Legislative Update 2.28.23

Action Alert! Champion the Federal Amendment for On-Farm Slaughter 

Early February, the wonderful Mary Lake, Rural Vermont staff and farmers from across the country had a chance to fly to D.C. to present our Petition To Clarify The Personal Use Exemption in the FMIA to lawmakers - looking for champions for the initiative (more info)! We need Sen. Welch to take leadership in his Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry - reach out to your Senator Welch, Subject Line: Clarify On-Farm Slaughter is legal! And share with his staff why clarifying that on-farm slaughter is legal matters to you.

Take Action!

  1. Keep the petition growing! Continue to sign-on & share our petition with your networks, especially with out of state supporters (individual and organizational): Sign-on here

  2. Need more info? Policy Guide On-Farm Slaughter here

  3. Find supporters, stats and testimonials in the appendix to our petition here

  4. Reach out to Senator Welch’s office and urge them to champion this campaign. Contact Jeff_VanOot@welch.senate.gov & customize this template message:
    “Dear Jeff, thank you for meeting with a group from NFFC to learn about our Petition to Clarify the Personal-Use Exemption. I am reaching out as a ____________(farmer, on-farm slaughter customer, meat processor, supporter) to urge the Senator to take leadership on clarifying that on-farm slaughter has a place in federal law. A resilient food system depends on small, direct-to-consumer farms outside of commodity agriculture, and those farms need a level playing field that can only be served by the protection and preservation of exempt market niches like the personal use exemption for on farm slaughter. Respectfully, _____________”

NFFC’s Milk from Family Dairies Act

Rural Vermont board member, Stephen Leslie, joined the NFFC fly-in to D.C. in February to promote NFFC’s Milk from Family Dairies Act. Here’s some of what Stephen had to say about the bill and his experience of the trip: “Leading up to the trip I was feeling some angst about supporting a proposal that might extend the life of a consolidating (& polluting) conventional dairy industry in VT. Even though I had studied the NFFC proposal, it wasn't until I heard Siena explain it, that I understood how it could radically reform the dairy sector through a non-monetized national quota system---incentivizing small & mid-size farms and de-consolidating the CAFO-style operations. 

For my part, I spoke to the trend of massive consolidation in our state: 2500 dairies in 1975 to less than 500 in 2023---all the while producing approximately the same volume of milk. I spoke up for the migrant workers often forced to live and work in sub-par conditions on the large farms. I talked about my own small diversified & value-added dairy farm, and how in partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) we have seen huge improvements in soil health and yields through stacking soil health practices, such as: intensive management grazing, silvopasture, riparian buffers, pollinator hedgerow, compost application, & cover cropping. I emphasized the need for USDA to funnel more conservation dollars to fully fund the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and to ensure that Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQUIP) dollars are not spent to prop up large farm operations.”

Learn more about the Milk from Family Dairies Act here
& about other priorities of the NFFC farm bill platform here

Cannabis

Rural Vermont continues to work with other member based organizations of the Cannabis Equity Coalition (NOFA VT, VT Racial Justice Alliance, Vermont Growers’ Association, and the Green Mtn. Patients’ Alliance) to advance our goals related to a racially just, economically equitable, and agriculturally accessible cannabis economy in Vermont.  We anticipate 2 bills - 1 in the House Gov. Operations Committee, and 1 in the Senate Gov. Operations Committee - coming forth soon which hope will include some of our recommendations, at least in some form.  

At this time, there are 4 bills related to VT’s cannabis policy: 

S.71 and H.270:  An act relating to miscellaneous amendments to the adult-use and medical cannabis programs.

These are bills which are largely informed by the Cannabis Control Board (CCB), these bills are likely seen as “must pass” by the Board and some members of the legislature - they are potential vehicles for our Coalitions’ goals as well.  Some of what these bills currently include:

  • Repeals the sunset of the CCB

  • New “propagation license”

  • Eliminates fingerprinting for caregivers

  • Eliminates the requirement for active therapy (for example related to particular medical conditions like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) to qualify for the medical registry.

  • Allows for cultivators to possess cannabis products.  This is also a goal of our coalition - currently cultivators can not make and sell “value added” products (other than “pre-rolls”) because they are not allowed to take back into their possession for resale any product made from the plant they grew made by a licensed manufacturer.

  • Establish a State Testing lab and 3 positions, an appropriation for $850,000.  This is a critical need for producers, consumers, and the regulatory community.  However it alone will not meet all of the challenges at the CCB which affect producers - such as positions devoted to product registration where there is a significant backlog.

