Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good afternoon or good morning again. We're back in Action Center Agriculture. We're going spend some time with the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance. We have a good group of people, a good amount of people here. We've been asked, because Beth has a place to be, we're going to ask that Beth lead this off unless there's just a brief statement that somebody wants to make before that. So I'm going let you folks monitor and police how you want to go. Welcome, the floor is yours.

[Beth Kennett]: Good morning. Thank you very much for having us come in and speak. We really appreciate being introduced to you. I really shouldn't be the first one to go. Paul Dodan is our chair and Mike Snow is our executive director. But I'll just ask their, them to allow me to speak early in the presentation, but after the two of them presented, so thank you. I just do need to leave by 10:30.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Sounds good.

[Paul Doton]: I'm not going to step on your toes, Beth. Please go ahead. I know better. Go ahead,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Beth, We want to make

[Paul Doton]: sure you get to your meeting. I'm sure it's very important. I know where you're going.

[Beth Kennett]: It is. Thank you very much. So again, my name is Beth Kennett. I farm in Rochester on the White River, which flows into the Connecticut River. And I farm with my husband and our son and our grandchildren. We have three generations of our family working here on the farm together. And we milk about a 100 Holstein cows and then we sell breeding livestock throughout all of the Northeast. In addition to that, for the last forty two years, we've been hosting guests from across the country and all around the world, providing a farm vacation opportunity for people with lodging and meals, but for them to come and experience life on a working dairy farm. It's been an incredible, incredible opportunity for us to be able to showcase the best of Vermont, Vermont agriculture, and Vermont dairy. With that being said, you've asked us here today as the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance. Paul Doton and I kind of got this rolling over ten years ago, meeting at my kitchen table and saying that farmers needed to have a voice at the table on how we integrate with environmental stewardship and the work that we're doing on our farms to care for our environment. It was really, really important. I've been one of the founding members for the White River Partnership that started in the late 1990s and felt strongly that that group was great at looking at the three legged milking stool, as we say, the socioeconomic and environmental concerns that we all have. And I felt strongly that the White River Partnership really needed to include the economic welfare of the people who live along the river, as well as the environmental welfare. With that being said, it just felt like the White River Partnership had some great projects, but that we really needed to have a stronger voice for the farmers who own the land, pay the property taxes. In Vermont, as you folks know, the law is that we pay property tax on the land under the river. So, if we own on both sides of the river, Bob figures on our small farm, we're paying property tax for at least 10 acres of land underneath the river. So anyway, that being said, yes, I felt At

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: what rate?

[Beth Kennett]: At what rate?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: At what tax rate. Because I'm interested if I have a bill that's going to try to help rectify that.

[Beth Kennett]: Great. Well, I'll get back to you on that.

[Paul Doton]: All right.

[Beth Kennett]: So with that being said, I felt like we really needed to get together as a group of farmers and to really be able to talk to you all from that perspective. So, Paul and I met with a couple of others and got the whole thing rolling and we had an amazing meeting this week that Mike Snow, our Executive Director, helped put together and had over 100 people attend. It's really amazing to go from four people meeting at the kitchen table to really having some great programming. I'll let Paul and Mike talk about that programming. The one other thing I want to say is that I have been appointed for the last dozen years or so by successive Vermont governors to the Connecticut River Joint Commission, which is a body with Vermont and New Hampshire both working together to oversee concerns along the Connecticut River. And we're having a meeting March year. Our meeting is in Wapole, New Hampshire. Prior, we'd had a meeting up at Wall Gladstone's Farm in Bradford. And we would love to invite you to attend. And we specifically put it on a Monday so that you could get there. So again, twenty third, we'll send you the information and Mike Snow is involved in that meeting as well. We'd really love to have you come and hear about what we're doing on the Connecticut River for both the Vermont and New Hampshire perspectives. So again, if you have any questions, we're just thrilled to be able to introduce ourselves to you. So thank you very much for hearing.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you for that.

[Paul Doton]: I I knew I shouldn't have gone after Beth. How do you follow presentation like that? I'm gonna stumble through, but as she mentioned, we did have a very exciting meeting day before yesterday. We had over a 100 farmers.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Wow.

[Paul Doton]: Excuse me. A 100 participants.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: 60 of them. Paul, I'll just have you introduce yourself, I

[Paul Doton]: I I usually know who I am. Paul Dothan. We have a dairy farm in Barnard, Dothan Farm LLC with my in partnership with my wife and our son. We're part time workers, we call it for him. We all we also our our milk goes to Cabot to be made into all that Cabot products. I'm also on right now the board of directors of Cabot. We also produce maple syrup. We also grow sweet corn. My son has 33 driveways within two miles of the farm, so he stays fairly busy. That we also have two grandchildren who keep close track of what we're doing. They live across the field. A grandson, seven, and a granddaughter, four, which is very exciting. Most nights, they go home to to to sleep at home, but not always. To continue, we did have a very exciting meeting, over a 100 participants. And with a show of hands, there were 60 farmers. Not that we're disparaging anybody else, like service providers or government agencies or nonprofits and others, But it's exciting to have a farmer meeting and to have a majority of the people there are farmers. And as you are aware, farmers are not quiet. Mike seems to fill the agenda full, and we went forty five minutes over. Some people were able to leave because they had to go home to do whatever they need to do. Secretary Anson Tibbets was there. You did not have on your agenda about CAFO, but that was discussed heavily, and Walt will talk about that later. But I just wanna bring that up. That's an important factor. We also and Mike will do do a a brief overview of what goes on and and the the information that we give. We are still doing the plastic recycling program for raft for wrap round bales, not the net wrap, but the just the plastic. I think we've got almost 20 ton of that put together for right now. One other thing, as one person was leaving the room, they said to me, be sure you bring up the fact that we are not in favor of solar panels on prime agricultural land. That com that person commented, there aren't enough people to say that to the ag committees and to anybody who will listen. That's just not acceptable. And it it no matter what the the surroundings are, it's not acceptable.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And we can talk a little bit about that as we go along as far as what our position has been with no formal yet but just uh-uh there's just a lot of discussion that we have to have and and we are putting it out there and glad to talk about that so we can get your folks' thought process on that.

