Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Now it's passed out

[Speaker 1]: of appropriations. Appropriations has has amended it. Okay. Yep. Do you have sharing permission? I don't have sharing right now. Okay. We need to let Mike have ability to put this bill up on the screen.

[Speaker 0]: So if it passed the house, does it go to senate ag? Does it go to

[Speaker 1]: So to the this was a Senate bill, S-sixty. We worked on it. We amended it. If it passes the House, then it'll go back to the Senate, and they will decide what to do with it.

[Speaker 0]: It was an ag there, right?

[Speaker 1]: He might have sent an ag, yeah, I believe.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Here we go.

[Speaker 2]: Should I begin? Yes. This is Michael Graney, office of legislative council. I'm gonna walk you through the House Appropriations Committee's amendment to f 60. It generally addresses or there's five categories of amendments. One is this technical amendments, and I'll talk to you about why they're technical in a minute. The second category is that the committee asks for any reference to climate or climate change to be removed because they didn't want to create controversy or discussion or debate about climate on the floor. The third is as the chair referenced representative of Groening's amendment about the information that's supplied in an application has been incorporated. The fourth amends the administrative use of the fund by the agency. And the fifth is a contingency clause about implementation of the program if there is no appropriation for the program. So the first, instance of amendment is three amendments to the findings clause where there were references to climate or climate, emergencies. So in the first instance, the term climate fueled was struck out and inserting and move thereof weather based. Second, in subdivision for a, the reference to climate resilience was changed to just resilience. Then for c, reference to climate emergencies and extreme weather, they combine that to just say weather based emergencies. Emergencies. Moving on, the second instance of amendment is technical. And why are we making these tactical amendments? Because you enacted the Vermonters feeding Vermonters program last year in the same subchapter and with the same section numbers in title six that this would have been in. And we do that all the time. And what we do normally when those things pass in the same session, we just use our statutory revision authority to just change one or the other. So I didn't have any concern about it last year. But this year, I can't codify something as already being in this in that section that's been codified in law. I can't use statutory revision to do that. And then so we have to change the subchapter heading from subchapter four to subchapter five, and we have to change all of the references to the section numbers for the program from forty six forty one or forty six four 34 to forty six forty four. But that's what the second, third, fourth, fifth, and part of the sixth amendment too. It just makes those technical changes to move this program from subchapter four forty six three hundred into, forty six four subchapter five and forty six four. But in the sixth instance of amendment, this is the representative of granting amendment. She wanted in the application that the secretary is required to develop for awards that it include a list of any state grants or loans received for the purposes of farmer forestry operation business in the past five years to include amount, source, and purposes of the funding received. And it's part of I mean, she testified to you about why she wanted this. And she testified similarly to house appropriations.

[Speaker 1]: Should I move on? Representative Burtt.

[Speaker 3]: Was that on the original in the bill?

[Speaker 2]: What was originally in was subsection b, the b one, two, four, and five. The what is new is three.

[Speaker 0]: Representative O'Brien. In statute, is there a definition of weather versus climate? Because I know in a lot of ways, weather is sort of day to day, climate sort of big, small terms. I just wondered how

[Speaker 2]: What's in the bill is a definition of weather based, or extreme weather, I'm sorry, I had to find a version of the bill.

[Speaker 1]: You have a definition sectioned beginning Yes. And whether it's in there. Sounds like it's it's now in there.

[Speaker 2]: Eligible weather condition is what it's in. And it's any of the following weather conditions that are found to be closely correlated with agriculture or forest operation, high winds, excessive moisture, intense precipitation or flooding, extreme heat, abnormal freeze conditions, a forest fire, wildfire event, hail, drought, or any other severe weather or growing conditions impacting agricultural forestry operations income.

[Speaker 4]: Representative, please. Thank you. Mike, subsection re references forestry operations, but the title of the bill on early page, it didn't reference reference forestry. Was that purposeful, or was that

[Speaker 2]: We're gonna get to the very end of the bill is where you change titles to the bill the amendment of this amendment. Very end of the amendment is where you change titles. And you don't actually officially have the authority to change the title. You recommend to the house clerk or the senate secretary whether to change the title. They they usually do, but sometimes, especially the senate secretary will write his own title. So just be aware of that. And he usually doesn't do that until he's about to sign it to the government.

