Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Okay, Maddie, governor, good morning. And welcome Good back. We are picking up the conversation on municipal regulation of agriculture. So thank you for joining us.

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: Thank you for having me. Thanks, committee. Hi, everyone. For the record, Maddie Kempner, Policy and Organizing Director at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. I do just wanna start by saying you have my written testimony. I sent it to prepare for this morning. So if you wanna follow along with anything I'm saying, I am gonna be sharing some recommended language with you all. So that part in particular might be helpful to follow along. I really appreciate the committee's attention to this issue of the exemption for agriculture from municipal regulation, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to share NOFO from its perspective. We, as NOFO, are really grateful to be in collaboration and alignment with a broad group of farming and land access organizations in our position and recommendations on this issue. Since last fall, we've met regularly with a group of partners, including rural Vermont, the Vermont Farm Bureau, AgriMark, Cabot, the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance, the Vermont Association of Conservation Districts, the Connecticut River Farmers Watershed Alliance, Farm to Plate, and the Land Access and Opportunity Board. Collectively, our organizations represent a really significant percent of the farmers and land stewards in Vermont. And we have developed shared principles and proposed legislative language, which I'll share with you today. I also wanna encourage the committee to hear from all of these organizations directly. And in particular, I wanna urge you to invite testimony from the representatives of the Land Access and Opportunity Board who have important and unique expertise to share. Our organizations have also met with the agency of agriculture, food, and markets, as well as with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, who I know you heard from yesterday. We believe that we understand each of their positions, and we're happy to say we're very nearly in alignment with both AAFM and BLCT as well. We're hopeful that there's an opportunity for a path forward on this issue that will work for everyone, and most importantly, that will ensure a consistent regulatory framework for farmers and the right to grow food for everyone living in Vermont, all in service to our collective food security. My intention today is to show the overarching principles and goals our coalition has agreed upon in advocating for a legislative fix to the Supreme Court's decision last May and to present some proposed language that we've worked on together. So, first, in terms of just our coalition's principles, we believe a clear and consistent regulatory framework across municipalities is best for both farms and towns. We wanna avoid a patchwork regulatory environment for farming in Vermont that's confusing for both farmers and municipalities, and that would be a continued source of contention and acrimony in our communities. We also want to ensure that farms continue to be regulated by a common authority, namely the agency of agriculture, food, and markets that has sufficient agricultural expertise and can offer technical and financial assistance to producers while applying a common set of standards and rules for agricultural practices. Doing so significantly limits the potential for local bias, either in the positive, I. E. Preferential treatment, or negative, I. E. Discrimination or interpersonal conflict. We want to be clear that we believe this issue can be addressed without opening the REPs and have language to suggest that focuses on amending title 24 regarding municipal and county government. We seek to clearly define the municipal exemption for agriculture in title 24 without substantively changing how it has been implemented and understood for decades by farmers, municipalities, and communities. Finally, we are seeking and have proposed language that would establish a right to grow food so that bylaws now or in the future cannot prohibit food growing practices. Affirming and protecting the right to grow food throughout all types of develop development, rural, urban, peri urban, growth centers, etcetera, is critical to ensure equitable access to farming and food resiliency for all Vermonters. This leads to a more resilient and food secure Vermont with greater opportunities for growing culturally appropriate foods and direct access to learning about farming, gardening, and food waste. Land access and affordability is one of the primary issues affecting farmers in Vermont and nationally, especially for young, beginning, and historically marginalized farmers. Accessing rural farmland and housing is extremely challenging for those who don't come from farm families and who don't have access to generational wealth. And farming is economically difficult in many cases, even for those with secure access to land. Taking steps right now to protect the right to grow food across our communities and to maintain a clear and consistent regulatory framework, farmers are essential to move us toward a fully food secure future. So to those ends, as I mentioned, our coalition proposes the following draft language for your consideration. And I don't know if

[Mandy Marble (dairy farmer, Sheldon; organizer escorting farmers)]: it's possible to put it

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: up on the screen or as soon I

[Speaker 0]: could do that. Yeah, open your Zoom link, and then we'll make sure you have the right to share your screen.

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: Patricia, I don't think I received a Zoom link, maybe because I was planning to be here in person.

[Mandy Marble (dairy farmer, Sheldon; organizer escorting farmers)]: It's for you.

[Speaker 0]: Send it a new David, I assume

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: at 09:45, I have to go to the next room.

[Speaker 0]: And as Maddie said, we do have this on our web page and find it there.

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: I'm also happy to just start reading it,

[Speaker 0]: it might be tricky if you can follow on. You want me

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: to go ahead and start? Okay, I'm happy to do that. I don't want to take too much time. Okay, so the language that we are proposing, starts with some additions to, title 24, section forty four thirteen on limitations on municipal bylaws. So we're adding, a section a subsection d one a under and which says a bylaw under this chapter shall not regulate, and this part is new language, the right to grow food, which includes the cultivation or other use of land for growing plants, including for food, fiber, Christmas trees, maple sap, or horticultural, silvicultural, and orchard crops. And this mirrors language that we've seen from the agency of agriculture. And then subsection two also says the right to grow food includes raising, feeding, or managing livestock provided the land base is sufficient for appropriate nutrient and waste management. The secretary of agriculture has the discretion to determine whether the land base is adequate for managing the number and type of livestock in compliance with the required agricultural practices. However, municipalities may pass ordinances that regulate the presence of roosters within areas zoned primarily for agricultural use.

