Leaving no maple untapped
Longtime sugar maker talks maple industry modernization at Sunday’s
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Fred Bradley demonstrates maple sugaring in a cast-iron kettle at the 21st annual Maple Festival in Middletown Springs. CASSANDRA HOTALING / RUTLAND HERALD |
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By Cristina Kumka Staff Writer - Published: March 23, 2009
MIDDLETOWN SPRINGS — On the surface, it looked like a typical Vermont maple syrup festival — generous helpings of traditional “sugar on snow,” maple cotton candy and dozens of gallons of Grade A syrup for sale.
But upstairs at the Middletown Springs Historical Society Sunday, there were no sticky treats.
Bill Clark, longtime sugar maker and former 40-year president of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association, said the state’s maple syrup industry, estimated to be worth $200 million, has changed with the times. He spoke of what the future holds for the agricultural gold mine.
Clark said he worried what job loss as a result of the nation’s economic downturn would have on the amount of maple syrup purchased this year but also stressed the importance that more be made.
A sustainable future lies ahead for Vermont maple syrup producers and their families, according to other sugar makers and maple historians in attendance at the town’s 21st annual Maple Festival.
This week is arguably the busiest week for the local sugar makers around the state — with warm temperatures comes peak sap sweetness and the highest quality syrup, Clark said.
Although syrup prices have doubled in the last two years, Clark said an increase in supply from Canada and New England states will hold the price per gallon steady.
“I don’t see a price increase this year,” he said, sitting in front of a backdrop of an extensive display of syrup cans, antique taps and wooden sap buckets.
“But with syrup selling for even $30 to $35 a gallon, any access to maple trees is going to be a salvation to some dairy farmers,” he said.
Clark said the purchasers of top-grade Vermont maple syrup are traditionally white-collar workers, many of whom have lost their jobs in the wake of an economic recession and the usual customers may not have the income to buy the delicacy.
But the industry in Vermont is growing and more maples are being tapped each year to meet a worldwide demand, Clark said.
Last year was the most successful year on record for Vermont and for the sugaring region stretching from Maine to Ohio, Clark said. Vermont sugar makers produced more gallons of syrup than ever before — an estimated 700,000 gallons — and the country made the most profit on syrup in recent history, Clark said.
A decline in syrup production from Canada, the largest producer of maple syrup worldwide, contributed to the success and increased the price per gallon of syrup to $44 or more, he said.
Although Canada has added millions more taps, technology has made the harvesting process easier and with growing demand, local farmers need to make due on nature’s bounty, Clark said.
Clark said sugaring uses about a quarter of the energy it did years ago.
The introduction of tubing systems and reverse osmosis – a filtration process used to take out some of the sap’s water, thus sweetening it — has eased the process.
According to longtime resident Elsie Norton, who lives on the 350-acre Middletown Springs farm her father and ancestors sugared on for at least the last 100 years, the introduction of oil has also contributed to the success, as opposed to cutting down acres of timber to heat the vats.
“It still tastes like maple syrup,” Norton said.
Betty Ann Lockhart, small batch sugar maker and author, was also in attendance at the festival that doubled as a fundraiser for the society.
Lockhart said she didn’t have a doubt that sugaring was a sustainable work path for Vermont youth — because of steady demand and profitability, but most of all, tradition.
Lockhart said she knows an 18-year-old who recently built his own sugarhouse and a youth farming group in Addison County interested in the process.
“That (profit) would help but there’s an old expression,” she said.
“Once it’s in your blood, you don’t get over it … you can’t not sugar in the spring.”
The 8th Annual Vermont Maple Open House Weekend will be held at sugarhouses throughout Vermont from March 27-29. For more information, go to vermontmaple.org.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
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