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Presenters urge coordinated capital, technical assistance to grow Vermont food system
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Summary
Speakers at a legislative briefing described frameworks for strengthening Vermont’s food system, emphasized private-sector viability, and outlined a capital continuum—grants, debt, convertible instruments and near-equity—to support scale-up and resilience.
Ellen Kayla, executive director of Vermont Farm to Plate, told a briefing for state lawmakers that strengthening and expanding Vermont’s local and regional food system will require coordinated investment, targeted technical assistance and industry-level infrastructure rather than only farm-level fixes.
"There's an awful lot that goes into the development side of things," Kayla said, describing a “soil-to-soil” model that places private-sector producers at the center and surrounds them with a support system of policymakers, extension, lenders, grant programs and nonprofit technical-assistance providers.
The presentation outlined why a one-size-fits-all approach does not work for farms and food businesses. Kayla walked the committee through two complementary frameworks: (1) a triangle linking a business’s stage of development, scale and market type (direct, wholesale, institutional) and (2) a grid of business functions (research, financing, equipment/technology, workforce, sales and distribution, and regulatory compliance). She said aligning stage, scale and market reduces failure risk and helps businesses plan capital and working-capital needs.
"If you're a new and beginning farmer with 5 acres, the likelihood that you're going to be able to get into Whole Foods in Boston is pretty much zero," Kayla said, arguing that market expectations (volume, packaging, consistency) must match a producer’s scale and operations.
Speakers described industry-level gaps that limit growth: lack of aggregation facilities for small producers, limited meat-processing capacity and a shortage of trained meat cutters. Heather Darby of UVM Extension highlighted a planned meat-cutting training facility at a Randolph campus and said the industry is developing workforce pipelines to meet processor demand.
Panelists discussed a capital continuum needed to take projects from pilot to scale. They said grants and public funds are critical for early-stage, higher-risk pilots; debt from banks and USDA lenders suits lower-risk capital needs; and hybrid instruments—convertible debt and royalty or revenue-based financing—can bridge working-capital gaps for growing processors. Kayla cited examples such as convertible debt used by a seed company and a Flexible Capital Fund L3C that provides royalty-style financing to food manufacturers.
Panelists gave a case example of an aggregation/branding pilot for beef grown on dairy farms that has scaled to roughly 800–1,000 animals and required early-stage public financing to aggregate supply and establish standards. Speakers also said the supply-chain investments under discussion often require tens of millions of dollars—some clearly grant-appropriate—though exact statewide capital needs remain high-level estimates.
Panelists urged policymakers to preserve a diversity of funding and support tools so programs work for farms of different sizes and stages. Kayla closed with the takeaway: "We need it all," meaning a mix of grants, debt, technical assistance and workforce development to build resilience, preserve the land base and increase in-state food production.
The presenters offered to organize follow-up, deeper-dive sessions with members of the supply chain (producers, processors, technical-assistance providers and financiers) for lawmakers who want more detail.