[Speaker 0]: Then we're Sorry, for residential use is what I'm reading there? Yes. Yes. You said agricultural, so just wanted to be

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: Oh, I'm sorry, for residential use. They can have the boosters. So, we've added then below that section B, which was previously section A, and that just has a little bit of additional language that says farming that meets the minimum threshold criteria in the required ag practices rule and is therefore required to comply with the REPs and is not protected by the right to grow food in forty four thirteen D1A. So referencing that section above. And the rest is essentially the language that's there for this section, but just moved down to accommodate the added language. And then the next additions are short. Just section two there, as used in this section, says farming has the same meaning as in 10 BSA 600,122, which is the same as the agency of ICE language that's just aligning with the definition of Act two fifty for clarity. And then going forward, there's language about farm structure, defining farm structure, which also has language aligning with the act two fifty definition of farming, and the rest is what's an existing statute. I don't know if we have time today, but I'm happy to either today or in the future come back and answer any questions about Nova Vermont or broader coalition's position in the language we're suggesting. And in closing, I want to let the committee know that our NOFA Vermont and our partners have been doing and will continue to do outreach and education in our communities about this issue, and we support our members coming before the legislature to share their own experiences, ideas, needs. Thank you again for taking the time to hear from me today.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. And I think we, at the moment, I think we do have time for questions. Just if there are any questions clarifying the folks who you're working with, their position.

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: Representative O'Brien? Maddie, did you see the language we got from Ledge Council

[Lance Wood (Addison County dairy farmer)]: to change the statute. I just wondered how your language was different from that.

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: I don't believe I have seen Ledge Council's language. I've heard their testimony.

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: Yes. Seen

[Speaker 0]: that. Days ago, perhaps, and it's posted on her page. They, at my request or our request, gave us language that would do the bare minimum of having what we thought and always understood the status quo to be clarified. I think that's what you're talking about, John. And it's just changing. It's actually not all that different from some of what you've got here, as you can imagine. Yeah. Well,

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: as I said, I think there's really not that much distance between what any of the parties are asking for in this case. I think I've heard both in the agency of ag's testimony and in VLCT's testimony yesterday a reference to the right to grow food, particularly with regard to to plants. In the case of VLCT and the agency, I think that's what they're most focused on. What I wanna emphasize from from NOFA's perspective in particular is that we are we are concerned about some of the smaller farming operations that do fall outside of the purview currently of the agency of agriculture and the RAPs and wanting to make sure that that that those smaller production areas are protected too, especially because of the land access and affordability issues that so many people face. It is going be really important going forward that folks even in downtown or semi urban areas have the ability to produce their own food for themselves and their community, because it's not always possible for those people to access land that's outside of those areas, maybe in more rural spaces that are traditionally considered working lands. So we are concerned about those smaller plots, and I think the right to grow food language is really focused on that.

[Speaker 0]: So I guess that there we have heard I think you're right. We have heard from everyone who's come in to testify support for, in principle, the right to grow food. I'm not sure whether the language or the concept is identical across all the parties, but yes, there does seem to be some support for that. And just, I guess I want to ask you, Maddie, just responding to your last thought there. So the existing statute gives anyone who is selling $2,000 worth of food essentially puts them into that category of being overseen by the agency through the wraps. So when we talk about who else do we want to provide protection to, I suppose there are some people who are selling $1,000 worth a few whatever eggs, but then the people who aren't selling anything, but just growing it for themselves or for their families. Should we be thinking that way, that it's that category of people who we, right now, are not protected at all? Do you want to be

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: Yeah. I think we would like to see some affirmative protection for that scale of production, which isn't necessarily to say that those operations belong as defined by the REPs. It's not that we necessarily want to bring them into the definition of a farm as regulated by the REPs, but that we would like to see some affirmative protection for that scale of food production, even where it is for donation purposes and not necessarily for commercial sale. Because all of those, even small amounts of food that's being produced, are really important for people's individual and for collective food security. And right now, they don't, as you said, have any protection from municipal bylaws or otherwise. So we would like

[Speaker 0]: to see that. I wonder, and I don't want anyone to think I'm proposing this or advocating for it, but the agency's recommendation included raising that $2,000 to a higher number to, at the very least, I guess, account for the fact that it's been $2,000 for a decade. There's been inflation in the past decade. Would it make sense to have somebody who's very small, so we're talking that scale, be covered under a new right to grow food set of guidelines, rather than having the agency be in charge of how regulated?

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: Well, I would say two things on that point. One is that our coalition has been Our position is that we want to keep the $2,000 threshold where it is. So I want to be very clear about that. And I think the point about inflation is well taken. I think what I would say to that is that farmers deal with that inflation themselves and that their costs and their inputs have also gone up a lot in price and that the price that they're receiving for their products has not necessarily gone up in a related way. So yes, there's been inflation. Farmers' own pay price has not necessarily experienced the same inflation that other parts of the supply chain have. So that's part of why we want to keep it at $2,000 And in terms of the agency being the authority, I think what we would like to see is that the agency be brought in when there are disputes on smaller parcels or where people are under that $2,000 threshold. We want to maintain a framework where the agency is making determinations about, for example, stocking density on a piece of land. We think the agency is the proper authority that has the expertise to say, how many chickens is too many chickens? How many goats is too many goats on a piece of land? Even in a more urban part of a municipality, which is not to say that we're opposed to the municipality having consultation, which I think is what the agency is proposing around that, but that the agency should really be the decider in those cases.