[Paul Doton]: I think think Mike will bring that up also.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So

[Paul Doton]: now I think I think I've talked long enough. I'm not sure. We have two new people who have not been able to or have not come to testify before. That Walt, if it's our with you, we'll have the two of them testify first and then then you. So, Howard, do you wanna start first?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: You're muted. Got

[Howard Prusak]: it. Okay. Unmute. Alright. I didn't wanna say anything. Yeah. Thanks. Howard Prusak. I'm in Westminster West. I've been farming for fifty four years here. So I was asked to talk about how the climate change has affected my operation. I grow vegetables primarily. How it's affected my operation, and I have seen incredible changes from when I used to farm started in '19 early seventies, 1971 till now. We used to have what I now I look back fondly as normal weather. Mhmm. We there'll be spring. Snow would melt. Field will dry out. We could do some tilling, some plowing, plant some crops, and then we would have some rains. It'll be a period of of rain, but the rains were always normal rains, normal, whatever that is now, but never more than an inch. Now we have rain events, two inches, three inches, six inches in twenty four hours. This causes quite a bit of erosion on our land that we're we've learned to to deal with and plant with our we're an uphill farm, side hill farm, really. We have rolling hills, not too many flat fields. So and even on flat fields, you get so much rain. It's it's still gonna perk to the top and the fields become, useless. Our soils aren't as deep as along the river. We're on top of Vermont bedrock, so there's not a lot of place for the water to sink in very quickly. And then between the rains, the rain events, now we have extreme dry weather, which we always used to have some dry periods, that was normal. But now we'll have many weeks of really dry weather where it affects the crops. And we've had to dig additional wells and install irrigation on all our crops. All this cost money, obviously. So capital investments to deal with both extremes of the weather, but that doesn't really quite protect the crops. We could grow them under the extremes now, but things happen because of the extremities of too dry, too wet, and it does affect crop yields in many cases. So that's where I'm at. And I just wanna comment on the solar panel thing. Yeah. I agree a 100%. Prime Ag should just be Prime Ag. We installed a very large array, and we were able to construct it along a fence line in a single very long procession. Lost no field space. It's not obtrusive. It actually follows the contours of our hills. So that may not be true in every case, but it can be done. Just takes a little thinking, you know?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Right.

[Howard Prusak]: So that's all. And I'll cede my mic to the next. Thank you.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: Howard, can I jump in? This is Senator Collamore from Rutland. The array that you have up, do you take advantage of the net metering or does all that power leave and go someplace else? It goes to the grid, but who

[Howard Prusak]: It's benefits from it's net net metered. For the first eight or ten years, we're actually getting paid, from Green Mountain Power, for power, and then we paid for our usage. They stopped doing even though the original agreement was to be paid, they said, oh, well, it wasn't in writing, so la di da da. We're just gonna give you credits. So we now have credits that we use. We've gifted some of the credits to some of my my children. I don't live here on other properties, and we use it against our our farm bill. But, yeah, we produce more power than than we've used, and it was a a great undertaking that we did. It was well worth the capital investment at the time.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thanks, Howard. Thank you.

[Paul Doton]: Go ahead, Tim.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you for the opportunity

[Tim Taylor]: to speak with you folks today. As you can see behind me, it's kind of fitting. That's Saber Phil's collage. She apparently went up the Connecticut in a helicopter and worked on this collage as a study for a print that she had. That's a long story. So I'm a retired vegetable farmer. I am retired now, forty two years. I founded Crossroad Farm with my wife.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Tim, I apologize. You're gonna just tell us who you are and that's just one of the rules that they make us do.

[Tim Taylor]: I think I'm doing that. I'm a retired vegetable farmer. For the past forty two years, my wife and I founded Crossroad Farm in the village of Post Mills in the town of Thedford. Additionally, I was chair for eleven years of the District three Environmental Commission, appointed by Governor Trumlin and then reappointed by Governor Scott until he decided he had enough of me. I presently serve as Chair of the Development Review Board in Thadford upon which I've served for twenty seven years. I am on the member of the Board of Directors of Two Rivers, Addison and strangely, a 1978 graduate of Vermont Law School. So I was gonna speak about a couple pieces of legislation. And what I have found recently, kind of looking at what's going on, is that the legislature in the Vermont Supreme Court seemed to be at odds with one another. On the one hand, the legislature has, over the past few years, extended some privileges through exemptions to farmers that are not available to the non farmer business person. And on the other hand, the Vermont Supreme Court, in a recent case, has limited the traditional, though perhaps not statutorily correct view that farms are exempt from municipal review. And as an example of that coming up, I think before you, in the House's H-ninety four, that proposes to include weddings and concerts as events that can be part of an accessory on farm business, and by law are unable to be prohibited by the municipality. They still may regulate site plan and performance standards. And then recently, back in May, the Vermont Supreme Court in Ray Taft, DRB, well, you don't need to know the name really, ruled that farming is not exempt from all municipal regulations. Rather, the court interpreted the ag exemption in '24 VSA blah four one one three only to apply only to policies intended to reduce water pollution. So the court has opened the door for a myriad of municipal regulations of farms, including but not limited to prohibiting farms as a permitted use in a particular zone. So recently, the legislature outlawed the municipalities from zoning only single family housings, you probably remember that. And what I would ask the Senate to consider doing is to not allow municipalities to zone out farms, especially when the zoning districts have prime and statewide agricultural soils. Even small plots can produce high farming revenues. As an example, I would give you, one of our first tomato houses that we built in 1985. It's 27 by '96. We call it Big Tom. And it's, over the years, produced approximately 160,000 pounds of tomatoes, and with a total revenue of about $500,000

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So

[Tim Taylor]: most of us, you know, who serve on these planning commissions and DRBs, we're laypeople, right, without any real planning expertise. And though I do believe strongly in local control, preserving agricultural soils for future demands, demands statewide protection. And so I think you all need to step in and clarify that. Then I do have one hesitation, though, is that I wouldn't give carte blanche under the rubric of accessory on farm business. I do not think wedding venues and concerts fall into the same accessory on farm businesses as farmers joining together to sell their farm products. I think that is a little bridge too far to only permit site plan and performance standard review for farms with weddings and concerts. I think the municipality there should have some authority to not permit weddings and concerts on farms as a conditional use after they've applied the Queechee test. So it would be still a conditional use. And then finally, with the pressure to develop housing in the state and the difficulties implementing Smart Growth principles, largely because many of our towns, of course, lie along river corridors, which are in many cases unsuitable for growth, the pressure to develop our prime agricultural soils is only going to increase without protection. And I, ACT two fifty has never really done the job under its prime ag soils to protect farmland that well, especially if development, as you know, is exempted the way it presently is, and will be still under the tier two. So that's really what I had to say. It's kind of a two pronged thing. I think it's really, really important that you clarify and protect, you know, focus primarily on the prime agricultural soils and protecting it. I think if we can do that, we'll be going a long way towards our future. It's really all I had on my mind.