S.72:  An act relating to lifting the potency limits on concentrated cannabis products

This is a standalone bill coming from the Cannabis Control Board and Sen. Sears geared at shifting the “THC” cap of value added products. 

H.300:  An act relating to establishing the afterschool and summer care grant program

There is currently 30% of the VT cannabis excise tax committed to “youth prevention”, and Act 164 (the original Act enabling recreational sales) also includes dedicated funding for the expansion of afterschool and summer learning programs from the retail sales tax.  It is not immediately clear how this proposal interacts with these existing funds and directives in law or if it is creating an entirely new program and asking for a new source of funding.

Now is a good time to contact your representatives, the Speaker of the House and the Senate Pro-Tem, and members of the House and Senate Government Operations Committees who will be hearing these bills.  You can let them know about your experiences, concerns and needs, and your support for Rural VT and the VT Cannabis Equity Coalitions’ legislative goals.  You can advocate that these goals be integrated into S.71 or H.270, and express your support for bills coming to the Government Operations Committee which will already include aspects of some of these recommendations.  S.71 and H.270 are potential vehicles for addressing our goals as they are seen as bills including “miscellaneous” (or unrelated) aspects of legislative change, and are likely perceived as “must pass” bills by the Cannabis Control Board and some members of the legislature.

Streamlining “Ecosystem Service” Incentive Programs 

Small Farm Action Day is a collaboration of NOFA-VT and Rural Vermont. This years first event on February 21st focussed on: Vermont and “Payments for Ecosystem Services” - What Structural Reforms are Needed to Advance Functional Ecosystems and Farm Viability? Farmers, service providers, activists, and researchers, were sharing their desires and recommendations for programmatic solutions with lawmakers to better support and incentivize farm and forestry practices to address the climate challenges of our time.

The Small Farmer Cohort around Cat Buxton (that RV is part of) got the opportunity to speak to the past three years working alongside the PES and Soil Health Working Group. Two major successes for the Small Farmer Cohort are a) the final consensus decision towards a pilot program to enhance the Conservation Stewardship Program - similar to what the group recommended in 2021; and b) the final report making clear statements against any efforts to monetize nature. 

The Vermont Agency for Agriculture, Food, and Markets announced that a legislative proposal to codify the Vermont enhancement to CSP is currently being developed as a pilot program with an existing appropriation (Act 185, Sec. B.1100(a)(7)(A)) and will not be proposed to the legislature for codification until 2025. 

In consequence, Small Farm Action Day stressed to legislators not to wait until 2025 but to act on WHAT CAN BE DONE NOW to:

  1. Hear from the PES & Soil Health WG directly, especially from the farmers on the group, about their experiences and takeaways from the WG process.

  2. Address the complex issue of how to improve agricultural programs. Hear more from farmers about their policy recommendations!

  3. Endorse the Conservation Districts request to increase their baseline funding to 3M. 

Each of the presentations was tremendously rich and meaningful, reaching from how current programs already aim to incentivise Ecosystem Services, to revealing “PES” as false solutions that benefit first and foremost Natural Asset Companies (NAC’s), to sharing efforts on farmer led decision making, to sharing farmer perspectives on pre-existing shortfalls and recommendations for improvements, and more! Beyond that, the national and international narrative of what “PES” means was eloquently dismantled by Julie Davenson, Board President NOFA-NH:

“Natural Asset Companies (“NACs”) claim that by valuating these ecosystem services we are able to protect them from further degradation. In reality, they are justifying their attempts to create new markets by commodifying nature in pursuit of endless growth. For over a millennia, indigenous peoples have valued, honored and respected nature without assigning a monetary value to it. Today’s financial systems are built on an endless growth continuum and PES, NACs and Carbon Credits are designed to extract as much wealth as possible from nature.”

Rural Vermont and the Small Farmer Cohort are working towards legislation that would make the various existing “Payment for Ecosystem Programs” work better, especially for small farmers. That includes further exploring the idea to develop a web portal to aggregate various programs, making discovery and application easier for farmers. Improved interface interoperability would also eliminate pre-existing redundancies. 

We hope you feel encouraged to learn more & watch one of the recordings of the event. 

Please do reach out to us & share your thoughts on shortfalls of existing programs; your ideas for addressing them & any thoughts on what you’ve learned about PES, Nature Asset Companies and how farmers would be disadvantaged through market solutions that aim to monetize nature. Share your testimonial with Rural Vermont here. 