[Speaker 0]: I want to make sure we leave time for other testimony. But just to be clear, when the league was here yesterday, had them clarify that the proposal essentially is leave everything the way it is, with the exception of a to be defined but small. I think we can probably agree that it would be relatively small amount of land that would be subject to municipal voting. And they're supportive of expanding, of including some kind of right to grow your own food language. But I think they weren't interested in having necessarily the one acre for the $2,000 They're not proposing that that be changed. They were just saying, leave everything else the way it is. So that's not there's some daylight between your

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: I think there's some daylight. And I think we've had discussions with the L. C. T. And I think we'll continue to have discussions with them directly. The one acre threshold, to me, I will raise feels a little bit high. Honestly, there are farms that we work with at NOFA that are certified organic that are farming on you know, they might be their property might be a little bit more than an acre, but they're farming half an acre. And that is their production land. That is acting as a viable farm operation. So one acre might sound small, but it's actually, in the case of especially vegetable production and some small poultry or livestock operations, it's not that low a threshold for productive viable farm operations.

[Speaker 0]: And what about their idea of setting aside in densely populated city town centers that might at some point be designated given this tier 1A designation saying in that setting, no, we think that the town should be able to have zoning laws that regulate farms as well.

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: Yeah. I think I want to say, I want to be clear that you should continue to hear from other coalition members. I don't want to speak on behalf of all of the individual organizations that I mentioned. I think that there is potential for compromise there. That's, I think, the area where we would like to see some affirmative language supporting, for example, urban agriculture, in a proactive sense and and have some clear agreement and statute about what that can look like and what is approved and protected, across municipalities. Because again, having a consistent regulatory framework across towns, even for those downtown areas does feel important.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Nelson, did you

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. It it's a tier one a, but tier one b concerns me as much because that's the potential for them to grow out. And, there's a lot of people in this room that could be in tier one b areas. Right? And Catch

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: back to you. That's probably.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. And they said that if you were an existing farm, you'd be grandfathered in under all changes, which doesn't change, but it doesn't protect change of use like we did with the right to farm And, you know, for the urban agriculture, as as you mentioned, and I love that term, Maddie, thank you for that. I'm gonna use that if I can. You know, where they might have concerns is not in your ability to grow food, but, like, you know, when do people you know, if you're distributing food, when do they go there to get it? Where do they buy? So on and so forth. The items of that concern, which is language that we can all work on, I'm sure. Absolutely. But, you know, they were definitely pro gardens and so many chickens. You know, I can grow an awful lot of food in my raised beds in a very small print.

[Burtt (first name unknown; Berkshire dairy farmer, ‘802 Farmers’)]: Yep.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I feed everyone cucumbers for a while. Know, it's

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: I'm sure your neighbors appreciate that.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Oh, everybody does.

[Speaker 0]: Anyway, thank you.

[Maddie Kempner (Policy and Organizing Director, NOFA-Vermont)]: Yep, thanks.

[Speaker 0]: Great. Should we say thank you, Maddie? Thank you so much. Sure. You wanna go next? Sure. I know we're a little short on seats. Mandy, if you wanna pull one of these chairs off to the side.

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: That's okay.

[Speaker 0]: Don't have anything on paper, but please use my phone. It's fine.

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Everybody ready? Yeah. Good morning. Good morning. So my name is Alex Tebow. I'm a dairy farmer in Colchester. Not very many farms left in Colchester. We'll say that. I think we're one of two left, and the other farm is a small twenty, thirty cow organic dairy.

[Speaker 0]: As far as How many do

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: you milk? So we have about 200 head total. We milk around 80 to a 100 depending on the time of the year. Yeah. So we're about a mile from Winooski and just across the river from Burlington. So we're about as urban as it gets, you know, as far as the farm next to a an urban area, our dairy farm of of size. At that farm, we've been there for one hundred and six years. So it's quite a quite a long span of time. We were actually the farm was actually part of Winooski before Colchester acquired Winooski, or parts of Winooski. I'm a third generation, excuse me, three generations currently active at the farm, myself, my dad, and my grandfather. We still all have our day to day day to day parts and roles at the farm. And I've always pursued farming since, I was a young kid. And on top of that, I'm also serving as the chair of Vermont Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers program, which we've been trying to really, really revive. It kind of had some some stale moments, we're trying to structure it and get more more young farmers active and and speaking up and, you know, in ag policy. So part of the reason why I'm here today. Yeah. So in regards to the new zoning changes, we've at our farm, we've always tried to maintain a good relationship with our town and our neighbors, and that goes a long way. But this this change, which grants authority to the municipalities, it definitely could leave us exposed for future, you know, future problems. So we find that we would really like it to the authority to be given back to pre, you know, pre supreme court ruling on the whole, you know, the Essex duck duck man or whatever you want to call them. You know, the the jurisdictions that they're going to be or the the yeah, the authority they're going to be the towns will be given, know, it's going to be you know barns and noise and a couple other different things livestock. We could see some changes in our area that do affect our operation And those changes could include, you know, we will be financial, a lot of financial, you know, putting a lot of the financial burden onto the farmer as far as extra permitting, administrate, you know, administration work and fees and, with the current price of milk what and for the way it's going, we can't afford any more financial burdens, and I I really do think that the way thing the way it's worded now, it leaves us financially exposed more than ever. I mean, not right in this moment, but in the future. So we would really like to see the the the this change pre supreme court ruling and and giving the jurisdiction back to the state as far as, you know, the ag exemption. You know, small farms are far and few between, and especially farms in the urban areas, and we can't afford to lose any more farms Because a lot of that land is going into, you know, it's all going into housing. And, you know, again, there's there's so many so many variables that this could affect.

