Action Alert! Protect Vermont’s Pollinators, Food Systems, and Health from Toxic “Neonic” Pesticides with H.706

Farmers and Farmworkers: Do You Support A Just Transition Away from the use of Neonicotinoid Pesticides? 

Sign on to this letter and petition in support of H.706 to help demonstrate the VT farming community’s support for this legislation.

Rural VT and a number of other organizations and individuals within and without the Protect our Pollinators Coalition (petition for all folks on this website) are working to pass H.706; a bill to support the just transition away from the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in VT.  H.706 was resoundingly passed out of the House and now is in the Senate Committee on Agriculture.  The Coalition has drafted this Farmer Letter of Support as one way for us to further show how important this bill is to the greater agricultural community.

H.706 prohibits the sale or use of neonic coatings on corn, soybean, wheat and cereal seeds by 2029; prohibits outdoor uses that risk significant harm to pollinators by 2025 (flowering crops, ornamental plants, turf grass); and requires BMPs (best management practices) for permitted uses of neonics.  

This is not a bill about pitting farmers against farmers, or putting farms out of business, or transitioning land away from “conventional” dairy farming in VT.  It is not a referendum on row cropping corn in VT.  These narratives are not helpful or accurate.  This bill is discreet and targeted, it is about a single class of pesticides.  It is about meeting the realities of the data on the impacts and efficacy of neonics, and supporting a just transition for those using them and those affected by them.  

Work to limit the use of and exposure to neonics in VT has been ongoing for a number of years in VT and abroad.  There is precedent for neonic phase out and transition - very similar to this legislation - in the European Union, in Ontario, in Quebec, and now New York has passed legislation that will phase out treated seed and other uses by 2029.  Data and farmer testimony from those regions which have transitioned has shown little to no impact on crop yields or farm economics.  

At least 3 of VT’s larger member based farming organizations have come out in support of this bill:  Rural VT (see our testimony here, read it here), NOFA VT, and the Champlain Valley Farmers Coalition. The New York Farm Bureau supported the final version of the NY bill, which this bill is now very similar to.  This shows the broad agricultural support across farm types and sizes and regions despite testimony from some farms and farmers opposing the bill.

Please sign on and share your voice, as a voice in the farming community, in support of this legislation and a just transition away from neonicotinoids in Vermont.

For more information, questions, or comments reach out to graham@ruralvermont.org