[Paul Doton]: Thank you, Tim.

[Mike Snow]: Yep, you're welcome.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you, Tim. Appreciate your testimony. We are working on language to counteract the Supreme Court decision. Are working with Ancient Agriculture and their council. They seem to think, and I think we agree with them, that a lot of what the Supreme Court has said has left the door open for us to come back in and fix the language. We kind of look at that decision saying, well, listen, fix your language. And so we do have a language that we'll be working on, and we'll do our best to get past it here which will probably and our estimations are awful hard but it looks like it might give us back about 85% of the rights that we've had. Historically. So, more to come on that. And again, we'll touch on solar as this conversation continues.

[Paul Doton]: You ready? Ahead, Tim.

[Tim Taylor]: Thank you. I just wanted to add that it, I think we all, all my years, always thought farms were exempted from municipal regulations. So I think it was news to many of us when the Supreme Court did what it did. But then again, they've done a few things that we haven't quite understood too of late. So anyhow, it's great that you're working on that. Thank you.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: As far as the arm farm, and I apologize, I meant to include this. As far as the on farm accessory dwelling buildings, we don't have a bill right now in front of us, but we are very aware of it. We talk about it almost daily and just waiting for the right moment. Again, just gathering a lot more information, thoughts, what we think we could get past when it's all said and done. You shoot, you miss and you're all done.

[Mike Snow]: Yeah,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I agree

[Mike Snow]: with that.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We are very mindful of that and, it will come up at some point.

[Tim Taylor]: I just want to add one thing with that, because I know it's been very controversial. I guess I just don't feel that I know we're special as farmers. I mean, at least, you know, and I've loved what I've done. And I certainly gave up the law for it, that's for sure. But when we step into right now, can be you can be farming for $2,000 worth of income as you understand, and you're under an accessory on farm business, your income can exceed that farming part of it. And to, it's like an open door to abuse in a way. And I think when you step, when a farmer steps into an arena, which is really arena that is regulated, and an average business person would have to go before the town or go before Act two fifty to get a permit, I think we should have to do the same. I tried to pursue this before, where I said, Okay, allow each farm if they want to have five or six weddings a year, or five or six, you know, events a year. I think what Bill does works. I've

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: spent a lot

[Tim Taylor]: of time. I know it's a fuzzy area of the law, and I don't know if there's a clear answer to it. But I'm worried, you know, with the definition of farming being such a low bar, that there is potential for abuse. On the other hand, I do want farmers to be able to expand and do more things to be viable. I mean, this agricultural soil needs to be preserved, and that's the primary, you know, know, what we primarily need to be doing. Enough. We'll give

[Paul Doton]: you time at the end, Tim, if you have more to say. We we aren't shutting you off. That's for sure.

[Tim Taylor]: Yeah. That's okay.

[Paul Doton]: I know better than do that with an attorney. Walt, are you

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: ready? Yeah.

[Walt Gladstone]: I'm ready. Thank you. Well, I'm Walt Gladstone. Thanks for the opportunity to come before you folks today. My wife and I started this farm, Newmont Farm thirty eight years ago. And we are in business today with our sons, Will and Matt. We have three sons, but two of them are in business with us. We farm in the Connecticut River Valley here in Fairleigh, Vermont. We started out roughly milking 120 cows and for ten years we grew sweet corn, milk cows and grew some pumpkins. And ten years later, we expanded the dairy. Today we we milk on two sites, our home farm, we're milking, 2,100 head of cows and a quarter mile up the road, a farm we purchased a couple years ago, we're milking another 500 cows. So we're milking approximately 2,600 cows. We have about 300 lactating and dry cows total, and we have roughly 1,900 head of heifers currently. In the Connecticut River Valley here we're farming about 2,000 acres of corn annually. We harvest probably around 12 to 1,300 acres of grass and we wholesale between two fifty and three hundred acres of pumpkins most recently. We have a strong workforce of 40 plus people that help us carry out our task. I guess the issues that I'll talk to a little bit would be I represent. So like Paul said, a couple other organizations, I am on the local AgriMark New England board with Paul Doton. And I serve and represent the our watershed at the CAFO meetings, stakeholder group that is happening most recently. We had our fourth meeting yesterday. It's a huge topic and I'm grateful that right now we've been given this opportunity and I really encourage you folks in leadership to not let this stop to have this work group moving forward because it's we're all evolving and you know, you know the story, EPA was sued and now, know, A and R has been tasked which they were already to regulate the farms but it was you know the inspectors have been the agency of agriculture. I think the long and the short of it we do not know yet as a group you know the real path that will will choose hopefully together moving forward but I think the reality of it is we need to improve the system that was in place where the inspectors were coming out with the ag department if there was a problem it was pointed over to ANR and how it got handled, what got done, we need clarity. I can tell you the farmers in the state, we want clean water as much as all the consumers and the taxpayers. We want to do our job and most recently, which is kind of just like awe in shock, we're here having the stakeholders meeting and almost at the same time we realized there's a new bill that comes forward, I guess it's six thirty two where it was suggested that maybe all the large farms would have to immediately go into CAFO. So let me back up for a second. So we're all on the same page. CAFO by definition, I wrote it down concentrated animal feeding operations. We actually are under CAFO today, but under that there's three different areas, farms, medium farms and small farms. If this term of going into CAFO would be more as I understand it,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: the federal,

