Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good morning again. Back from a little break. We're gonna spend some time with Abby Willard and Steve Collier on an act relating to miscellaneous ag subjects, section one. Who would like to lead off?

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I'm happy to. Doctor. Okay, sure. The floor is yours. Great. Good morning. Good morning, For the record, I'm Abby Wheeler, Vermont Agency of Agriculture. I'm the director of our Ag Health Division. So, I am not your RAP or municipal zoning subject matter expert. You have Steve here, I think, for a little bit more of that, but I can speak, I think, mostly to, if it would please the committee, the why behind where this change makes a difference to agriculture and the volunteer. And having Steve here, I think, can be a helpful backup if there's more of the technical questions. And you've heard from him the committee already this session, so I'd be happy to share more if you're interested. So, I wanted to start by just sharing, I think, bit about the process that's happened over the past, I don't know how long we've been, maybe starting in the summer, to come up with these recommendations in response to the Taft Supreme Court case. It's felt really important to be in partnership with the Vermont League of Cities Towns, talking with them, understanding the Act 181 responsibilities that they have, and thinking about the relationship that we have and share with them. We have an established relationship from our accessory on-site business engagements, and I'll talk about that in a little bit. We also engaged with a variety of ag groups, which was an important constituency for us to hear from, for them to tell us where there's gaps, where there's challenges around zoning and exemptions. Then for the agency to also come at it from the perspective that our responsibility is regulatory enforcement and compliance with the entire community, thinking about the importance of food security, and to the best intent possible, having food production happening on parts of the land in Vermont where it best makes sense for those businesses to thrive. I think lastly, an objective that we have is really thinking about agriculture production and ag land is not just about open land. It's not just land that's accessible to be used for whatever purpose, but it's actually, it's wise, it's the best use to be utilized for food production. Okay, so next I just wanted to then share a little bit of kind comment what a

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: little bit about that? A lot of what we're trying to outline, we agree with that. We're touching on a lot of areas whether we have a bill or not, we're at least getting some conversations going, especially the last part about using AgGlan for best use And so we are going to continue on that vein. We actually have some miscellaneous bill. We have some things about solar siding and stuff like that that we're going to get to. We'll be shipping your guys' advice as far as on that. Are probably unprepared, and I've talked with a lot of people, especially within the Agency of Agriculture, about our position on that, and I guess our position is we don't have a position yet, but we have a lot of conversations going on that. Any time that you hear that we are in discussions on any of that, we would welcome any conversations. We're very nervous about looking in the future three and a half years from now and seeing that we don't have any ag land, we have the history of looking at other states, but we also have, as Southern Heffernan has brought up more than once, about private property rights, with farmers and stuff like that. So I think at some point in time we need to find that balance of where that conversation goes.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Great. Yeah, I really appreciate that. Maybe I'm going share things with you that you've heard before. I I think some of the information and the examples and anecdotes that I'll offer are probably pieces of history in agriculture that you're already aware of. So tell me to hurry along if this is not anything new in Wisconsin.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. We would never tell you to

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: her. Okay. Good.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: So peace. But he might do this.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I appreciate that. I'm glad you know that agriculture and food systems in Vermont is over a billion dollar industry, which is a huge contribution to the economy of our state. And yet that happens on less than 9% of the land in the state, which is a pretty significant contribution. And we've seen that agricultural land decline over time. So, since 2017, we've lost nearly 73,000 acres to agricultural production. So, conversations Just one, I'm sorry. Since 2017.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And we lost how much?

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Nearly 73,000 acres. So there is an urgency

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: to sort By of like that land?

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Agriculturally used land, so some of it may be statewide significant, some of it may be prime access.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: What is that of? Is this in percentage?

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So let's see. There's 1,200,000 acres in agricultural use. About, I think half of that is in actual productive ag use. So, what is 73,000 of

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: You didn't know you'd have to

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: do math. I didn't know. I'm I was just gonna

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: say it's a lot.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Can't turn out. Well, I if it was

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: 15,000 it's it. Yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: 500,000,000 kids, that that would be challenging.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Right. So we're about Yeah. Yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Honestly, I I have to, you know, calculate it, which may

