Working Lands Enterprise Funds for Meat Processing Investments

Secretary Tebbetts advocates to designate a significant percentage of the 3.6M proposed by the Governor to be spent on the Working Lands Enterprise Board on meat processing. The funds would still be subject to the competitive application process but the agency is expecting many applications to be targeting the meat processing bottleneck. Read more here:

State money could help farmers by increasing meat-processing capacity - VTDigger

Rural Vermont appreciates VAAFM prioritizing the devastating meat processing bottleneck and supporting emerging initiatives. Tebbetts mentioned in testimony the development of slaughterhouses in Windham, Alburgh, Westford, and Putney; as well as a poultry processing facility in Charlotte and new custom processors coming up in Enosburg and Royalton.

The House Appropriations Committee Chair, Rep. Mary Hooper, said in response “I am just concerned that we not crowd out some of the traditional smaller scale possibilities that are really transformational for those producers who are trying to step up. I don’t want to lose sight of them as we focus on this particular need.”

Good news for on-farm slaughter: VAAFM proposes to repeal the July 2023 sunset of the on-farm slaughter law - in recognition of the continued importance of on-farm slaughter for livestock producers! Section 1 of the 2021 "miscellaneous ag bill," the housekeeping bill of the agency of ag, is devoted to securing the institution of on-farm slaughter. The repeal would allow the on-farm slaughter law to exist long-term. 

Take Rural Vermont's on-farm slaughter survey to help set policy priorities for improving the on-farm slaughter law: On Farm Slaughter & Butchery (google.com