[Walt Gladstone]: regulated CAFO, which has got different buffer strips that we've got today. There's a lot of changes from where we are today. And I think what's important moving forward is the farmers need to have clarity like what is that risk, you know, right today, you know, and we understand ANR has been asked to come forward and have a direct source, program, which is this this CAFO, which is this program that they're trying to define. But today, the farmers as a whole in the state, I'm not going to speak for all farmers, but most of us in this group, we do not want to go off into this federal program. We have the large farm permits, the medium farm and I'll speak to the large farm permits. Those are non discharge permits and the long and the short of it as we move forward and we need to evolve the big issues in front of us gentlemen are and ladies are the fact that it's going to take a lot of potential funding and it's going to need to take time. And so

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: those are

[Walt Gladstone]: the things that I would hope that you guys would really play into and consider as we move forward. We want to get on the same page of understanding like the inspectors that come out, we need clarity. What is that training? So the training, the farmer needs to be trained as much as the trainer. So we're both looking at the same thing. These nutrient management plans, if we were to go into KFO immediately, all that stuff would be public information. And we have a plan and we have nothing to hide. We have service providers. My understanding is under the large farms, it is public knowledge to look at these, but we, I think sometimes opening that all up, they're a plan and and and part of what we're trying to come get across as well is we need the flexibility to do certain things based on weather patterns and in our farming operations. I guess one point to it as well as, you know, I think it's important that as we move forward with this K4 program or the program we come up with, we are asked to operate at such a higher level than all the other farms in The States around us, which becomes a real barrier. Buffer strips are going to be a huge part of this. I think that the program that we've got today, which that is different than the KFO program is we've got 25 foot buffers, and the Heather Darby's and the people that have helped us figure out distances from the from our waterways is working. I guess the other thing is I will speak to wheat wheat. It's actually about ten years now ago, we actually did put in a 500 kw. We do have a solar array on part of the farm. It is on a narrow strip of land that's between the Connecticut River and the railroad tracks. It is prime land, but it was was land that the railroad track did not want to have a lot of traffic back and forth between the tracks and the river from a safety standpoint. And it's right next to the town land. It's not a landfill, but it's where people come and bring their garbage. And it was a project that we worked together with the town of Fairley. I guess that's all I have. If you folks have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, education purposes for us and for anyone who might be listening besides that, what is in a 30,000 foot view and you've said it, but what would be the immediate impact on you if you were forced to be a large farm operator, CAFO? What what's the immediate impact? And I know that you've said some of it, but the 30,000 foot view for you.

[Walt Gladstone]: Well, if we stayed with with the buffer, theoretically, I think that buffer is a 100 feet, and and I stand to be corrected on that along the Connecticut River. And that means that we could, we wouldn't be able to till that land up through there. I think that the opening up, what I worry about is on those nutrient management plants that, you know, it seems like the more information that's out there that this high level complicated plan, it just opens up a can of worms and the system today, as I understand it, my new treatment plan is open book, but I don't understand it to the total degree, but it would be different than what it is right now. I think it's a lot of the unknown. They claim that it'll be more of a help to us from a liability standpoint in case we get sued. But I'll give you an example. My understanding through my planner, if this spring for whatever reason we have a bunch of winter kale, we have different things, we make cropping decisions in real time at that moment, I've changed the plan. Now I got to go back and get permission to do these different changes. And that flexibility as farmers, we need to have that. We need to operate real time and make decisions based on lay of the land and the weather that's going at that point in time. I can't answer it from a truly economical standpoint. I grew up in New York State, those guys over there, I follow a lot of those farmers. There there's I don't think that there's one farm in in this national CAFO program over there in New York State because these guys have worked so hard to improve in this working group that they've got over there between DC, the working group, Cornell University, the Ag Department to perfect a program so that it's evolving and they're trying to do the right thing without getting put in this different program.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: you, Mr. Chair as well. Good to see you again. I'm just going to ask your opinion and you can sidestep if you want, but based on your thirty five years of farming, would you expect there'd be a discernible difference and improvement in water quality if all the LFOs having to be under the CAFO? In other words, what difference

[Walt Gladstone]: is No, no, no. I mean, you know, one of the things that's interesting about this whole thing, sometimes, you know, it's funny, you know, it's like, you know, you're big, so let's target it. And I don't like this big farm, small farm, you know, if there's a water problem, there's a water problem, let's address it. I mean, in New York State, those guys get looked at once every three years. Here, we're going to get inspected every year. Why are we not inspecting like all of us on a schedule that makes sense so that we can make sure that all of us are acting in good behavior and doing the right thing? So one of the things that's a worry is, you know, bringing all of our, this is a huge one, bringing our manure pits and then they use this term silage leachate areas. The chair of your board has been to my farm, you know, we're supposed to contain the high nitrate nitrates that come off the the bunker silos that low flow goes to the manure pit and then then you've got a high flow. If these things have not been designed and have a PE stamp, then theoretically we've got to spend someone said yesterday on the call it's costing between 15 and $20,000 just to get an engineer out there to to relook at this the pit irregardless of whether, you know, you need to do anything with it. My point is many of these PETs, they're they're working, but they don't have the perfect stamp. So, you know let's just chase where the direct problems are versus you know and if we really want to have this incubator type system then let's have time and money to get to where we need to go. That's what New York did They they they got ahead of it and been working on this for the last fifteen or twenty years. And we're a little bit behind the eight ball.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you. And I look at it when we look at the two the two distinct water groups that we talk about, which is the Champlain Basin and the Connecticut River Valley, I look at the efforts that have been made by all farming and they have improved the water quality over and over and over again. I said yesterday and I've said many times that the Vermont farmer is the true environmentalist. I don't think that anybody is out there looking to pollute at all. I tend to agree with your assessment Walt that I don't see that it would make that much of a difference. I don't see that you think that you're getting away with something by being where you're at right now and saying, phew boy, we dodged the bullet on that. But instead, I look at this prime ag land, you start losing 75 feet of a buffer all the way around there. That's an awful lot of crop that can get grown when you start talking about 2,000 acres.

[Walt Gladstone]: No, thank you. I really appreciate it. A lot of this, like you just pointed out, I appreciate the question, it comes down to risk. I mean, there's risk at every level here, but let's evaluate the risk. Let's take the money and put it toward the risk that we see that's the highest level that's gonna affect water quality. And then let's kind of bring it backwards from there. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay. Bill, are you

[Paul Doton]: Bill, am I stepping on your toes, sir?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: No. No. You are not. You are nope. You go ahead.