[Speaker 1]: And just before we move on, section here, this amendment and the additional language three there, we had looked at that back in the spring, and the committee had taken some testimony and heard that the stakeholders were all supportive of it. And we took a straw poll, I think, and we're prepared to, on the floor at the time, say, yes, we're okay with this amendment. So it's been incorporated now into this new amendment, so just as a refresher. It is online.

[Speaker 0]: What's that?

[Speaker 1]: It's not online.

[Speaker 2]: You can find it on the committee of appropriations website from yesterday.

[Speaker 1]: And we'll get it posted on our page too.

[Speaker 0]: Representative O'Brien. So it's just state grants. It's not NRCS grants or conservation district grants. We're just focusing on state grants.

[Speaker 2]: It right now, it's state grants alone. I think representative is concerned about applicants being multiple awardees and and potentially reducing opportunity for other awardees who haven't been awarded in the past. And whether or not that should be part of So there's no priority system in this bill, right? You apply, you're eligible. It's a eligible condition. The board determines what the amount of the award is going to be. But she believes this information should be helpful in saying what your award should be, whether or not others who've never received anything should receive more than you.

[Speaker 0]: So in the case of the first two years of floods, a farm got those, that was federal money, but it was administrated by ag, that's not

[Speaker 2]: I mean, it depends on the program. Some of those programs are, you get the federal money, but it's run through a state program because the state cost shares. It is a state program.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]: So it will depend on the program. Okay.

[Speaker 4]: That federal money, John, comes in so slow that cobwebs are growing. We had two two two winners. Yeah. We're we're still waiting on '23, '24.

[Speaker 2]: But but think the NRCS BNP money, that's that's a state program, but it's funded largely through NRCS. But there's state funds in that program too. If they got money from that, they would have to report that.

[Speaker 0]: That'd be the agency, right, deciding what needs to be forwarded.

[Speaker 1]: Let's keep going then.

[Speaker 2]: In the next instance of amendment, may recall that you allowed the Secretary of Agriculture to use up to $67,500 annually from the Fund for the purposes of administering payments from the Fund. But later on, you're going to see that this entire program is contingent on appropriations received from the general assembly. Representative Stevens made the point, well, you shouldn't be using a specific dollar amount. Like, first of all, it may or may not cover the whole cost of the program at the agency. And second, you don't even know what money that's gonna be there is going to be there. So don't focus on a dollar amount, just give the agency the ability to reasonable administrative expenses from the fund for purpose of administering the requirements of the subcharge.

[Speaker 1]: That's fine by me. And maybe just likely if you can hold on to for the next time we're doing something like this.

[Speaker 2]: Should I move on?

[Speaker 1]: Yeah. The

[Speaker 2]: next is a technical, another technical change, 4634 to 4,644. The eighth amendment, there were references to the terms of certain members and they they were off. Subdivision b three is the state recovery officer, and and that's an ex officio person. They don't have a staggered term. They're always gonna be on there. It should have been to B4, which is the representatives of agriculture operation. And in addition, Subdivision B4 should have been referencing Subdivision 5, which is farmers. And Subdivision B 5 should have been referencing Subdivision B 6, which are the representatives of forestry operation. I think that was my mistake when we added forestry operations. I didn't tweak these cross references to the the member terms, but they're fixed here. The ninth instance of amendment has a spelling error in the title. It's already been fixed by the house clerk. Will appear correctly tomorrow on your calendar. It provides that the duty to implement section two, the Farm and Forestry Operations Security Special Fund, is contingent upon an appropriation of funds in fiscal year 2027 or subsequent fiscal years from the general fund to the agency for the specific purposes described in section two of the sec. Your appropriations committee and the senate appropriations committee is using this type of language for almost every new program that requires an appropriation. What does that mean? If this is passed by both bodies and is signed by the governor, it will be incorporated into the green books. It will be statute, but the secretary will have no authority or no requirement to implement this program unless the appropriation is provided in this fiscal year or subsequent fiscal years. So it's an on off switch. And appropriations controls it via what they put in the big bill at the end of the year.

