County mixing milk and honey with manufacturing and tourism

Vermont Business Magazine, Aug 01, 2002 by Barna, Ed

Few years have seen as much uncertainty for Addison County, which far is hanging on and hoping for the best despite terrorism angst, recession, woeful weather, and other vicissitudes.

Dairy farmers, hit by low milk prices and the loss of the Northeast Dairy Compact, are hoping promises will be kept in a supposedly supportive new national Farm Bill. Those relying on visitors for revenue are hoping the perceived perils of going abroad and traveling by air will bring more regional travel. On the other hand, relatively high gasoline prices and the enticements of states ,and provinces with higher marketing budgets could pull potential visitors in other directions.

Those with manufacturing jobs, or in a position to realize their importance to funding major purchases and community building activities, are wondering whether international competition or domestic bottom-line relocations - or just plain economic slowdowns - will bring wrenching cutbacks.

Forest products businesses, for one, are suffering the effects of slow times in the furniture and paper industries. They also face continuing problems with access to timber and greater costs of doing business, such as for loggers' insurance and worker's compensation.

Those dependent on non-profit institutions of all kinds, including colleges, watch with concern the way corporate fraud is eroding investor confidence and endowments - though Middlebury College, a major employer, has shown surprising resilience. State tax shortfalls are affecting another major sector, the many jobs distributed within the primary and secondary schools.

But economic diversity has so far buffered the region. Historically low unemployment and improvements in many downtowns have buoyed the county. Charitable giving and volunteerism remain strong, for instance at the week-long, free Festival on the Green in Middlebury and in the ongoing restoration of the Town Hall Theatre as an arts center.

Perhaps the strongest vote of confidence in the long-term future of "the land of milk and honey' has come from the real estate market. Red hot and getting hotter due to Chittenden County's well-advertised housing shortage, its main problem is a lack of inventory.

And there is the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op. Such enterprises have an uncertain track record, but after succeeding with a storefront location across from the town's major supermarket, the MNFC is seeking to double in size.

Number Crunches

The Department of Employment and Training's figures for the Middlebury labor market area show a workforce of 19,600 in May of 2001, which increased to 20,400 by May of 2002. Unemployment rose from 450 to 550, from 2.3 percent to 2.8 percent, while employment went up from 19,150 to 19,850 - hardly the stuff of major recessions.

The town of Middlebury itself seemed to be somewhat better off, showing 2.3 percent unemployment in May of 2001, but only 2 percent in May of 2002 (figures not seasonally adjusted).

Budget rejections can be another indicator of how the average county resident regards the economic prospects. In Leicester, it took three tries to pass the school budget, and a plan to double the size of the existing elementary school was put on hold after the town missed getting a Crumbling Schools Act grant by threequarters of a point. A plan to upgrade Ferrisburgh's school got shot down in November. The Addison school budget took four tries. Vergennes; Union High School saw its third proposal squeak through by 53 votes.

The Grass Is Greener

Earlier this year, Addison County coped with a serious drought, with dairy farmers, intensive users of water, particularly, concerned. Even when the first rains came, experts warned that it would take more than that to replenish depleted wells.

More came, until the problem was getting on fields promptly. A significant portion of the corn in the Champlain Valley fell short of the traditional test that it should be "knee high by the Fourth of July."

Meanwhile, the Brandon-Leicester-Salisbury Insect Control District, the state's only such quasi-municipal entity, had to fight hard to avoid major mosquito hatches that would have devastated the tourism region around Lake Dunmore. By mid-July, however, the state climatologist's office was warning that the abundant rains had only raised water tables a few inches. Farmers in some cases were getting the worst of both worlds, with tractors bogging down and wells drying up.

But weather of that sort is secondary to the fluctuations in national milk prices, for dairy farmers and the equipment dealers and suppliers whose livelihood are highly dependent on them.

The county's largest co-op membership is with Agri-Mark, which in turn counts Addison County as its largest single contingent. Doug DiMento, AgnMark's spokesman, is among those skeptical of how the new federal payment system will work out.

Meanwhile, milk that sold for $16.32 per hundredweight last year is only getting $12.63 now, DiMento said. Somewhere between those two is the average cost of making milk, so last year's mini-boom in farm construction, major equipment purchases and catching up on deferred maintenance has nearly faded out.