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Member)]: be Senator Plunkett's study phrase. I'm not. I was thinking, slay over more than 1%.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Good. Okay. Right. Good.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Okay. I think some of the projections that have been offered by organizations like American Farmland Trust sort of say that there's a risk of another 41,000 acres potentially being lost towards food production. So, the food security goals, the ability to feed ourselves and to remain kind of an agricultural state, sort of really do feel quite fragilely concerning and at risk when we think about access to agricultural land. We also recognize our place in the region, so we've shared these statistics with this committee in the past, but the New England Feeding New England agenda plans to bring about another 900,000 acres into ag production across the New England region to be able to reach the goal of going from where we are currently at 21% of regional food is being produced and consumed within the region, and the goal is to get to, by 2030, to get to 30%. So that would mean about doubling the amount of agricultural land in Vermont to be able to make a contribution towards that goal.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: And my biggest question to that is that is a good goal, but do we have the people to achieve that goal? Do we have the farmers that wanna do that? Yeah. It's one thing to say it, but if you never have people that wanna pursue that industry, it's not, it's just not gonna happen.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Well, think that's a little bit of where restoring municipal ag exemption feels valuable. We have businesses moving to Vermont, engaging in Vermont, choosing to start agricultural businesses all the time. We don't have a system where we track the number of inquiries that we receive every year or the number of new businesses that start every year. Unfortunately, we're still seeing a net loss in farms in the state, so it's a difficult measure to kind of track, but utilizing the Agency of Agriculture as a metric, we get phone calls all year long, even in the winter, of entrepreneurs that want to start ag businesses in the state. And they have questions about how they access financial assistance, or do they need a business plan, or can they grow this product, and do they need a permit to be able to sell it at a farmer's market? And they want to build a farm stand and what do they need to do to be able to sell direct to consumer right from their home?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well I think the group that we had in here just before you, which was the John Ramsey sort of from Hardwick, and again a lot of what this committee has taken on, which is protecting all these people who just want to get a start, I think that is a lens to what you're talking about.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, the Center for Ag Economy has some pretty good data. He probably shared it with you of the number of businesses in their Vermont Food Venture Center kitchen that they've had since pre like since they opened and when they moved from Fairfax to Hardwick. And there was, you know, a a big growth at the beginning and then things got a little bit slim around COVID, and now they're back to production that exceeds where they were pre COVID.