[Speaker 4]: Yeah. Thank you, John. Counsel. So would that preclude this being a vehicle if we had drought and the federal government moved rapidly and said we're gonna send the Northeast states $10,000,000 each to cover their drought losses. Would this preclude this and they're gonna send it to the state agencies of agriculture? We'll just preclude this from being a vehicle for that money to go about the farmers quickly. Get if appropriations did give us a near mark during session, And I'll

[Speaker 2]: They won't be able to use this program. It wouldn't it wouldn't it wouldn't be implementable. But you would still move the state would still move that money through another program. I mean, if you got a $100,000,000 for drought, we you would figure out a way to move that money.

[Speaker 4]: Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]: But if the legislature put a dollar into this fund, could that have the possibility of other philanthropic or

[Speaker 2]: That is possible. I mean, if you want to keep the fund alive as a vehicle for any federal aid because you do allow this fund to receive funds from federal government for state supported farmers for part of your operation suffering income loss due to weather conditions. So if they just wanted to to have this effectively be a receptacle for federal funds, to receive those federal funds and then move them, they could probably propose that in the agency budget each fiscal year.

[Speaker 1]: All right. Well, let's follow that thought.

[Speaker 0]: I just wondered if there's a sort of de minimis floor. Does the secretary get to say, well, they only appropriate $20,000 Are there some leftover, say, for the following year because it wasn't all cleaned? At what point can the Secretary say it's not really worth it to distribute this?

[Speaker 2]: Well, that's the appropriation process. I mean, if they're going to come forward with this in their budget, the appropriations committee, they parse things down to the dime. And so they will ask, well, is this necessary? Why is it necessary? Why do you need this amount? What for? Give us a breakout. And then they'll do the reverse. Is this enough to run your program? So that's the appropriation.

[Speaker 0]: It can be up to the agency or the secretary to figure out, like, how much have you heard we lost from the drought in Vermont this year?

[Speaker 1]: 16,000,000 was the report, I think, from around. Representative Burtt? If

[Speaker 3]: I have a bill that would have R and tax and stolen it would be back to the foreign security fund, but it's simply coming along. I'm assuming the wording is contingent upon an appropriation of funds if if there was tax that was going to it yearly.

[Speaker 2]: If the tax doesn't go directly to the fund, the tax goes most likely to well, I need to check with JFO. It goes to the treasurer, and then the treasurer deposits it into a fund.

[Speaker 3]: So it's still technically.

[Speaker 2]: It's still technically. You need to move that money appropriately. But I can check with JFO about that. Just curious. And the aspect is, I mean, you see advocates here, not the ones that have been really focused on this, but they'll let you know if they think the fund's not adequately capitalized. I mean, think of working lands. How often do you The agency comes forward with the recommended appropriation, and then the board itself or the advocates will say, that's not enough, and you adjust that. And so I would expect that same type of dynamic with this program.

[Speaker 1]: All right, so is the tenth the last? The tenth

[Speaker 2]: is the last formal instance of amendment. It's just the effective date is last year passed, and it's changed to 2026. But as representative Lipsky asked, the title would be changed to an accolade into establishing the Farm and Forest Operations Security Special Fund to provide payments for farm and forestry operation losses due to weather conditions. Again, that's just a recommendation to, in this case, the Senate Secretary. Most cases, they do it. Sometimes Secretary Boomer will freestyle.

[Speaker 0]: So just on Brooke Burtt's line of questioning, are there any funds that revenue coming in statutorily has to end up in that fund?

[Speaker 2]: Yes, yes. But this money still goes to the treasurer. It doesn't magically sales tax into the fund doesn't go into the fund. It goes to the treasurer. And then through your appropriations process and through the treasurer's directive, it gets put into that fund.

