More than a dozen growers, as well as many others who work with and support them, turned out Monday for a roundtable discussion hosted by Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.
“My goal, ultimately, is to have an agenda that reflects what you need in order to be successful,” Welch told those sitting around several tables inside the cider house at Happy Valley Orchard in Middlebury.
Welch said there is a “tug-of-war” in Congress when the farm bill comes up between the advocates of industrial “commodity” products and those who push for supports for smaller-scale, more local growers.
“It doesn’t split along party lines,” the congressman said, with platters of cider doughnuts and Vermont cheese on the table in front of him. “There is enormous interest in local, organic agricultural.”
Welch initiated the meeting Monday to hear what Vermonters want included in the next version of the federal farm bill to help boost specialty crops in the state.
“The farm bill is out of whack. It’s too oriented toward the big commodities. It’s cotton, soy, grain, corn,” Welch said. “The whole point of us getting together is for me to now have a basis to talk to some of my colleagues about having a focus in the farm bill on local agriculture.”
Growers at the meeting Monday talked of the importance of continuing federally funded loan and grant programs, crop insurance and educational supports.
Steve Justis, executive director of the Vermont Tree Fruit Growers Association, said finding labor remains a critical issue.
Some farmers spoke of the challenges of finding people at harvest time to work in the fields, including one who said he advertised in three states for such workers and got no responses.
Several growers talked of the H-2A visa program that allows foreign agricultural workers to come to Vermont for a specified period of time. The farmers told Welch of their concerns that it will be more difficult under the Trump administration for these workers to enter the United States.
Bill Suhr, owner of Champlain Orchards in Shoreham, echoed the difficulty other growers at the meeting said they had in finding workers.
“Our farm, in particular, is not seasonal,” he said. The guest-visa program for foreign workers who help pack apples at the orchard maxes out at 10 months.
“In January and February, my whole office staff comes down to do that work because I cannot find anyone for $15 or $16 an hour,” he said.
Welch said that although the H-2A visa program is outside the scope of the farm bill, he understands how vital it is to the success of agriculture in Vermont.
“This is the terrible immigration politics we have in Washington right now,” he said. “There’s general needs across the country. H-2A is one of them. There’s Republican and Democratic growers, and they need labor.”
Kristina Sweet, produce safety program development coordinator for the state Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, called for funding in the next farm bill to help growers meet improved safety rules and regulations.
“It could be anything from as small as putting in a wash station where they didn’t have a place for growers and their employees to wash their hands to helping them fund a new pack line to improve the overall produce safety,” she said.
Ken Albert, owner of Shelburne Vineyard, brought a specific concern to Welch’s attention.
Albert held up a 200 milliliter bottle of wine he told the congressman he sells inside Vermont but cannot ship out of state due to federal regulations.
Federal rules allow for shipping much bigger or much smaller bottles of wine, Albert added.
“This is for the dessert wines that are particularly profitable for Vermonters,” he said of the 200 milliliter bottle, adding it is just the right size for two people.
“Every other country in the world allows this 200 milliliter bottle,” he said. “We’re the only country that doesn’t allow it.”
Welch said that kind of “concrete issue” is something he can take back to Washington and work on getting fixed.
“It makes no sense,” Welch said. “I believe in regulations, but they have to be sensible.”
Suhr, of Champlain Orchards, told Welch of his worry over how consolidation will make it too hard for smaller, more local enterprises to compete.
For example, Suhr said, when Amazon.com bought Whole Foods, shoppers there saw a significant price drop for organic apples.
He said while many consumers may think that’s wonderful, others see it from a different perspective. “In this room we think of the farmer and the trickle down,” Suhr said.
Welch said the forces of consolidation and globalization are immense, creating upsides and downsides.
“We’re not going to solve that in the farm bill,” he said to Suhr.
“What we can do is try to have in the farm bill the supports so that people like you who are in local communities, and want to keep the land open for cultivation and want to be part of the local economy, have a shot at it,” Welch said. “That’s the real goal here.”