[Speaker 0]: Go ahead, Nelson. Thank

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: you. Is some of your farming the floodplain down there?

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Yes. Yes. So so three fifty acres of it is all river bottom land. It is

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: great soil. Awesome soil. You probably had a great crop of corn. Probably one of

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: the best we've ever seen

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: when the rest of us were suffering because

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Yeah, we we, the grass took a little bit of a hit, but the corn, we had so much corn this year and it tested really good. And I know that wasn't the case for a lot of guys, but we were very, very fortunate.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I won't try to hate on you too much. Very fortunate. Do you have some of your land? Is it in the upper lands? And off the flood plain

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: up in the 26 acres maybe? The

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: primag soil?

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I mean, where do urban centers like, where do development like to happen?

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Right in those high dry areas.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Right in those good primag soil.

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: That's correct.

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: That's correct. You know,

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: and we're losing them every day. The state of Ohio lost 500 50,000 acres of primag soil in five years.

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: I think I heard a statistic. They were losing 1% of their farms every day. Per day. 1% per day. So 500 farms a year.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. So, you know, we need to we need to protect. We need to protect our ability to grow food and feed people locally. Thank you. Yes. Is

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: is Colchester I mean, think of it as just growing suburban. It's funny because we have all this residential housing right around this pocket of, like you said, it's all a big pocket of river bottom. And smack dab in the middle, if you look at a map, there's a farm there's a farm with, you know, a couple, I would say probably a thousand acres of land, we'll call it, within a five mile radius that's just a open pocket of land, all housing developments right around and and some commercial, you know, Shaw like Shaw's and Water Tower Hill down into Costco. That's a little more commercialized in there. But if you look through the bay, it's all housing developments all the way through Burlington along the lake. It's all housing developments. And, yeah, it keeps keeps pushing in more and more and more.

[Speaker 0]: Is there new construction happening now? So

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: a mile from the farm, there was some open land, like 70 acres, and they put, I don't know, a hundred and hundred and fifty homes or or probably even more. I don't know the exact number, but they they got like 120,000 per lot. So that shows you the value of of that high drive prime ag land.

[Speaker 0]: I figure a lot out.

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Yeah. Oh, no, not even. Like point two acre lots. Tiny, tiny lots. Door to door. Pack them in.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: That's tier tier one a, tier one b areas, and that's where I'm concerned. Yeah. We

[Speaker 0]: I'm thinking next week, we might wanna take a look at the map. Because I I think we were looking at Rutland County map yesterday. Yeah. And I think that the Chittenden County map is also, like, ready to look at. Maybe some of us have looked at it. We should do that and see what are they what are they projecting anyway. It's still in development stage, but we can look at what they've got.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Is any of your land in land trust?

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: We are. We conserved in 2,011. Which was just that really that 26 acres that could have been developed with at the

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: farm stand at the farm stand. Okay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You have a farm stand there?

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: No. No. No. Farm the farm stand. Okay. No. Farm stand.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Okay. And so you're according to the Vermont lease and cities and towns, maybe some of your greatest concerns would fall They say it wouldn't fall under zoning. Although, I've been on the zoning board, and I've seen people put it, you know, hours of operation and traffic under zoning. And and, of course, your crops being in Chittenden County probably wait till the weather right and you've got all kinds of time to put them in. You don't have to scramble and work half the night.

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: We like to, we like to get it done, but yeah, we work late at night which you know it could be somebody calls and complains about noise and then we get shut down and we can't you know A lot of it nowadays is trying to beat the weather. You know? You get a two or three day window, and it's like, let's go. Let's get this done. And then, you know, it's just how it works, and you work late. And but like I said before, we right now, we have really good neighbors, but it doesn't mean that there's not a future risk, you know, for somebody calling the complainer, the town coming after us.

[Speaker 0]: It sounds like you're trying to be a good neighbor. We gotta

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: be proactive. We definitely have to be proactive and and do our part as well.

[Speaker 0]: Representative O'Brien.

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: Yeah, was just looking at I mean, forget down this way,

[Lance Wood (Addison County dairy farmer)]: the Colchester's, what, third most populous. I

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: think it's seven seventeen thousand people.

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: Biggest town by population. It's not. Seven sixty thousand people, yeah. So I just wondered on things like accessory on farm businesses, have you had any kind of run ins or even a good relationship with the zoning in Colchester? I mean, you must how many neighbors do you have? It must be

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: a lot. Yeah. And so far, everybody's pretty supportive, which is really good. It's you want that. But it doesn't mean that somebody can't move in and and be a rotten egg.

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: And you've done development then where

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: We haven't done any development. No. We don't

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: Okay. So it's never been a case where a neighbor said they're doing this and then you say we're actually exempt because we're following our Correct.

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Yeah. That hasn't happened yet.

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: Okay.

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Good. Right. Good.

[Speaker 0]: Representatives.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Would have went shockingly, I went to a concert. It's there's a Sam Moses.