Watch the recordings:

  • Testimonials to the Senate Committee on Agriculture: Full Recording here, including Dan Brooks from Wayward Goose Farm about how Beavers are forgotten in Conservation Planning. 

  • Testimonials to the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry: Full Recording here

  • Panel Food and Climate: Carbon Market Pitfalls & Better Strategies for Regenerative Organic Practices: Full Recording available here

Written testimonials & handouts: 

  • Mario Machado, Postdoctoral Researcher, Gund Institute, UVM (handout, report)

  • Julie Davenson, President, Board of Directors NOFA-NH (handout)

  • Jennifer Bryne, District Manager, White River Natural Resources Conservation District (report Vermont Farmer Perspectives on Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) Programs: A Summary Report)

  • Cat Buxton, Soil Health Working Group representative, Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition (handout)

  • Stephen Leslie, Owner, Cedar Mountain Farm (handout)

  • Daniel Brooks, Wayward Goose Farm (handout)

  • Abe Collins, Co-Founder, Land Care Cooperative (presentation)

Food Residuals - Call to Regulate Depackaging Technology

The Protect Our Soils Coalition (POS) is working to protect the Universal Recycling Law (URL), the law that banned food scraps from the landfill, with a goal to close-the-nutrient loop by diverting organics to their best and highest use in accordance with a management hierarchy. POS argues that depackaging technology is currently illegal, because it does not require “source separation” - generators to separate their food scraps from non compostable trash and recycling at the point of generation. Instead, it allows service providers like Casella, to offer “zero sort” type systems where they pick up mixed loads and separate them mechanically through depackaging technology at their facility in Williston, Vermont. POS argues: “This practice creates new resource concerns that the Universal Recycling Law was intended to solve and hinders market development for small scale composters.” Resource concerns include a presumed greater likelihood for contamination of organics and water with microplastics (including PFAS) through depackaging technology (zero sort) vs. separation of the different resources at the point of generation (source separation). Last year, POS advocated successfully for the creation of a stakeholder group that recommended policy changes. That stakeholder group expressed a shared desire for more clarity through better public outreach and education from the Agency of Natural Resources and clear definitions and parameters for the use of depackaging technology. 

Next steps:

  1. ANR has presented their draft to rewrite their 2019 policy - read more here. Share your written comments on the draft policy with Ben Gauthier by email on or before March 16, 2023 (Benjamin.Gauthier@vermont.gov)

  2. The POS coalition is advocating to a) set parameters for the continued use of depackaging technology as a niche in law, e.g. for managing homogenous loads of food manufacturing businesses and b) to prohibit the application of end products from depack on agricultural lands. Stay tuned for action alerts & join POS here.

  3. Call your legislator today (find your legislator here) & say that you want:

    1. food scraps to be diverted to their highest and best use

    2. that “zero sort” management systems disadvantage small farmers and composters in the marketplace

    3. depackaging technology needs to be regulated as a niche, en large for homogeneous loads from food manufacturing businesses &

    4. A ban on the land application of end products from depackaging technology to mitigate PFAS & microplastic contamination now!

Right to Farm

This request from the Farm Bureau, the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance and supporting farms is being considered by the Senate Committee on Agriculture as a committee bill, Draft 2.3. Last year, the “Right to Farm” law had been worked on as well, which resulted in the successful expansion of the lists of activities that are now encompassed under the nuisance protection. Important to note is that this expansion included the change or expansion of farming practices so that transitioning farms are better protected. Read more about the most recent changes in Section 10 of Act 162, 2022.  

It is indeed important to protect farms from unreasonable nuisance complaints and Rural Vermont believes the existing law is adequate, and the suggested changes are potentially harmful.  These laws are ideally guided by the need to protect small farms from nuisance lawsuits having to do with the inherent nature of farms as non-farm development has increased, yet these laws have spread and been adapted by organizations such as ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) to protect ever larger farms, confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and agribusiness. Different states have different Right to Farm laws of various strengths: some provide iron clad protection to farms, while others provide less, allowing neighbors to pursue civil action against disruptive farms in certain cases.  Rural Vermont has received clear feedback from our national allies in the National Family Farm Coalition that many expanded “Right to Farm” laws have been used to effectively displace and disadvantage small farms, and to prevent communities from defending themselves and their lands and waters in States such as Missouri, North Carolina, and more.  

This year, the most current bill draft would suggest that an agricultural activity:

  1. shall not be a nuisance or trespass when the activity has been in operation for more than one year and the activity was not a nuisance at the time the activity was initiated, or 

  2. complies with generally accepted agricultural practices. 