[Speaker 0]: But the treasurer doesn't have can't pivot and put it in something else, right?

[Speaker 2]: No, they have to comply with statute. There's emergency authority using up to $2,000,000 that can be transferred. But that's a process in and of itself.

[Speaker 1]: I thought at the moment Oh, go ahead, Representative Burke.

[Speaker 0]: Well, I was just gonna point the

[Speaker 3]: appropriation piece and the point that Greg Nelson made about it. I think it actually might be in our favor to have that line, because if you can say, look, if we're waiting for money to come in, we have a weather event and we have people in place ready to implement this program, then what's appropriate, we'll put money into it so that it might catch more and be able to build that out quicker.

[Speaker 4]: So it actually might help to put money into it. Yeah, and as the chairman said, Philip, Philip, damn tick, or however you said that. Yeah. It's one of those $5 words I stumble on.

[Speaker 0]: Philanthropic? Philanthropic. Yeah. It's one of

[Speaker 4]: those $5 words I stumble on every time I gotta say it. I don't know how to spell it either. But it you know, to have a vehicle in place to receive that money, you know, so maybe we get appropriations to put $20,000 a year in it so it's alive.

[Speaker 1]: Then we build on it. My thought is that folks are listening to this conversation and be interested to hear what their reaction is, then as we were talking about earlier, this isn't the end of the process, because we have to, that they'll go back to the Senate, and there's opportunity there for changes, if it feels like that that would be a good idea. Go ahead, Jed.

[Speaker 0]: I just wondered, mechanically, can this work the way FEMA does in municipalities, where if there was money, there's $20,000,000 in the fund, there's a drought, farms need money right away. With FEMA maybe backfilling USDA, could you then replenish the fund once the fund money went out fast to the farmers who needed it, and then you're getting some like we are two years later from the feds?

[Speaker 2]: It all kind of depends on if you're in session or not. Like you could probably move that really quickly into the fund and for use. If you're out of session, there's requirements that if you're gonna be receiving grants, gifts, funds, have to get you have to get the joint fiscal committee's approval of that. So it's probably going to be a little less nimble. But I still think it's possible.

[Speaker 1]: Let me just ask Patricia, is our next witness waiting in the Zoom room? Think so, no. It occurred to me that maybe, since I don't see our next witness here, maybe it was a Zoom witness. So, gosh. In any case, we are running a little bit over, so what we might want to do is have you, I don't know whether you have a sense, make, of the thought that we have and could think about what if we were to amend this language, either if we were to amend it or if the Senate were to not preclude the possibility of the fund not being able to accept outside money if we hadn't appropriated anything, not in any year going forward.

[Speaker 2]: So I mean, you could say it's contingent upon an appropriation of funds in fiscal year 2027 or subsequent fiscal years from the general fund to the agency or let's use the language I use, the award of a federal federal government aid for state support of farmers or forestry operations. You could even add public and private sources that the secretary accepts if you want as well. I could probably Again, philanthropic award, if you're in session, it's gonna get appropriated. That'll be an appropriation. If it's not in session, it's gonna go through the Joint Fiscal Office for the Fiscal Committee and approved as a gift. You have to approve those gifts to make sure, and the common example is that Nazis aren't giving you gifts. And so you do some due diligence on on who is giving you gifts.

[Speaker 1]: Alright. Well, let's let's stop there with that then. Let's continue we will continue to ponder this, and we won't make any decisions until we feel like we've gotten to the right spot. And that might mean her hearing is more testimony.

[Speaker 2]: You also will have this just your response to the Senate. The Senate can have a further proposal of amendment, and you can have a further proposal amendment to them. But they might just accept this. Right. And then you wouldn't have an opportunity to amend. Yes. Yep. Indeed.

[Speaker 4]: It's up to us to do the hard work. The senate just kinda stamp stuff.

[Speaker 1]: I don't want to disparage our colleagues in the senate, but on the other hand, we shouldn't just assume that they'll do what we think is right. All right. Thank you, Mike, and we'll be in touch. Welcome and thank you for your patience, Nicole.

[Speaker 5]: Thanks for having me.