[Paul Doton]: Okay. Bill, remember Mike wants to talk too. We have twenty eighteen minutes left. So if you can tailor that. So, Mike, we'll have time.

[Bill Emmons]: I'll do my best. Thank you.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And that's

[Bill Emmons]: gonna be difficult as you know. My name is Bill Emmons for you all. I have a farm in near Woodstock in the town of Pomfret called Cloudland Farm. Been in the family since 1908 and it was a rather large and successful farm prior to my grandfather buying it. And my father was a lawyer, but I tended to love the farm and so I took it over about forty years ago and have been running it ever since, slowly but surely making it a better and better. It's a hill farm, so it's not a bottom land situation like Walt might experience. And so it's a hill farm. And if it weren't for one acre pond on the top, it wouldn't be here at all. We get our water gravity fed all over our pastures. So we're basically an Angus farm, beef cattle. We raise pork, we raise chicken, meat chickens, and we have a few layers. And predominantly the big thing now for us is we have an on farm restaurant, and, Tim, alluded to that just a minute ago. And, we've had that for fifteen years now. Basically from the get go, we started wondering what next, what next. And we would go from sides and quarters of our beef to value added cuts. We got a grant, got somebody from Cornell to come over, Danny Shaw. He told us what we could do to value add, we did. We started selling in a very small milk room that we had renovated and started making progress getting to know people, people really appreciating what we were doing and they were educated. So from there we kept saying what next, what next? One thing led to another and someone said commercial kitchen. I said no, because you don't use that very often. They said, put some chairs out there and some tables. And I said, you mean like a restaurant? And they said, yes. So they encouraged us, Vermont Agency of Ag encouraged us. And so we went further and further and further and got a USDA value adding rural development grant, I mean 10 or 12,000, I think to do a feasibility study. And so we did. And at that point we were invested and other people were invested in us. So we had to either jump or run away and we decided to jump. And so fifteen years ago, we pulled the trigger and went through everything. It took us four or five, I think years, three, four years to go through the whole process and get it done. But we followed everything to a T. We asked, you know, it was a farm to table restaurant and we went that route. Basically we had to produce over 50%, I believe, of our product had to come from our farm. Right now my wife runs the whole show down there and we have our own chef and it's very successful. It's 50 seater. It's very attractive. It fits in well in the farm. It employs a number of people. They pay taxes. They get great tips. People can go home with $400 in tips on a night. And these people are a lot of professionals. They've gone to law school or are going. Their families Teachers. Teachers, nurses. You name it. These people, this is a second job for them. And we have 11 people we can pick from. And either work front of the house or back of the house, which is kitchen versus the seated area. 50 seats. We didn't want to go any bigger. We were very concerned about what traffic, what neighbors would do and say. It's been so successful and so well accepted that we every year have our Cloudland Road Party here. It's going to happen this weekend. And everybody comes in potlucks and this and that. But anyway, it gives us a great opportunity to meet people face to face and they ask questions. If I go down there, which is rare because I consider it the forbidden city because I'm either too greasy or too bloody or too muddy, that I just get in the way more than anything. But occasionally I go down and greet people outside if I'm coming and going visiting friends. And they have a lot of questions. And I'm an easy talker, I can explain things rather carefully. So it gives us an opportunity to highlight the importance of agriculture. So that leads me to a little bit further on in my life, where I've been the chair of the Two Rivers Regional Commission for I don't know how many years, thirty or somehow, I forget. Also local planning commission, and I've been involved in the Vermont Beef Industry, Beef Industry Council, Vermont Angus and the New England Angus Association for years. And when you do that, really get curious and I showed cattle back then. So I'm involved and I've had skin in the game. And I know farmers, I grew up here. I grew up with a family that ran the farm for my father. So I pulled horses at horse fairs, on and on and on, beer, halls and all the rest at Tonbridge Fair. So I know the farming community very, very well. And I have a love for it and I have a great compassion and care for it. So I am kind of tirelessly behind the scenes quietly sort of fighting for them. I understand how we have a lot of setbacks in life and especially in the farming world. Everything is coming at you like a crossfire hurricane, whether it's weather or whether it's taxes or whether it's the cost of tractor supplies. You can't buy a paper clip for under $20 nowadays. So that's what's really killing people. You take care of that, and the farmers are gonna take really good care of their land and water, which leads me to to say that there's been great progress involved in the in the water quality, enhancement in our in our watershed. Now I'm not 100% sure exactly if there are any rivers or streams or portions of them that not contaminated, but there's a word for it. But they're getting better. They're finding the point sources. They're finding this and that. It's the farmers that are out there with their manure spreaders that people can see. So we are a target, which is obvious. But there are a lot of golf courses. There are people that are photographers that are dumping stuff down drains. They go in PFSAs. You all know this stuff. It goes to everything that you buy in grocery store or anywhere goes down the tube into the septic systems or municipal systems. And those things are ancient and breaking down. And then they go on to farms. They don't do that anymore, but there was a lot of that stuff spread over the years. So I'm holding my breath that we don't see PFSAs like they have over in Maine or in New Mexico or a few other places. But just to give you a little hope, recently this morning I read that in Davos, recently in Switzerland, one of the topics was the importance of soil. And they said something about nature is the guardrails, but soil is the road. And so I read this article. It was very interesting, and I'll send it to you Paul, because I enjoy sending a lot of this stuff to my fellow farmers and what have you. But enough said, I just want you to continue having us come before you. This is really, really important. As Beth said, and Paul said, and everybody else said, we need to be talking to you face to face more frequently. And our farmers need to see more of these agricultural gatherings that we had at the Billings Farm yesterday. That was critical. We used to have those at the farm show a lot. So it's great to have you have us here and I really appreciate it and I wish you all the best. Thank you so much.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you, Bill.

[Paul Doton]: Thank you, Bill.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good questions.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: Go ahead. Paul, thank you. So when you opened the restaurant, did you have to go through an Act two fifty permit?

[Bill Emmons]: No, sir. We we we we we were told we did not have to. My wife, Kathy, can speak to that.