  3. is not protected whenever a nuisance or trespass violation results from the negligent operation of an agricultural activity or from a violation of the State agricultural water quality requirements. 

  4. shall not lose nuisance or trespass protection due to a change of ownership or a cessation of operation of not more than five years; a change of crops produced; or 

  5. a change of a farming method or conversion of a farming practice or agricultural activity to another farming method, practice, or agricultural activity on a farm. 

  6. The act would also provide that the conflicting parties, at least once, attempt to resolve through mediation (though this mediation would not extend the 1 year deadline for the plaintiff to file suit).

Furthermore, the bill would remove an exemption which states that farms are not protected from lawsuit if “the activity has a substantial adverse effect on health, safety, or welfare, or has a noxious and significant interference with the use and enjoyment of the neighboring property.” (12 V.S.A. § 5753). The draft also removes language stating that the legal protection shall not “be construed to limit the authority of State or local boards of health to abate nuisances affecting the public health” (12 V.S.A. § 5753). By removing these clauses the new Right to Farm bill would make pressing charges against a farm much harder. The draft conserves some important aspects of the current Right to Farm bill, including that farms are only protected if they comply with the state’s Required Agricultural Practices (RAPs) and Rule of Control of Pesticides.  One Large Farm Operation providing testimony stated that this bill was written to extend the definition of farming to include biogas digesters on farms, limiting neighbors’ and towns’ abilities to have oversight of, and influence on, such a form of development.  

Opposition to the bill was well articulated by by Scott Sanderson from the Conservation Law 

Foundation, watch testimonials from 2/23 here. Scott wrote to the committee (emphasis added): “CLF opposes Draft 2.3 because the bill does not solve a problem: nuisance and trespass lawsuits against farms are rare and do not threaten Vermont’s farm economy. Moreover, Draft 2.3, [...], curtails property rights; limits Vermonters’ recourse to the courts when they have no other option to protect their property, health, and welfare; and upsets the careful balance established by Vermont’s existing right-to-farm law. Last, Draft 2.3 introduces new concerns: it applies a “generally accepted agricultural practices” standard that further erodes property rights; it establishes a mediation requirement that is unlikely to resolve disputes between farmers and neighboring landowners; and it creates factual issues that are likely to complicate court proceedings. For these reasons, CLF opposes Draft 2.3. We urge the Committee to preserve Vermont’s existing right-to-farm law.”

For more info and up-to-date drafts and testimonies of the bill, you can follow it here.

H.145 - Organic Dairy Relief

We are in support of NOFA-VT’s ACTION ALERT: Call your rep to save organic dairies click here. 

Update:The request is for $9.2 million in relief funding to help keep Organic dairies from going out of business, which the House passed on 2/2/23 in H.145, the FY 2023 Budget Adjustment Act. The Senate took the provision out of their version of the BAA, being technical about it and suggesting to place it in the FY24 budget or in a stand-alone legislation.

Earlier, organic dairy farmers testified in a joint hearing organized by NOFA-VT on 1/26/23 to the Senate Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry (or, “House Ag”). Legislators heard firsthand the extent to which the free-falling Organic milk prices are impacting farmers. NOFA-VT released a concise, powerful edit of testimony highlights here.

This one time request is not the structural change we need but can help prevent many of Vermont’s Organic dairies from disappearing. With many of these farms on the brink of bankruptcy, their loss would be a tragedy for Vermont’s grasslands, climate strategy, dairy industry, milk drinkers, and more. For more info see NOFA-VT’s action alert and infographics.

H.165 - An act relating to school food programs and universal school meals

The Vermont Legislature is seeking to extend the school meal coverage plan it implemented initially as a COVID relief strategy. H.165 would fund breakfast and lunch for Vermont students at public schools, and publicly-tuitioned private school students by appropriating $29M from the Education Fund to the Agency of Education for fiscal year 2024. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Erin Brady of Chittenden and the House Education Committee but is currently on the way to the House floor after a 9-2-0 favorable vote in the new House Agriculture, Food Resilience and Forestry committee. The new language includes students attending an approved independent school on public tuition, including prekindergarten children, if their school offers a school lunch program.

H.205 - An act relating to establishing the Small Farm Diversification and Transition Program

Lead by former dairy farmer Rep. Rodney Graham and diversified small farmer Rep. Heather Suprenant, H.205 is sponsored by the entire House Ag Committee and more, and introduces the “Small Farm Diversification and Transition Program” within VAAFM, a new grant program with $250K appropriated from the general fund. Grants are to be used for small farms for (1) diversifying commodities, (2) transitioning farm type, (3) on-farm processing, or (4) add on-farm accessory businesses. 

