Students tap a tree for maple syrup in Randolph, Vermont, on 20 May 2024. Photograph: Olivia Gieger/The Guardian

Maple syrup is a good example of what we call taste of place products, and we are happy to see the next generation in Vermont adapting the making of this one for the future:

‘It’s the future of sugar’: new technology feeds Vermont maple syrup boom amid climate crisis

With tools as seemingly simple as these blue tubes, it’s easier than ever to extract sap from maple trees, as these young people demonstrated during a Future Farmers of America convention on 20 May. Photograph: Olivia Gieger/The Guardian

The season to tap trees is now earlier and longer, but new processes and generations are helping the industry thrive

On a warm May Monday, more than three dozen high school students took to the forest behind a former dairy barn at Vermont State University in Randolph.

In teams of four, they ran blue plastic tubing from tree to tree, racing to connect the tubes across three trees in 30 minutes. One student leaned back and pulled it taut with his body weight while another secured tube to tree. Quickly, they dashed to the next in what appears to be a twisted tug-of-war.

Another group panicked as water gushed from a bucket hanging from the side of a tree. If the students had run the lines correctly, sap (or in this case, water) should have flowed through the channel and streamed out the other end. But something wasn’t working for this second group; the water didn’t move.

“Try to figure out where there’s blockage!” Lynn Wolfe shouted from a few feet away. A farmer and an educator, Wolfe designed this event, the fifth-annual maple career day through the University of Vermont and the local environmental educator Shelburne Farms.

These students were testing their knowledge of all things maple, from syrup grading to this mock-tapping activity. They came to Randolph from technical high schools and career development programs across the state. The event was part of a larger two-day Future Farmers of America convention, where they practiced a range of agricultural skills in competitions. The afternoon dedicated to maple tapping and syrup production is the only one of its kind in the country…

Read the whole article here.