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Yes. Yeah. In Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Old Chester. Correct. That's right next door. This summer. Yep. And you talk about a on farm business open to the community. People came from everywhere. Their camps, the town, the village, and some of us came from over the Yes. Continental divide.

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: Yep. Mazes do a really good job with the in being engaged with the community. And you And this could affect producing food. Yeah. This could affect them as well. We we work together on a lot of things, which is a good, you know, it's good to have a relationship like that. And I really do think that the community appreciates what we have in Colchester, you know, just because it's so developed And I think they moved to Colchester, the fact that there is farms still in Colchester. It's just far enough outside of the city and they have that, you know, rural aspect to the town. There's still parts of it that are, you know, rural aspect.

[Speaker 0]: Right. If there aren't any other questions, yeah, maybe Travis has been waiting patiently and wanna give him a chance to say what he would like to say too.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Hello.

[Travis Longway (Swanton dairy farmer)]: Longway from Swanton, Vermont. I'm with my my brother, my nephew, and my mother. We milk about 680 cows. We currently just went through building a barn and kinda had a little bit of experience what this could bring. When I went to notify the town that we're gonna be building, I talked to the assistant town clerk. The zoning administrator was on vacation of time. I told her that we're gonna be building, and she told me that I was gonna have to go through zoning. And I know we didn't, of course, so then she gave me all the paperwork that we're gonna have to do to go through zoning until I was able to get the speak to the zoning administrator, which then she waived the zoning fees and all that. But it was kinda scary just thinking about it. I had to have to actually go through a zoning board, and I do our farm is probably about half mile from the lake. And we have our the road that our farm is on is probably one of the main roads to 89 from all the houses from the lake. And all we need is one person to throw a fit about us building our building the barn, and it was kinda scary. But that was few first two nights till I heard back from the zoning administrator. And I just hate to see something like have to deal with that all, you know, if we actually had did have to deal with that. And and we we keep good relationships with all our neighbors and everything like that in their town, but this thing woulda actually woulda had to like I said, the town clerk did give me all the came in the paperwork to fill out for it. And because I never had to go through the actual steps, but it would've been a couple extra steps and could've been a little bit of an inconvenience. I'm sure we're still gonna do the project and all that, but just to see what it could've been was a little scary. And I know up here in Swan, we I don't know exactly. I think we're down to four or five actual farmers milking cows still. I mean, we still have a lot of agricultural land, but there's a lot less of us milking actually milking cows here now. And I just would hate to see anything that would discourage farmers to grow or improve their farms because in this industry, we do have to keep up with the times and try to modernize our facilities. And like I said, it was just kinda a little scary when that one day when I walked in there and, like and it was she didn't understand the zoning laws when it came to agriculture, but, I mean, I could see how it could go become difficult. We don't need any more challenges to fire them in Vermont.

[Speaker 0]: Travis, are you in Mhmm. Town?

[Travis Longway (Swanton dairy farmer)]: Yes. I'm in town. I'm probably about three miles out of the town. Yeah. 95 by I mean, everything around us is all ag land. I mean, we don't have a lot we got some houses around us, but not it's not really But we do have a lot of people. Like I said, we are the main route from the lake where there's a lot of houses. And I mean, I just wanted to share that sort like, said it. I I saw what the steps would've had to be to go through zoning because they gave them to me. And like I said, it wasn't it it would've been an extra burden on us to do. I mean, it would have been we would have to wait. And at that time, we were, like, twenty days from actually starting the the project, and they told me the next zoning meeting wasn't gonna be for thirty days.

[Speaker 0]: Good boy.

[Travis Longway (Swanton dairy farmer)]: And I wasn't worried about it because I knew we were okay. But just in that kind of case, it was like, oh. And, like, I kinda like I said, I saw what it would have to be to go through the zoning process and I didn't have to do it and I knew I didn't have to do it, but it was done at another step. And I mean, I feel like leaving to the Department of Agriculture is a good way to do it.

[Speaker 0]: Well, that's yeah. I'm glad you shared that perspective because probably most people I mean, I don't know whether other people have had to mistakenly you know, worry about that even if it's just for a couple of days. Yeah. We had a couple of questions here, think. Representative O'Brien? I was just confused, Travis.

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: You're in Swanton or St. Albans?

[Travis Longway (Swanton dairy farmer)]: I'm in Swanton. I'm right on the border.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Travis, part of the reason we passed the right to farm bills for the little strawberry farm up there not too far from you in Swanton. Yep.

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: And,

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: you know, this this ruling by the Supreme Court made about the same day we passed the Right to Farm Bill, kind of took away some of our doing is what we did with the Right to Farm Bill. So, we'll be working hard to get us back to the 1987. We'll

[Travis Longway (Swanton dairy farmer)]: strawberry oh, sorry. That strawberry farm is actually one of my neighbors. He's only half a mile from me. So

[Speaker 0]: Wait. Any other questions?

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: Right. I I was just gonna. Do you know if Swanton and or St. Elven's has

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: ordinances, not that they would affect your agriculture, but on things like truck hours of operation. Because you you probably should be, like, co op, so you have, like, DFA trucks coming and going?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Or equipment?