[Speaker 1]: So just pivoting quickly to a different subject. We took some testimony last week on the impact of the drought, And the question came up about possible temporary changes that might not be the right expression to the organic standards, an accommodation essentially. And it was suggested that you might be able to help us understand a little bit more about why that would be necessary and what might have happened.

[Speaker 5]: Sure, that's great. And I'm excited that you all are interested in this topic and have invited me to speak about it. So I'm Nicole Damey. I'm the director of Vermont Organic Farmers. I have a PowerPoint presentation that's really short that I thought would just kind of help us be on the same page about the pasture rule and the variance. Can I just share my screen?

[Speaker 1]: Yes, you have. Do you need permission to do that? Okay, go

[Speaker 5]: ahead. I think I can do it. So you all can see that? Yeah.

[Speaker 1]: Yep, thank you.

[Speaker 5]: Okay, great. Okay, great. So just to get us all on the same page about our organization and let me just make my zoom a little larger here and what we do. VOF stands for Vermont Organic Farmers. We are an LLC that's owned by a nonprofit, NOFA Vermont. So VOF is accredited by the USDA to certify farms at the facilities in Vermont to the USDA organic regulations. So we certify about 700 organic farms and food producers. And then NOFA, some of you may be familiar with NOFA's work as a non profit. They have a larger mission, or we have a larger mission to promote organic practices and build a food system in Vermont that's economically viable, ecologically sound and socially just. So that's kind of how our two organizations connect. So I thought it would make sense to just talk about what the pasture rule requirements are for organic producers. And that will just give us context then when we talk about what it means to ask for a variance from that pasture rule. So all organic animals are required access to the outdoors year round, but the pasture rule requirements are specific to ruminant livestock. Cattle, sheep, goats. And the big picture of what the pasture rule is trying to accomplish is making sure that organic farmers are providing meaningful access to pasture during the grazing season. So what that means, we had to put a specific number on it because the organic regulations, we certify to farmers to those regulations here in Vermont, but there are certifiers certifying to these same regulations all over The United States and also all over the world, right? So there has to be some sort of baseline of what we're talking about when we talk about meaningful. And the minimum requirements are that you have to graze your ruminant animals for at least one hundred and twenty days per year. That's the minimum. But you also have to graze them to what is a typical grazing season in your region. So for Vermont, one hundred and twenty is a little bit on the lower side. A typical grazing season for our producers is like one hundred and fifty days. So that's typically what we're looking at when we look at our farmers and are out on their farms verifying the length of their grazing season in a quote unquote typical year. So the other minimum is that animals have to receive at least 30% of their diet from pasture and that's measured in dry matter. And that's just to make the measurement consistent. It's taking the moisture out of the feed so that we can look at the feed in a more consistent way. The rule also says that pasture has to be managed as a crop. So producers really have to look to that crop to try to get it to thrive. So they have to address erosion and overgrazing. And then the pasture rule, it also has components where we're asking the producer, we're verifying what is their grazing management, specifics like what are their rest and recovery periods for their pastures or the paddocks, when they're receding, if they're receding, what are their general soil fertility practices. So all of that sort of part of the quote unquote pasture rule. Within that pasture rule, the regulations are trying to be reasonable too. So you can always quote unquote temporarily confine an animal from pasture, right? And there's specific reasons. And as long as it's temporary, that that's okay. So inclement weather, animal health or safety. If the farmer feels they have to protect soil and water quality, they can temporarily confine. And of course, for dairy animals, when they're milking the cows, it's obviously okay to confine them for that period where they're being milked. And then producers have to, I'm sure you all have heard about the record keeping for organic producers and it's not the horror that some people talk about, but here is like an example of you do have to require They do have to keep records to show what their pasture management looked like. So we asked them questions about how they manage their pasture generally, what's their pasture management plan, what their stocking rates are. They have to keep track of what they're actually feeding per animal group. And all of that for this larger purpose of making sure that grazing is central to their system for raising their ruminant livestock and then to support animal welfare, soil health, and environmental sustainability. So those are, that should give you a sense of like what is required in the pasture rule for organic producers. So also within the organic regulations is an allowance for the NOP, the National Organic Program, which is housed within the USDA, to grant temporary variances