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Presenters estimate $165 million processing shortfall; labor and financing named as main bottlenecks
Summary
Agency presenters told the committee processing, storage and distribution shortfalls — especially for meat, maple and produce — total in the low hundreds of millions and that labor and capital are the primary constraints.
Jake Claro, Farm to Plate director at the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, told the committee the agency and a consultant estimated three-year infrastructure investment needs concentrated in processing, storage and distribution. “For the processing, you know, we're looking at potentially $165,000,000 of need, and storage and distribution at 13,600,000,” Claro said.
The analysis presented broke estimates down by industry: livestock (about $60,000,000), dairy (about $53,000,000 for certain value-added facilities), produce (about $46,000,000), grain infrastructure ($15,000,000) and permanent-crop needs such as tree nuts and some berry infrastructure. The…
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