[Travis Longway (Swanton dairy farmer)]: I'm not, to be honest, I'm not sure on that. I don't believe so, but

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: I don't care. Planning Commission, there's not

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: any rules for trucks. Can you say your name? Oliver Mannington. We have a farm at Swan too. So Swan, the only regulation they've brought up lately was roosters, but there have been other issues. In the village. There have been other issues that I see in Swan. Swan has a lot of conserved land because in Sicily wildlife refugees in Swan. So when you look at the total acres of Swan, we're already over 50% conserved. So a problem that I face every month on our planning meetings is people are looking for ways to develop and support housing and I'm always looking for ways to kind of support the firearms and support the housing at the same time. So I think, and it's been stated in our select board, that they want to essentially ask the land trust not to do business in swamp anymore, which to me is ridiculous because for one, farmers use that money to stay in business, and two, some farmers are just doing that because they always want to know that that land is open. There's so much land in our village or in our designated growth areas like the Southern Growth District that's open for housing and business that's not used, that we don't need to start worrying about the land trust restricting development. But the issue that I could see with giving towns the authority to regulate agriculture is they might not come out and say, You can't have animals. You can't grow a garden. But they might say, Well, we like that chunk of land for development. You can't put liquid manure there or something. They can start to regulate, like you said, hours operation, what is going on to feel the smell and the noise. And while not coming out and saying they don't want farms, they're

[Lance Wood (Addison County dairy farmer)]: governing

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: farms out of business. Exactly, it's basically a death by a thousand cuts. And I'm not saying that Swan, we haven't got that far yet as far as, I mean, there's still a lot of pearl farming, but like you guys said, the strawberry case, that was challenged to the town. The town rightfully said, We can't regulate this. It's under the agency agriculture definitions. That might even still be in court, I'm not sure, but we're opening up the door for one person that just doesn't like things to try and go to towns and certain navigator to cut off the agency of agriculture who actually knows. Because I'm the only farmer any of the other than there's one other farmer on the select board. So there's not a lot of representation of farmers left in any municipality or even in state house for that matter. So I think it's important that we kind of stick together and get these rules passed now, when it's favorable because down the road, I don't see it becoming more friendly to farms actually.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Nelson.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: How many of you in this room farm right on the edge of a village or the village is kinda going around you a little bit like we do in Derby. That's creeping in there. Do? Yeah. Yeah. I know you do. You do? You do well? Okay. Thank you for that. So we all have concerns that are deep rooted and to keep our our ability to grow food

[Speaker 0]: in the state. I'm wondering if, since there's other, we have a few more minutes, I think, did you say, what time did you say you needed to?

[Mandy Marble (dairy farmer, Sheldon; organizer escorting farmers)]: We're going out to Santa Ana around 10:45.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. We had 10:20 as a stop, but we can keep going a little bit. If anybody else would like to add anything.

[Mandy Marble (dairy farmer, Sheldon; organizer escorting farmers)]: One, I would love for some of my farmers to introduce.

[Speaker 0]: Let's do that then. Okay. All right.

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: What's something I love to add? Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Yourself and if you want to say while we're going around. My name

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: is David Durfee, we farm in the Mad River Valley, farms in More And More and and More and and Big Steel, Northtown, and Boston. We met about 600 cows and I guess when I was first asked to come here I don't really have a whole lot of particular things because we don't have much to complain about as far as neighbor relations or town relationship because we, for being a ski resort town, get a lot of support and we have a lot of neighbors that step up for us and if there's an issue, it almost takes care of itself because the people enjoy the landscape, enjoy the cross country skiing our property. But that said, we also we just built a barn last year and we went and obviously there wasn't much of a process that we had to go through to do that with permits. But there were a couple of neighbors that had called and checked in on us, it was an easy The current situation just lent itself so well to making the process seamless, whereas we don't need anything else to hinder us when we're thinking about modernizing our farms, as Travis said, or doing some of these projects. The other thing we ran into this past summer was, like I said, great neighbors for the most part. And we try really hard to be a part of the community and big part of influence on the rest of the people that we look at as not only do you guys get to enjoy what we do, but you also have to put up with us because we run our charts hard when it's time to spread manure, when it's time to harvest crops, it's time to put

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: in

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: corn. Right? We run really hard and that's let us do what we do, it's let us be successful and there's a certain element of a certain demographic of people whether they're new to the area. They were drawn to the area because of how beautiful it was. We make that land beautiful. We take care of a couple thousand acres of land throughout the valley, whether it be pastures or crops. Then when they realized, wow, this truck's running at 11:30 at night, I had people come out and stop me and be like, you need to I was like, you think I want to be here? Want to go home too, but it's been raining tomorrow morning and we're gonna finish this. And I think it sets, know, it saints in for most, but there was a certain neighbor that went to the town last year and they filed complaints with our truck traffic. And I don't know what the ordinances are. I probably should have since they didn't apply to us. I guess they didn't take the time to dig in. I was so busy working. But luckily, the town came back to them and said, hey, we have no jurisdiction. We We have have no means to control this. The priests are respectful. They try to do a good job. But yes, we're neighbor as well. And we don't always love that they're running hard if they have to. So I just think it's important that we have some sort of level of protection against trouble that we don't need. And if it's working, and I'm sure there's cases that don't, but I think you're going find the people that have spoken up and tried to vote change were the 2% or the 3% of people that were unhappy with the situation and not the 97% or 98% people that support their local community farmers and are

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: part of that.

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: So I guess that's my piece.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. Let's keep going here.