for specific sections of the regulation. So there's different sections that this area of the regs call out that are allowed to be, where the NOP is allowed to grant variances. And the pasture rule is one of those areas of the rule that's cited in like, yes, the NOP can grant a variance for the pasture rule. But of course, these are the following reasons that have to be met in order for the NOP, National Organic Program, to grant a variance for the rule. Which essentially means like, okay, because there was a natural disaster, because there was damage caused by drought, wind, flood, extreme weather, or if you're doing research trials. For those reasons, the NOP might say, okay, you don't have to meet the pasture rule because of these reasons. So then it gets into how do you request a temporary variance? So we know the rule allows it. Certifiers like Vermont Organic Farmers, we're not allowed to say, Oh, you don't have to meet the regulations because we're experiencing drought. Only the NOP has the authority to grant a temporary variance. So basically you have to make a request for a variance, has to be in writing. It does have to get routed through your certifier if you're a producer. And then as a certifier, we tell the NOP whether we recommend that they grant or deny the variance. And the way that it's written in the regulations is that producers can't send requests for variances directly to the National Organic Program. They have to do it through their certifier. So we certify the, I think we certify all the farms in the state of Vermont, but theoretically there are other certifiers working in Vermont that certify other producers. This link at the bottom of my PowerPoint request is where the USDA and National Organic Program reports on what variances they've either granted or denied. And if you click on that link, you'll see that Vermont is at the top with a variance for the pasture rule that's been granted at 2025. So you can check this throughout the year to see like, oh, who was asking for variances and did they get granted or denied? So then that brings us to 2025, this last year's grazing season. And we started to hear from producers that they were concerned that they weren't gonna be able to meet the pasture regulations because of the extreme drought that we were experiencing. So we, as a certifying agent, requested and received a pasture rule variance for the 2025 drought for producers in these counties. And you'll notice that these counties match with the USDA's Secretarial Disaster designation in Vermont. So we also proposed these terms of the variant. So it doesn't mean that you can pull your cows from pasture, you know, for the entire grazing season. So the terms that we recommended was that people would still meet the 30% dry matter from pasture, but instead of one hundred and twenty day minimum, they would meet that for ninety days. And so far, we haven't had a ton of producers who've had to request this variance under 10, but it is, I think it's just a load off people's minds that they know that they can and they won't get written up for a compliance issue if they can't meet, if they have to pull their cows, if they had to pull their cows in over the summer and fall. So the variance only applies for the 2025 grazing season. So that variance is gone starting 2026. Producers are expected to meet the pasture rule as it's written in the organic regulations. And if there were another extreme weather event, we would have to request a different variance for moving forward. And something that's important for you all to know is it's really difficult for VOF to get a variance granted without like a USDA secretarial disaster designation in Vermont. So that was really the evidence that the National Organic Program staff told us that was needed in order for them to grant the variants. So it was helpful to work with agency of ag staff just knowing that that was happening. We put that in our proposal and when that was granted, that's when our variants got granted as well. I think that hopefully just gives you a sense, I can stop sharing my screen now, how the, hopefully that answers questions about, you know, what is the pasture rule? How do we request variances from it? How long do those variances last and kind of the process of requesting the variance? But I'm happy to answer questions from folks too.

[Speaker 1]: Thank you, Nicole. Very, very clear and well organized presentation, I think. I I just wanted to clarify whether the the requested and approved variance in this case applies to all farmers in those counties or whether farmers had to each individually make a request to you.

[Speaker 5]: Yeah, that's a great question. So that's what we were trying to avoid is having to ask those farmers to go through those individual requests because they would have to provide documentation individually. And so by VOFs making the request in the way that we did, we were allowed to say anyone in these counties can receive that variance if needed. And then when we do our inspections, the inspections that we've done this past year, we can look to see, okay, did somebody, what was the length of their grazing season? Are they in this county? And essentially it means we don't have to write them up for a compliance issue when we know that the answer is there was extreme weather and a drought and that's why it didn't meet the organic regulation. Yeah, so they don't have to answer your question. They do not have to individually request a variance now that we've received this blanket variance for those counties.

