My maple farm in Morgan, Vermont, has been in the family for four generations, since my grandfather started making maple syrup professionally in the 1920s. I’ve run the place since the late ’70s. The farm is on 200 acres of land, with 50 acres of mostly sugar maples. I run the operation full-time and make up to 1,600 gallons of syrup each year. (Commercial growers make about 5,000.) We sell around a third of our products in bulk to packers who supply big stores, like Walmart or Trader Joe’s, and the other two-thirds to local stores and through our website.

In 1978 I wanted to expand our operations—and I knew I had to go to Canada to learn how. Nearly all of the maple syrup equipment in the world is manufactured there. And so I drove up to the manufacturers and suppliers in Quebec to learn about the equipment I could use to increase my maple production. Today, all of the tools in our sugar house are manufactured in Canada, as well as our tanks, pumps, filter presses and pipelines.

We live and run our business close to the Canadian border, which has always been super-fluid for maple syrup production. In the 1960s, the five-mile area closest to the Canadian border was declared a duty-free zone. All Canadian manufacturers have warehouses in Vermont in that area so U.S. buyers can easily access their products. When we need to purchase, we call up Lapierre or CDL, our go-to equipment spots in Quebec. Then they bring their goods over the border to their Vermont warehouses.........

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