[Kathy Emmons]: We did go through an Act two fifty review. We actually asked them different questions. If we wanted to do this, would we need a permit? If we wanted to do that, would we need a permit? If we wanted to do weddings, would we need a permit? And they walked us through step by step all the different permits we needed, and we chose to avoid the wedding realm because at that time, they said we would need an act two fifty permit. So we do have to grow 51% or more of our food here on the farm that we serve, and we actually are closer into the sixties percent. Basically, our restaurant became our market for everything we're growing here. And, unfortunately, the rest of the governmental tax system doesn't recognize that a farm to table restaurant is actually a farm business. So, that's one thing that could be improved. I've been working with my accountant about why the restaurant has to be on my schedule c and all my expenses go through my schedule f, which makes it looks like my farm's making no business, no money, and the restaurant's making all the money. Anyway, that's another topic. But, yeah, we specifically tried to avoid an act two fifty permit, and so we operate with an exemption.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: And is the, did you say it right outside of Woodstock, I think?

[Kathy Emmons]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Emmons]: Five miles up

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: the yeah. Yep.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: So are there local zoning regulations there or not?

[Kathy Emmons]: Yeah. It Pomfret. We're Pomfret here. Yeah. And we did go through our local zoning. And, when the state granted us the agricultural exemption, then our town followed suit with the same parameters of growing the majority of the food here and giving us the exemption.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: Sounds like sometimes this all works. Alright.

[Mike Snow]: Thanks for calling.

[Bill Emmons]: Down. Check it out. Cloudlandfarm.com. Bring all your friends. Thank

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: you.

[Paul Doton]: Okay. Mike, are you ready?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. Hi, guys. Hi.

[Mike Snow]: Hey, guys. I think we introduced the organization last year. Yep. So I don't wanna spend too much time. I'm also a farmer. I used to be a full time vegetable farmer. A few years ago, I started a new farm. I don't grow as many vegetables anymore. I raise chickens and grow dry beans and small grains. Glad to talk about sort of what it's like to be starting over or starting because there's some challenges that might be pertinent to what you guys do. But really, just wanna give more time for answering questions. I've thought to weigh myself on some of them, just wanna give you plenty of time to

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, you said you redirected that I'd be interested to hear from going to vegetable to

[Mike Snow]: Yeah, well I think the hurdles are the Yeah, so some of the hurdles, I rent land in three towns, two in Vermont and one in New Hampshire. It's hard to access good land. Prime soils, it's really difficult to make a profit when you're not on prime or statewide soils. Like it can, it's impressive on you how much that matters in terms of the efficiencies of being able to farm, being able to deal with weather events, both dry and wet, but sort of that piece is really important. There's a really limited amount of that land, especially where we live in the Connecticut River Valley. Why is that? Well, a lot of, and this does get to some of the big water quality and sort of the 50 by 50 program questions, right? That a lot of our best soils are soils that have been drained. They used to be wetlands. They're they're lighter soils that are near rivers. So that's why when we talk about the river bottoms, right, that's that's just where these kinds this kind of texture is. Whereas, you know, the Champlain Valley, very different sort of as the glaciers retreated, the this clay kind of all fell closest to the lake, and so it's challenging to farm there. Our landscape is really different on our side of the state. So it's important to remember that those used to be wetlands and we're talking a lot about as a state about how do we preserve wetlands or how do we reproduce the functioning of the wetlands. But we have this kind of inherent conflict because the answer for some would be, well, let's just make them wet again. But this is the best place to be growing food. And we would also mention that a year or so ago, there was a large study, New England feeding New England. If you've heard of it, great. So what would it take for us to grow 30% of our food? And the short answer is we already don't have enough land, right, and we need to use the land that we have differently. That's fine, but And

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: you're taking the risk. Not only do we not have enough land, but we probably don't have enough people that want a farm Well, as

[Mike Snow]: so that is a piece of this also, and I can tell you, I just visited a farm that the land trust is trying to sell, right, so they do a request for proposals, you submit a business plan, if you can, they pick you, right, and I was talking to the people there. When I got to this site, I realized that the initial planning I had done probably wouldn't work just because of the lay of the land. More importantly, the agricultural value, I I'm pretty creative, like I've written a lot of business plans for myself and for other people, and it it would without like some very, very specialty crop that you can, like, grow in a greenhouse or something, you cannot make the mortgage on the ag development rates to buy this farm. And I said, you know, did you expect anyone to make a living off of this farm and pay for it? And she's like, not really, no. We expect that whoever does this will raise or grow something, but they'll probably have a full time on farm job and or a spouse that's just. But just to say that the viability piece is really big here. That's where you get into $20,000 for an engineer to come out, which might be easier for the larger farms. Eventually this water quality stuff, the CAFO, will trickle down to the small farms, and $20,000 impossible. That's why a lot of small and medium farms have gone out of business. Not to say that, just to say that this affects all of but that's the answer. Very good. So

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: with all of you, and anybody can jump in on this, you know we're talking about water quality and obviously there is downstream pressures that are dictating a lot

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: of what you

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: do. Are you guys winning the battle? Is the water quality improving? Is is what you were being asked to do? Are you doing it?

[Bill Emmons]: I would say yes. Absolutely. You could talk to any of the environmentalists out there that especially on this side of the Green Mountains. We don't have a major phosphorus problem, we have more of a nitrogen problem. And by the way, if any of you enjoy reading, I would highly recommend you read a book called, it's just put out two years ago, called Phosphorus, The Devil's Element. Phosphorus, The Devil's Element. I've been pushing that book because I finished it just a while ago. Anyway, yes, I think we're making progress. You have You have a lot of storm water damage, you'll never stop that. You have interstates with rubber tire pieces that go into the rivers, on and on and on. But I have been getting messages from people saying, the water quality is getting better. It comes and goes in a way, but that's a natural phenomenon.

[Walt Gladstone]: I guess I'll just comment. It seems from what I've heard from some of the state people and you look at how well we've moved things along. I think Laura DiPietro with the ag department, she, the information she's putting out, we've made huge strides. Mean, I mean, it's just, you know, and I don't know guys, you know, sometimes it gets complicated, you know, it would it maybe would appear feel like we're the low lying fruit where they could try to poke and we could try to make progress. Well, that's what we've done. But then you look at oh, I don't know. For example, I I don't even understand this. Up in Bradford, there's a local Hannaford's and right there by where there's a dollar store, all the all the road water, surface water goes into like this shallow ditch and then there's a pipe and that pipe goes underneath the road and goes right down to the Connecticut River and I'm thinking holy smokes imagine all the all the whatever that's on the road or you know what they're spreading to the salt and all this And and and and then for example, you know, if if there's a little bit of manure when the inspector has come outside my barn from the wheels of a skid steer, Like, they're worried about that. I mean, we've gotta have some level of common sense to this.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I mean,

[Walt Gladstone]: thank you.

