Anson Tebbetts can tell you not only the number of teats on a cow but how to squeeze them without catching a faceful of raw milk. That's because, long before he left a job in television news to become Vermont's secretary of agriculture, Tebbetts spent his mornings crouched beneath cows at his parents' hillside dairy farm — a routine he maintained even after he had become a recognizable face in Vermont.

"I'm not a field guy," Tebbetts, a Cabot native, said, "but I love animals."

While there's no doubt that Tebbetts understands what it's like to walk in the shoes of the farmers he regulates, just as important has been his ability to talk the talk.

Tebbetts, 57, is the face of Vermont agriculture, an authentic ambassador for the state's farmers at a time when the public is more removed than ever from the work they do.

He has filled this role at a precarious time for the industry he grew up in: During his six-year tenure, the number of dairy farms in Vermont has fallen from just over 840 to 501, a decline that has been driven by factors beyond his control.

His task, as he sees it, is to remind Vermonters of the importance of their farms and the people who run them — for the economy, the food system and the landscape.

"Farmers have a wonderful story to tell," Tebbetts said. "They are stewards of our land. They're taking care of incredible animals. They're feeding people. They have lots of employees and complex systems all working together. And like anyone, they have good days and bad days. So I encourage them to always tell their story, because it's meaningful and it's authentic."

Tebbetts' own story took shape during the many hours spent in the barn of his parents' Maple Grove Farm, where the constant company of Boston-based radio announcers convinced him that he, too, wanted to tell stories for a living. After graduating from Cabot High School — where he was prom king, besting the four other boys in his class — Tebbetts headed to Emerson College in Boston to pursue a degree in communications.

The transition wasn't easy. At the time, newscasters were expected to sound like they were plucked straight out of Middle America, and Tebbetts had to learn to find the Ts that his Vermont accent had dropped long ago. His stoic, farm-kid demeanor wasn't the affable, polished presence TV viewers had come to expect. One of his professors finally recommended a fix: Buy a stuffed cow and put it on top of the camera. "Then you'll smile," she told him, "because you'll feel like you're at home."

That did the trick. After six years working for radio station WDEV, Tebbetts joined WCAX-TV in 1994, where he was tapped to cover the Statehouse. He became known as a dogged reporter who could quickly digest complex issues — and push officials beyond their comfortable talking points.

Roberta MacDonald, a retired Cabot Creamery executive who once worked for former governor Madeleine Kunin, said Tebbetts represented what had become a dying breed in the television industry: reporters who had been around long enough to "get past just listening and really dig."

"He had time to do his homework and didn't just take you at your word," she said.

Tebbetts also proved to be an equally capable features reporter, according to Roger Garrity, who succeeded Tebbetts as WCAX's news director after working with him for years. "For my money, that's what Anson was best at: finding and telling stories about Vermont and real Vermonters," Garrity said.

It helped that Tebbetts never strayed far from his modest upbringing. As a young man, he moved into a house on his parents' property and continued helping out on their farm until his father's death in 2001. A Times Argus profile in 1998 described how the then-32-year-old balanced his two lives. "I wouldn't do this if I didn't love it," he told the reporter during an early morning milking. "I just have to take a shower before going on television."

These days, Tebbetts splits his time between Cabot and South Burlington, where he and his wife, Vicky, own a second home. Back at the family farm, he has an unusual mix of large pets: a pair of sheep and three miniature donkeys that he bought on a whim from an old farmer a couple of years ago.

"Go easy on the ass jokes," he said to a companion as he took the trio out for a walk earlier this month.

In 2007, when newly appointed agriculture secretary Roger Allbee began looking for a deputy who could help him explain to the public the many changes under way in the dairy industry, Tebbetts came to mind. "He was a perfect fit," Allbee said, pointing to Tebbetts' background in farming and his communication skills.

Tebbetts worked under Allbee for two years, then returned to WCAX as news director. In 2016, he accepted Gov. Phil Scott's offer to become agriculture secretary.

The cabinet position has historically been filled either by dairymen or their offspring, and all past secretaries have been boosters of the industry. But while he fits the mold, Tebbetts has inherited a far more complex challenge than his predecessors, his former boss said.

"There's very few people engaged in farming today, and therefore there's a great lack of understanding of the complexities of working the land," Allbee said. "Agriculture, it's science. It's economics. It's social. It's landscape. All these things that are hard for the public to put together."

