for being here.   Good morning. How are you?

>> doing well.

Is it i think a lot of people are concerned about how farmers are doing right now.

What's sort of the late amethyst you can tell us?

>> well, clearly this has been a really rough spring.

And frankly be a stress on all forms if it's widespread. How that plays out, depends on the individual farm.  Each farm is its own business. Its own kind of financial foundation.

Some are more durable than others. But i'll tell you after the previous two years that we've seen in terms of milk prices, there are a lot of farmers that are really not in a place where they can take a third year of really difficult costs. You know, the price is up, but the cost have gone up with them. Not only from feed cost, but now we have flooding costs. >> the state was sort of on a projection to have under 1,000 teary farms.

It would be the first time in the state's history. What's the significance of that? >> if you look at the his tore of dairying in the state of vermont, we have been contracting for frankly decades. And this is part of the ongoing contraction. What's an interesting statistic is that we are actually above 1,000 in terms of dairy herds. When you count in the

Diversified nature of dairy right now, which includes 26 goat farms, six sheep farms,

Both -- those are all dairy farms. And then we are below 1,000 for cow farms, cow dareys.

And we're 993. So, you know, it's probably ametric that people kind of fixate on. But it is just part of a trend we've been witnessing for frankly decades in vermont. Farmers that do go out of business, sometimes they'll have somebody to replace their dairy operation.                                                            3

The neighbors purchase some of the land, rent some of the land and they continue to

Consolidate. But it's good news in the sense that we have, you know, 26 goat farms and there's more demand for goat milk than we produce in vermont. So there's an opportunity there. The sheep milk makes great cheese. And there's opportunity there. And we're start -- you know, we see some of that. So in terms of dairy farms, we're not below 1,000. But in terms of cow dairy farms we are. >> one issue that's come up in the last few weeks, that you're having to deal with now. A lot of advocates say they feel like they should be able to do this. The state is saying, well you are our hands are tide because of federal regulations. How do you interpret the law and can people slaughter on their farms?

I know i think you had a meeting this week. >> we had a sort of amiable meeting. We in the state of vermont try to -- we do implement the usda standards. That enables us to have our staff inspect slaughterhouses so they can be state inspected and usda inspected as well. That allows us to have slaughterhouses that can ship meat in state and the usda

Inspected facilities can go out-of-state, across state boundaries. But in addition to that, we have custom slaughter opportunities                                       

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In the state of vermont. This is one of the things i was talking about with the jared

Carter, how we can work together to increase that infrastructure, where what we want to see happen, is minimum, you know, necessary, sanitary standards are created on the farm. And then we can have a custom slaughter facility on a farm. And that names that farm – and this enables that farmer to slaughter and process the meat right there on the farm. And do it in a way that meets minimum sanitary standards. The last thing we want is to have someone get sick because we didn't insist on basic sanitary operations.

>> that sound like that would be under what we have currently right now? >> that's correct. Yes. We have laws in place, regulations in place that enable us to meet the usda requirement that our standards are as good. >> meet the federal. Do you think advocates sort of misinterpret this law that was passed a years, thinking it would go further than it did? Where's the confusion. >> there's an interpretation of language that he and i

Discussed. And i think -- one can argue interpretations of language. You know, any number of different ways. It's very clear to the agency. And it's very clear to the usda, who we've been in touch with and how we are suppose to interpret that language, and what's important for people to understand, is that you can                                          

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Actually slaughter your animals today on your own farm. You don't need -- >> get into the sale. >> it's when you get into moving other animals through your farming or your slaughter process, we think you ought to have a basic sanitary level. And conducting that slaughter business. And as jared and i discussed, there's actually some – we think there's some real opportunity to grow that. We're actually as an agency working very hard to build the meat industry in the state of vermont. And that is expressed through

The jobs bill that we got passed this year, where we had infrastructure grants for meat

Processing. We have vegetation classes that we're funding, so meat processers, which is the real bottleneck in the meat business, can be trained up and staffed these slaughterhouses. We believe there's real opportunity in raising meatanimals in the state of vermont. But we do want to insist that, you know, when they are slaughtered and they are processed, that basic minimum sanitary conditions are met. So we minimize the risk to the public of anybody getting sick. >> well, i want to end the conversation, where you started saying that the strawberry season looks very strong. A lot of people, including me, are happy about that. Farmers' market are open. So you're growth things this

Summer -- so you're optimistic for things this summer                                               

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>> i've been a farmer.

You have to be optimistic about the weather. It's exciting to see that all this activity, in spite of the difficult weather, ongoing. And farmers are working hard and people continue to flock to those farmers' market and the restaurants, buy local produce,

And serve it to the vermonters and the tourists that are coming to see this great state.

>> well, chuck ross, vermont's agriculture secretary, thanks

For all of the issues. We sure hope the rain lets up.  >> me too. >> thank you very much.

>> thank you. >>

Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with us, I'm Darren Perron. And I'm Kristin Carlson. Have a great