[Paul Doton]: I'll just mention one of the things that we hit hard when we first performed was the fact that we knew there was a target on the on the other side of the state. But don't forget us. We were not getting many funds. We were not getting much help. Yesterday, we discovered a day before, we discovered we have an extension person who is now centered in Saint Johnsbury, and he knows what this side of the state. And we are getting more funds. So I've encouraged people. We either need to put up or shut up. If we're getting more funds, better make use of them. And I think we

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: are. And

[Mike Snow]: the investment is like, it pays off. Right? I mean, the the the the impact or dollar spent in ag for water quality seems to be more effective than the money that gets spent often for other industries.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. So just a few minutes if we could just to lay out I think you guys really understand what we're talking about as far as looking at solar part of it so again, we are just in discussion and we're actually putting it out there and I'm very, very pleased that everybody's listening to it and everybody's chiming in because that's really what we need. So it's kind of our take right now that we want to keep any type of development off of our prime ag lands. Farming's changed in such a way that you don't have those hundreds of acres anymore needed for pasture land. And in a sense, a lot of that land has become invaluable to you. It's on your tax roll. It's all of that. But I think that if we can all find a way to, think about this, collectively, that we can make that land more valuable by saying, okay. A lot like what you guys have done already on the two instances that you've said. You have put those solar panels where there's where it's less likely that you would ever grow much on there. Even in Walt's situation, they didn't want you to grow much on there. They didn't want you to be there. They didn't want you to be there. To me, that is exactly what we're talking about. Let's put these projects and housing into areas where we're not stealing prime ag land. That is our discussion and I think if we do that, it actually increases the value of this non productive land that you guys are just paying taxes on because there will be a time I think where they'll say, hey, I think we need to be, I think that we will want to be, I think that we'll want to put some things there and there might be some competition for that land where there hasn't been. Any thoughts on that?

[Paul Doton]: Yeah. Might make might I make a correction?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yes.

[Paul Doton]: Don't negate the value of pasture land.

[Mike Snow]: Yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: On our side of

[Paul Doton]: the state, there's a lot of animals being pastured.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay.

[Paul Doton]: And taking taking making better the prop the land that has been left fallow maybe or even land that they're working on because there are programs, which I'm part of, both through the agency of agriculture and NRCS to improve your pasture. So just be careful. I'm I'm not stepping on your toes, I hope, but just so you understand there is pasture land that's being used, not as much as it used to be, but there's a lot of it being used.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Absolutely. We appreciate that very much, Paul.

[Mike Snow]: Another another piece of that might be the the scale of the land too. In certain parts of state, a lot of the hay land is getting converted. The housing in part because no one can make money on the hay land or the old timers are are doing any work. But it's harder for people who might rent some of that and make use of it to invest in these smaller parcels. And so maybe there's a a size piece of this too, so that the large pieces of open land remain available for ag.

[Bill Emmons]: I have a comment for you on this. Pastridge is vital. It's what people come up here to look at when they come spend their money in the summer times. It is what Vermont is. And we've lost it, a lot of it. When I was a boy, were tons of hilltop pastures. You know they're gone. They were summer heifer pastures. They're no longer there, grown up. So that's really important, especially what people can do, they can self liquid, they can liquidate cattle in the fall, they can buy them in the spring and they put them on pasture and move them off in the fall. This is vital. One thing that know that's important is to guarantee some way to preserve open agricultural land, whether it's pastureage or whether it's hay land or corn land. Everybody is concentrating, it seems like now, on forest fragmentation, on animal wildlife corridors, and preventing developments in those areas. But nobody is doing anything, or can they, or what should they do about saying, look, we don't want to see that 80 acre or 100 acre cornfield or pasture go out of production when the owner dies from leukemia or something. And my property was conserved years ago. 1,000 acres has the Appalachian Trail, has a mile or more of snowmobile trail. So we've been invested in trying to preserve and conserve what we like and love. So I just want you to get give some real thought to how do we fairly, you know, judiciously preserve those beautiful pastures in Hayland without having somebody to go in through the land trust and conserve it that way or have it sold to a land trust or the development rights or what have you. There's gotta be some way that we can lower the taxes. You know, I mean, if it's a vitally productive piece of land, it should be honored. It's sacred, and it should be, you know, it should be that the farm owner, you know, is doing something noble. And after all, everybody's heard this, that farming is a noble profession. So I want you to give some thought to how do we protect forever this land. I mean, technology is giving us a lot. We have disc mowers, we have, you know, now we have, you know, sprayers that can fly through the air drones, we have LIDAR, we have tons of stuff that help us, but we're getting bombarded with high prices and taxes and on and on and neighbors complaining and all the rest. Too many

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I think the reason why we're having this discussion is because we know what the future is. All we got to do is look down at Massachusetts and Connecticut and some of those stakes down in that way. And we're seeing over and over and over this valuable land get gobbled up by expansion and housing and and what have you and industrial type stuff because it's easier to build on. And and it's less cost costly for them, but it is lost forever when it's all said and done. And if we're gonna, work to feed our population, and, I mean, let those other people do with what they wanna do on that. But if we wanna be viable forever for three hundred years plus further along so that your generations can keep on to be on this land, it's up to us to formulate a plan so that we don't become those states anymore. And at that point in time, our states become more valuable as a food producer for the rest of the world, and if not New England, by itself.

[Bill Emmons]: Good for you because, you know, you have to be a planner in this world. You plan your birthday parties. You plan everything. But you've got a plan not fifty years, not a hundred. You've got, like you say, you've got to think way, way out there.