Tebbetts oversees a $51 million budget and a staff of nearly 150 with a surprisingly broad charge: The Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets regulates everything from gas pumps and deli scales to agricultural water quality. But dairy still looms large, even as the number of farms has plummeted.

That's partly because dairy farms have been identified as a significant polluter of Vermont's waterways, spurring environmental groups to argue that the agency tasked with promoting dairy farming should not also be in charge of regulating it.

But it's also because dairy still holds so much sway over the collective vision of what Vermont is: a rolling landscape dotted with red barns and grazing cows. Tebbetts, noting that 75 percent of the state's working lands are still dairy farms, said the look of Vermont could drastically change if dairy farms continue to fold. "So it's very important that we do our best to protect them," he added.

There are limits to what the state can do. Dairy farmers need, above all, more money in their pockets, but milk prices are set nationally, and there's no consensus on whether the state should subsidize the market. People today also are drinking less milk than in the past. And Vermont's small farms can't easily compete with the economies of scale seen in sprawling operations out west.

Tebbetts expressed frustration with the federal milk pricing system but said he has tried to focus instead on things he can control. He's sought to help dairy farmers update their operations through grant programs such as the Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center. The U.S. Department of Agriculture program, which Tebbetts lobbied to have established in Vermont, issues grants to help farmers diversify their businesses, upgrade milk tank capacity and embrace new packaging.

He's also tried to help struggling dairy farmers pivot to other ventures, such as when his agency awarded a $150,000 grant to the Joneslan Farm in Hyde Park in 2020 to help the fifth-generation farmers transition from cows to goats.

And, to mitigate the impact of new water quality regulations, Tebbetts successfully advocated for an incentive program that pays farmers who reduce phosphorus runoff from their fields.

But perhaps Tebbetts' most visible efforts have been on social media, where he's tried to highlight positive stories about farmers: of hope, resiliency and innovation.

During a public tour of the Hardwick goat dairy Bridgman Hill Farm earlier this month, Tebbetts quietly broke away from the crowd to snap pictures with his cellphone. He later whipped out a small GoPro from the back pocket of his Carhartt pants and posed for a selfie in front of some curious goats. He posted the photos to Instagram later that night with the hashtags "#goats #dairy #milk."

While Tebbetts acknowledges that it's hard to know whether his efforts to promote ag have done much, if anything, to slow the decline of dairying in Vermont, farmers seem to notice that he's helping them be seen and understood.

Jed Davis, an executive at Agri-Mark dairy cooperative, recalled how Tebbetts opened a meeting with farmers in Addison County a few years ago by sharing his personal cellphone number from the podium. "He gets out; he's available," Davis said. "He's also the first secretary we've had who's engaged in social media to the extent that he is." And he's using his platform to speak "in support of farmers, not in place of them."

"He's trying to elevate and center their voices in a conversation that's critical to this state," Davis said.

One key constituency Tebbetts appears to still be courting is lawmakers, who gave a lukewarm reception to his two main proposals this year.

They slashed his funding request for the meat processing, maple and produce industries, from $10 million to $3 million. And they funded only half of the $4 million request Tebbetts made for the Working Lands Enterprise Fund, a grant program meant to stimulate economic development in the agricultural and forestry sectors.

Tebbetts said he harbors no hard feelings about the reductions. But he still wishes he could accomplish more, knowing that the unrelenting pressure on Vermont's dairy industry will lead to further consolidation and more empty barns. The victims of these changes will likely include families he's visited over the years. He knows every farm can't be saved, but that doesn't mean the losses go down any easier.

"What am I doing wrong that I can't convince people it's worth investing in agriculture?" he said, giving voice to his internal fears.

Could his desire to make a greater impact convince him to seek higher office one day? A Republican in a state with a weak GOP bench, Tebbetts is often asked whether he'd throw his hat into the ring. Some think he'd have a shot to succeed his popular boss, Scott, viewing him as cut from the same moderate cloth.

But Tebbetts shrugged off a question about his political ambitions with an answer that could give a future campaign manager heartburn: "I don't have a grand vision. I don't have a plan. I just kind of go day by day," he said.

"If it's the right opportunity..." he added, trailing off. "We'll see. But right now, it's all about agriculture."