[Mandy Marble (dairy farmer, Sheldon; organizer escorting farmers)]: Yeah, my name Marble. It's my husband, Tyler. We own and operate 200 in Sheldon with my parents, my brother, a couple of my uncles. So very family oriented. And while we haven't had, haven't really built anything lately, still haven't really gone through anything, kind of just here for moral support. Our next project though that we're kind of stepping into right now is actually a farm elementary school, fresh school. So while the school aspect has its own challenges, it is going be farm related. So we are kind of concerned it'll be really small scale, maybe under an acre, like you were saying, so it's going to be its own challenges, I'm sure.

[Speaker 0]: Is your farm right near one of the little centers in Sheldon?

[Mandy Marble (dairy farmer, Sheldon; organizer escorting farmers)]: No, we're actually out from we're on the border of Pyegate, but not near either of the towns themselves. We're surrounded by

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: One mile off and one will probably.

[Mandy Marble (dairy farmer, Sheldon; organizer escorting farmers)]: Yeah, we're surrounded by like four other farms, so.

[Speaker 0]: All right, good. Well, thank you for coming in and thanks for sharing that story.

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: I'm Brian Cina, Vera Farm with my brother and my parents in Berkshire, And we, like everyone's saying, we have a small town of 1,300 people. We do glitches, they're just like, we work really hard to contribute to the town in positive ways and pay it forward and be respectful and try our best, try not to run late, try to just start at daylight, end at daylight the most, but plenty of times we get caught working late as well. And I guess my little story here is we were lucky enough to make a deal with a digester company that's taking our methane gas, cleaning it, and turning it into natural gas. And we make enough gas to heat 1,500 homes all year from our farm. And when the digester company started the deal, they were really ambitious, really positive, they budgeted about $600,000 for permit date. It took about $2,500,000 $3,000,000 so know a couple million over cost and it took about two or three times longer than they had planned to get the permits to do this. And when they first moved into our area and we made the deal with them, really paused it asking about neighbors, a future opportunity to dig more of these plants and take methane from our manure and scrub it and make the natural gas and sell it. But the last I talked to them, they want nothing to do with Vermont. It was a good thing we had signed a contract with them because it held them accountable and they hung up. They got the job done and they seemed like good partners. We're about a year into the project, a couple years into the project. It's only been online for a few months now but it's just really sad to see

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: all that happen because I thought it

[Burtt (first name unknown; Berkshire dairy farmer, ‘802 Farmers’)]: was one of those things that

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: was bipartisan. It was good for all Vermonters you know. Heating, affordable heat, efficient heat. We got the manure back and renewable heat and I just thought it was a win win no matter what party line that we belong to. And then yet again for whatever reason chase them right out, you know what I mean? And at this time they're not interested in doing anything others and I think that's unfortunate because I think a lot of dairy farms, because it is income for our farm and stuff, are going to miss out on the opportunity, know, and we're just lucky to be on the ball early. That have to go through a certificate of public good from the PUC, or

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: was it Act two fifty permitting for just that specific thing?

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: It was multiple things connected to what you just talked about. Our town, the inner town, was like pretty good, pretty easy going even though it's like a massive project for our little town. They came out to the farm and showed them around and explained it and we were actually lucky enough, we don't have to truck our gas, did Vermont Gas partnered with them. So our gas goes right underground, Route 105 and right down 105 on the ground. And so it didn't really impact our job. The only positives is that now we get two more full time positions in our little town because they had to hire locally. One guy's from Montgomery, one guy's from Fairfield, and good career opportunities for the company and stuff. Yeah, it was mostly in the state and type of level that they really struggled with. Where is the digester? Right on our home farm. So my parents built a digester in 2006,

[Alex Tebow (Colchester dairy farmer)]: we were the second

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: in the state, and then twenty years later just needed a massive financial overhaul and it took a lot of time and labor and so we decided to partner with a digester company. We made electricity with them, think, through the CAPPal program. So it was time for a change whether we invested the money or we had another sibling that was interested in maybe we would think about busy farming and that takes its own thing, know, it takes a lot of time to get in the future.

[Speaker 0]: Let's keep going.

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: I'm Oliver Manning. I farm with my brother and my dad and a niece and a nephew. I'm also in Swanton. We milk about five fifty cows. Our farm's been our family for like ten years. Started out with my great great grandfather, three cows, that's

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: how we

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: started. The other thing I'd like to add to, just quickly, about the towns and what a lot of towns and even our neighbors So we invested in the Dragon Rides newer system a couple years ago and we buried some supply pipe and we were across the road from the neighbor's house and he came out and goes, What are you guys doing? And I don't lie, this is a neighbor we don't have a good relationship with that's constant problems. And I kind of explained it to him and he had no idea what any of that meant. His only question was, Well, how is this going affect my quality of life? I said, Well, make it better. I said, There's less traffic down the road. There's less smell. We're ejecting everything. So then fast forward to this year, we've been trying to add more buried supply line to get across roads and stuff because it's not always easy ways to cross, but we've been having issues with NRCS and the agency as far as engineering because they don't have enough engineers, so the projects are dragging way behind. So what we ended up doing was I just went to the town and asked, Would it be okay? This is a class four dirt road. There's houses past where we wanted to cross. Can we just lay our hose across the road? Would you be willing to close the road for two days? And the town was very supportive of that, and they allowed us to do it. And I told them, I said, If we can't do this with the line, we're gonna have to take spread that 150 acres. Gonna take us probably a week and almost a thousand loads of manure, or not that hundreds of loads of manure down the road. And so not only is that gonna be slow traffic, smell, everything, as I said, it's destroying the roads. So I said by helping us, you're helping the town save your infrastructure, and since we explained that to them, they've been very willing to let us access culverts to cross roads or in that situation, to close the road for two days to save everybody time and a lot of money.