[Tim Taylor]: I'd like to mention just one last thing from my perspective. I hope you all stop beating to death Act two fifty. The farm where we farm today started as 15 acres. The next 20 acres came when someone wanted to build ten two acre lots. This was 1982, George Huntington, some of you might remember him. Act two fifty said no. He turned around and sold us that land. That became the key for our farm success. It became the source of our pond, became the light soils we could jump on. Then in the late '80s, there were 75 acres behind the church here in Post Mills, and they wanted to build 56 houses. Well, we probably wouldn't have a housing issue in our little area here in Thedford. We'd probably have an empty middle school right now. But Act two fifty said, and the town, no, there's 15 acres of some of the best land that Walt would love to get his hands on. This Agawan soil that is just fantastic, that has fed people for the last forty plus years, said, no, you can build up in the woods up here. And so 24 units were, were, were given, you know, the permission to build. And so I guess, you know, someone who I, Jonathan Brownell was one of my mentors, and he helped write Act two fifty. And I was honored to be named as a chair of that. And I think it's done a great deal. You allude to, you know, down south in Massachusetts, I think it's done a great deal under nine B-one to protect farmland. And I hope we still keep that in mind. And I mean, because we've taken a big hit the last few years, largely from the governor, and it's not the reason we don't have houses here. So anyhow, I just wanted to mention that because I think it's really still a, you know, a very important way to preserve our farmland and make sure that if we do develop on it, we try to cluster it and preserve as much of it as we can.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good.

[Mike Snow]: Thank you. Know, know you may be involved in the conversation about zoning exemption. We haven't seen good maps yet of how much prime land is in the planned growth areas, it's not that we don't agree that there shouldn't be some oversight, local oversight in those areas, but the planned growth area especially, which is not really defined yet, that could be really problematic. We could lose a lot of our-

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, we're worried about, to be honest with you, we're worried about all of it. I mean, had a discussion, just to go back last year, You know, we understand that for the most part, if agriculture is gonna continue in the state of Vermont, it's gonna probably be more than likely start on a smaller scale than a larger scale. And we we spent some time last year on re revisiting fees on the commerce industry. We reduced a permit fee for this woman who was making 12 loaves of bread a day and making a living on it. Then you get into these growth areas where they don't want anything on it. Well, that's probably exactly where somebody who's gonna start a a noncommercial kitchen inside their home in the cottage industry, and they're gonna they're gonna start where there's water and sewer and affordability, which is going to be in those zones where they don't want anything to start. But everybody deserves a chance to start something. You look at peach greens, and he started out at the end of his family driveway selling vegetables out of his family gardens. And now he's one of the largest ag well, organic producers in New England. So, I mean, we are and we told those people, land use review board, we'll fight you on that. We'll fight anyone that we think that is going to restrict agriculture in any way, large or small. We're pretty mindful as far as any of those maps and saying that this is where you're going to stay out of or this is where you're going to be or this is where you can't grow or this is where you can grow. We're looking at all that as it comes forward, especially where it comes to agriculture.

[Walt Gladstone]: I'd like to make one more suggestion. We'll probably have our open farm day again this year, But I feel like somehow us farmers need to figure out whether it's once a year, twice a year, four times a year. We're gonna pull up some buses at the capital, and we're gonna lock the capital. And those guys, all you guys are gonna get on a bus. You're gonna come visit us some of us farms because I feel like there is such a disconnect. And, you know, with with social media, with information flow, you know, we really, really appreciate what you folks are doing in in the comments that I'm hearing today. But it's all those other guys that aren't part of this this group right here that need to get up to speed. So, if you have some ideas and you you you can get a group together I'll pay for the first bus and we'll go to whatever farms you want. I think it's important. Thank you.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I think it's I think it's important as well and we're wrapping up here but you know, I wish Senator Major was here today. A big part of the committee as well. To hear Senator Major talk about his first visit to a farm and all of us, it's just we're a diverse group of individuals who are protecting farming. To see him light up when he talks about visiting a farm, somebody who had never done that before. Pretty inspirational on our part. I think you've got a bigger ally than of us, Senator Major as well. I think that's a very great idea. Think that people do need to understand that everything doesn't come all packaged very nicely. You know, that somewhere along the way a farmer grew it. A lot like what we feel about in the way that farmers affect tourism in the state. People come here because of what farmers have done. You go into Northern New Hampshire where there's no more farming anymore and you drive down the road and you just don't see anything. You see a road and here around every corner that you go, the most beautiful view that you've ever seen awaits you because there is a manicured field or there's a a statement of grass or corn or a silo or a barn or a tractor or a cow or a maple tree or a fence line or a stone wall. It's something that a farmer has done that keeps people coming here over and over and over again. I think that if you want to thank anything or the state of Vermont, thank a farmer for what they've done. Because, with the $9,400,000,000 that they contribute to the, the economy in the state of Vermont, I find it very, satisfying to know that you guys are contributing exactly what the state budget ended up being this year. So yes, our job is to make sure that people are aware of what you do for the state.

[Walt Gladstone]: Thank you. Well, we're going to

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: call it a day. We want to thank you folks for coming in. Don't be strangers. You know how to get ahold of us. We are we are we are here to serve you and we we appreciate you very much.

[Paul Doton]: Thank you.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Bye.

[Tim Taylor]: Take care.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yes. Committee. I think we're I think we had a good day and I think we had a great week. We're to have a busy week coming up. We've got some language coming up from our agency in agriculture. A lot of what we're going to do, we have to get a bill out, which we'll recommit back to our committee by Thursday, so kind of a little bit of a shell game as far as we need to come back, and we need to come back here because that's what most of our work is for the season. Sara Plunkett's going to probably on Friday. Walk us through, thank you very much.

[Sen. Brian Collamore]: Thank you. Thanks. I do

[Mike Snow]: just want to say Linda had mentioned that you guys might have questions about the four cannabis growers, and Howie, who is on here, if you do, he'd be a great resource to get some feedback.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank you. Appreciate it. Going to walk us through some more language on Essex County. We have the agency of agriculture might like to see some changes on that. I am not in the favor of doing that, but I want the committee to make that decision. I just don't really think that the way that I got the bill back to this committee really kind of stands with what I've told other people in this building, the reason why we wanted it back here. But we will have Senator Plunkett walk us through some of that language and just see where it is and maybe come up with our own thoughts about that. Other than that, thank you guys for a great week and stay warm this weekend. Yeah, keep it. Let everyone go out. Okay.