This bill seems to be in the early stages as the House Ag Committee is still exploring expected uses for the funds and grant limits and processes. 

H.126 - An act relating to community resilience and biodiversity protection (conservation mandate)

H.126, which is still in committee in the House Committee on Environment and Energy, mandates conservation goals for Vermont in alignment with federal and global “30 by 30” initiatives: to conserve 30% of Vermont by 2030, and 50% by 2050. This includes private, municipal, state, and federal land, and “conservation” just means more than half of the parcel is protected from development or in a wildlife production initiative. Without making additional funding available, the bill encourages research and reporting and generally charges the Agency of Natural Resources with the task of meeting those conservation deadlines!

Did you know? During Small Farm Action Day, Farmer and Rural Vermont Board Member Stephen Leslie testified, that: 

“Beginning in 2010, and for the first time in over one-hundred years, Vermont is again losing forest to the tune of 1150 acres a year. Unchecked development, clear cutting and fragmentation all threaten the health and connectivity of woodlands.

50% of the carbon stored in a forest is held by the top 1% of the biggest trees. New findings show that, young trees are net emitters of carbon until they reach about twenty years and that although it is not as rapid as in young trees, sequestration is greatest from the growth period of 50 years to 150 years of age and is continuous after that. In terms of immediate impact in the midst of the climate crisis & loss of biodiversity, the most consequential action we can can take in the northeast is to protect our mature forests.

In the last biennium law makers passed a far-reaching conservation measure---now known as the “Biodiversity Bill”. The original bill was vetoed by the governor but it is being reintroduced as H.126 in this biennium. The bill is on a par with President Joe Biden's “30 x30 & 50 x50” executive order, which sets a goal to conserve 30% of all land and waters nationwide by 2030 and 50% by 2050. A 30x30---50x50 initiative was also adopted this past December 2022 by international delegates at the COP 15 gathering on Biodiversity held in Montreal. Vermont already has 24% of it’s land protected under three tiers of conservation. We can easily meet

the 30 x30 goal by permanently protecting all forests on public land (including state and national forests which comprise about 10% of all VT woodlands).”

Current Use: Land Use Change Tax Streamline

The Vermont Department of Taxes, with support from the department of Forest Parks and Recreation and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets, is requesting to reshape how the “Land Use Change Tax” is calculated. The “Land Use Change Tax” is the fee or penalty that landowners pay when they withdraw land from the Current Use program, so its calculation has big implications for how much land gets enrolled and stays enrolled. The current schema makes it impossible to know how big the penalty will be when land is withdrawn from Current Use, and results in surprising and hugely ranging fees. This makes enrolling in Current Use less attractive. And, according to testimony from the Dept of Taxes, the way the penalty is currently calculated is “difficult if not impossible to administer” because it puts a huge burden on town administrators, as well as state tax people.

According to the Dept. of Taxes, the changes will not increases fees on average, but will redistribute the cost of the penalty to be more equitable, and easy to calculate and administer. 

Good idea! Dan Brooks from Wayward Goose farm was advocating during Small Farm Action Day on 2/21 for a policy recommendation of Sarah Flack that suggests a New Wetlands Current Use Category with No Tax to incentivize farmers and foresters to allow for more beaver habitat and wetlands. “Given the growing likelihood of year round hot/dry weather due to climate change, I am alarmed by the lack of any mention of beavers and the critical roles they play in mitigating drought as well as flooding and all of the other ecosystem services they provide…” Read more from Dan about this here.

Take action in support and email these officials together Subject Line: Beavers: New Wetlands Current Use Category with no tax

Jill.remick@vermont.gov - Director of Property Valuation and Review, Department of Taxes 

laura.lapierre@vermont.gov - Wetlands Program Manager, Agency of Natural Resources

hannah.smith@vermont.gov - Associate General Counsel, Agency of Natural Resources

Take Action on Healthcare!

59 House members have introduced H156! It creates a clear roadmap for publicly financed health care for all Vermonters! (A companion bill S74 has also been introduced in the Senate). Legislators need pressure to take up these bills. Contact the House Health Care Committee and the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. Tell these committees we need these bills considered and passed. These bills deserve a hearing! They would phase in a universal health care system, starting with Universal Primary Care, including outpatient mental health and substance use disorder treatment. They also propose adding preventive dental and vision care in the second year, and incorporating additional health care services in later years until we have universal access for all sectors of care. (More information on the bills here).

Rural Vermont