[Burtt (first name unknown; Berkshire dairy farmer, ‘802 Farmers’)]: My name is Burtt and I'm here with Derek Farm in Berkshire, neighbors with Bradley. I farm with my three brothers, sister-in-law as well. She

[Speaker 0]: gets upset when she's

[Burtt (first name unknown; Berkshire dairy farmer, ‘802 Farmers’)]: not mentioned. And my dad's tired, he's still going, and my mom as well. We moved here in 1998, bought the farm, and we've grown. You have to kind of grow. I think if you don't grow to a certain point, either you diversify or whatnot, you get left behind. So we've done some sugaring. This last year we put up a corn bin, going to do some, make our own cornmeal and stuff. Didn't have much of a problem applying for anything with the town of Berkshire, which was nice. So we have some land right in Berkshire that would be future development, I guess, we have land right around it as well. That's river bottom land so that wouldn't be affected. But it does make, well we have farms in Berkshire, we have land in Berkshire, Bridgeford and Innsburg, so we are on the 105 quite a bit, and we try to respect everyone. We are right around the pine cone and they've asked us not to spread manure when they have car shows and stuff, and so we try to be neighborly. And we started to dragline as well, like the main set here, to kind of keep track of it down. It's safer for everyone if we don't have to pull up 105 because there's four corners right where we are, and we've had accidents before there because for some reason people pass as we're pulling into our main road. So sometimes people don't understand that big equipment can't stop fast.

[Speaker 0]: Let's Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Their farm is absolutely beautiful right down there on the Missisquoi River. Floodplain. Yeah. And they had a great crop of corn too this year.

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: Our game is gonna suffer. Yeah. Crop

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: And

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: they they do a great job. Where where did you come from?

[Burtt (first name unknown; Berkshire dairy farmer, ‘802 Farmers’)]: Austria. I just naturalized in December so I became a citizen. Congratulations. They

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: also have a pretty awesome presence on social media eight zero two Farmers. Yep. And they're really a great voice for Vermont agriculture. So thank you for that.

[Burtt (first name unknown; Berkshire dairy farmer, ‘802 Farmers’)]: Yeah, we show our operation and what we do and say if you want to check it out, check out some people don't know farming, it gives an idea of what we do, what we have to go through, and how we survive and fix things. We

[Speaker 0]: should probably pick up the pace here. Want to make sure everybody has a chance at least

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: to Take mine real quick, my name is Kyle Massey, I grew up

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: you know in this farming community with you know Bradley and Burtt and

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: this year supported me. Land is becoming a very rare commodity in a lot of

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: these communities with certain development rules changing positively. So it'd

[Oliver Manning (Swanton dairy farmer and local official)]: be nice to see stuff awarded to protect that.

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: We're all standing by now. Thanks John.

[Lance Wood (Addison County dairy farmer)]: My name is Lance Wood, farm in Addison County. I have three brothers and my parents are still involved, know, to read in farming. You know, I guess the only thing I can really say to add anything other than what the previous people have added is every layer of complexity we have, every regulation we have serves to increase the cost of food. You know, so we just have to realize the minimum impact necessary to get the job done and protect the farmland and regulate the farms, the better. I have a lot of big families so we have layers of management that can deal with complex regulations, the paperwork and the meetings and stuff. Certain people I'm friends with, they're one man band and they don't have the capacity from ownership perspective to do that. Every regulation I think disproportionately impacts a smaller department. Just keep that in mind. Thank you.

[Kylie Chittenden (Addison County dairy farmer)]: I'm Kylie Chittenden. I am a dairy in Addison County and I farm with my husband. My brother works for us And I have three kids that are on farm this quite a bit. And I hope someday one of them will have a chance to be on our dairy. And so when we're talking about things like this, I'm thinking from the lens of what opportunities will that next generation have. And so I hope that we can find ways that they do have that chance of farming or safe. Emilie Bryson, I'm great friend with my husband and his brother Morris. We have a LFO in Shoreham. We've been operating for over a hundred years. Been on dairy as well.

[Emilie Bryson (Shoreham dairy farmer, LFO)]: On farm, just sees constant juggles all the time, regulations. It takes a lot of work just to keep the farm dry. It's a thousand cow dairy and having more regulation just makes a lot more headaches and you really just want to work with the cows, machinery, field work, you don't want to spend all your time doing all the other administrative stuff.

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: I got one quick.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I mean George milk trucks the other day,

[Unidentified Berkshire dairy farmer (digester project, Route 105 pipeline)]: dollars 18 a 100

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: weight and I hear that's not the floor.

[David Durfee (Mad River Valley dairy farmer)]: It's tough.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So I don't know about how profitability you all are, but that doesn't fly for Nelson Burns.

[Speaker 0]: So anyway, buckle up. Is your Shoreham farm on West Of 22 A there? I'm

[Mandy Marble (dairy farmer, Sheldon; organizer escorting farmers)]: fine with Whiting

[Speaker 0]: You guys should meet each other.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Well, okay, why don't we we should probably take a little break. We've got another group of folks coming in, so thank you everybody for making the trip. Thank you.