[Speaker 1]: Got it. It's Eric Nelson.

[Speaker 4]: Thank you. Nicole, so what are we doing for our organic farmers and- and, you know, we live the, you know, the worst drought that farmers are 80 years old ever remember. What are we doing for these organic farmers for their wintertime feed? Because there probably is an overabundance of organic feed out there for sale regionally. You've seen this drought hit New York, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Is there a shorter recourse that they can get a variance and purchase other feed sources?

[Speaker 5]: Yeah, that's a really great question. And technically we did ask the NOP that question about whether they can receive a variance because we were anticipating that this was gonna be an issue. But that is a harder variance to receive because the NOP doesn't grant variances based on kind of commercial availability or cost. So you're absolutely right. Our organic farmers are being pinched because they have to go out of state to buy organic feed and then the trucking on that organic feed and the cost is double at least what they would be paying in state. So they're suffering in that way. And what we're trying to do is be a connection for people to make sure we're doing our best to say these are people who have organic feed available and these are the people who need organic feed. We also worked really hard to see at the kind of end of the summer, whether there were producers who we could certify, who had dropped their certification or would be qualified for certification who produce hay so we could try to make sure that there was more on the market. But you're absolutely right that there isn't a great solution for that and people are paying a lot more for their winter feed.

[Speaker 1]: What was the timing of the request for the variants?

[Speaker 5]: The timing for the request got a little mixed up in the government shutdown. So we so we made the request, I think sometime in September. And then soon after the request, we had the government shut down. And so we were just sort of in limbo waiting. But I will give folks credit that as soon as the government was back up in action, they handled the request in a timely way.

[Speaker 1]: And it was effective like retroactively. So if Yes. There has been a Okay.

[Speaker 5]: Yeah. So it's retroactive.

[Speaker 0]: Representative O'Brien? Yeah, Nicole, just to follow-up on Nelson. So during the summer, if an organic dairy farmer had access to non organic pasturing where they could graze, Does that immediately run into a compliance issue?

[Speaker 4]: Yeah. And

[Speaker 0]: if there is potentially a variance, but it's like you said earlier, it's tricky.

[Speaker 5]: The variance is more you can confine your animals from pasture. The variance is not you can feed your animals non organic feed. And technically what I was saying is we did ask the NOP because like I said, we were anticipating that organic feed was gonna be short in Vermont. And so we said, can you ever get a variance for feeding non organic feed to organic animals? And because organic feed is available within The United States, that variance, they're very unlikely to grant that. They're, you know, unsympathetic is not the right word, but they they can't knowing that it's available in other states makes it difficult for them to grant the variances was was my understanding of their response.

[Speaker 4]: So what they got to do, John, was keep their cows in the barn and feed the hay they were making during a drought to sustain their herd and taking away their what you know, you imagine feeding all your sheep all set along in the barn and

[Speaker 0]: then Got nothing for

[Speaker 1]: winter. Yeah.

[Speaker 5]: Right. And so that, I mean, there, no one is motivated to do that. They would prefer to be grazing their animals. Both the health and economic reasons.

[Speaker 4]: I have the NOP call me up and I'll explain to Well, them more

[Speaker 1]: I'm not seeing any other hands and we're running a little bit late into the next testimony. So we should probably wrap up. Thank you, Nicole. I think it's been very helpful and good to know that this did take effect for 2025 and 2025 is over and hopefully the weather or the climate or both will be more favorable in 2026.

[Speaker 5]: Absolutely, thanks for having me.

[Speaker 1]: Take care. It went back and forth from 07:15 back to eleven. Can't see them. Think I saw our next, one of our next witnesses out in the hallway there. Yeah, here he is. Good morning. Awesome, now. Yeah, my end, and why don't we, though people are getting settled, won't we just go off lights temporarily?