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

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And they're moved from Hardwick. Yeah. And that is an indication of the number of cottage businesses and small producers that are wanting to produce new products. We were just there on a tour of Vermont and New Hampshire Food Hub interested partners and there was, in the facility, they were making a hot maple syrup cream. Yep. There was, it was delicious. Yeah. Spicy, but like Yeah, really really spicy. And then they were processing, I don't even remember how many thousands of pounds of fresh cut products. This is all surplus potatoes, other root vegetables, carrots, etcetera, that then gets chopped and frozen and then is sourced to institutional markets.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I was there this summer and they were doing some drops, but they were also doing, they had a granola company in there, so mixing and packaging and stuff.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Then the next phase is we then hear from those businesses, and actually the individual that was in there making the hot maple cream comes to us and says, I think we're about ready to expand beyond this commercial kitchen space that we can rent once a week. Right. And we need to put in our own facility. Right. It's all of our maple syrup, it's all of our hot peppers that we make, so it's all principally produced and we need both land and some infrastructure to be able to continue to grow our business. How can you help us make that happen? That ends up being a lot of the, and I can talk about that in a moment too, just like the evolution and the change that we're seeing in agriculture and the growth that businesses are exploring to remain resilient. That kind of diversification and vertical integration on farm is happening in every sector. That's the piece where there's a real potential for agriculture to grow and, I think, thrive. We're grateful. We need the food venture centers and the food hubs to be able to incubate those businesses till they've reached the scale and have the customer base and the sales to be able to expand production on their own and have a bit of their own facility, or even a somewhat larger shared facility, is happening as well. The vulnerability that agriculture is facing in this desire to achieve resiliency, we've really seen in the last three years because of two years of flooding and a year of drought. So, in all the data, and all the conversations that we've had, we're hearing from farmers that they're looking for more land. Sometimes they're looking for land that's further from streams and rivers that could flood. Sometimes they're looking for land that's not such drowny soils, like that's become a conversation in the last year, given last year's drought. We're hearing some farms need to be closer to an irrigation system, so that might mean they need to be actually in proximity to surface water where they can pump from a pond or from a stream. In some cases, they're just recognizing that they need additional acreage to respond to the demand that they're receiving for their product, or looking at additional water sources, like where they've had a well that went dry, they need land that has a better water supply. So not only are we hearing from new farmers that want to start and we're seeing this diversification happen, businesses are also having to adjust given the climate conditions that are routinely impacting their business and plant. Then I wanted to touch on the diversification trends that we're seeing. Since '20 So, a lot of our data comes from the Ag Census, so it's 2022 data that we get a year or two later, and that's collected every five years. So, between 2017 and 2022, we saw vegetable sales increase by 70%. And much of our vegetable production happens on small acreage, and a lot of that acreage is happening on flat land, best soils, well drained, open space that you could imagine is targeted for lots of different uses, but also really ideal for vegetable production. We saw poultry and egg sales in that same five year timeframe increase by 87%, and that's because there's the opportunity for small scale operations, and then they're able to aggregate their product and sell it at a farm stand of someone else that grows produce and raises meat. We're seeing some increased on farm poultry processing that's happening for their own meat, so again, principally produced product on their farm, being able to be processed on their farm. Similar growth in the livestock production sector as well. This isn't surprising to us. This is like those innovations that we anticipated and that we've really tried to incentivize, and a lot of your investments, financial assistance and programming that you've provided our agency and our division of development over the past five years has really been focused on looking at new production models, thinking about innovative processes, thinking about the infrastructure needs that are required to be able to do more of this on expansion. Farms are doing that. We used to be, I mean, it depends on how far back you may guess, they used to be. We used to be a state that produced fluid milk. Now, our growth is in value added dairy production. It's in making cheese and butter, on farm creameries, making caramels, lots of value added products for the dairy industry. That's not alone. The produce industry, they're making sauerkrauts, they're doing frozen fruits, they're making other products, all of which can be grown on their farm and still be considered under the concept of farming. There's this whole other side, which is the accessory on farm business doing more of the processing, which is also happening, which is what businesses are really looking to, and we've talked about that in this committee over the past couple of years. We've met with small businesses that are just growing herbs and being able to dry those herbs, package them and sell them at really high end retail markets and online. The innovation and entrepreneurism in Vermont is always impressive. See that agriculture as many other sectors as well. We're also seeing businesses that are deciding that the best market for them is to just focus on, say, winter storage crops that they can house on the property and sell to institutional or wholesale markets. Sell it to Whole Foods or market through Degroot, and that product goes all over the country, or at least all over the state, the region, hopefully. That takes an additional amount of infrastructure and land for them to be able to have that kind of business model, where it's different than direct to consumer, where you grow it in the season and you sell it off the farm that next week. And that's still happening too. We saw a lot of that growth occur post COVID with the supply chain and food system felt very fragile. Thinking about the benefit that this ability to decide where agriculture operations happen and where farming occurs really feels relevant to our small operations and to our new businesses. So, the average size of a farm in Vermont is about 145 acres. But I was looking at some of the granting programs that we have that are focused on specialty crops, which is produce and Christmas trees and herbs and flowers. Then some of our kind of, the other grant program that we run, it's called the Resilient Food System Infrastructure Program, which is a lot of innovative, some value added work that's happening, and the average acreage of those grantees is around 89 acres. Bigger than four acres, but still relatively small when you're thinking about the amount of land that they're looking for. Then we're hearing businesses that are on four acres and 10 acres, that they're making a business on relatively small acreage. But as you know, and we've talked about for, you know, fortunately probably a decade or more, like starting a new business in Vermont is challenging, particularly in agriculture. Sometimes locating your business close to a downtown or close to where there's a population is really helpful for the access to workforce, the access to consumers, you know, maybe already some established infrastructure that you can take advantage of, you know, housing for your workforce. There's so many examples of ag producers that are really trying to solve those issues in a rural environment and struggling. And so, that starts to put our agriculture in direct kind of like relationship with our development areas and our downtowns. And there's so many existing examples of businesses in those environments. Many of our new American communities are farming in Vermont urban areas, so in Burlington, in Winooski, in Colchester, and with very successful businesses in those downtown areas. Other, you know, Rutland and Brattleboro and other communities as well. Additionally, we have the Innerville Centre, or Shelburne Farms, or the Retreat Farm, or Billings Farm, that are all examples of businesses that have like, of farm businesses that have made a connection to community and being accessible to trails or to walkable distance from schools, are all critical aspects of their business being successful.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Good.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Can I add? And, you know, Billings Farms being in in my my history

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Right.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Can be the place where I learned how to medical cows for the first time. It is an example of that, and also, where I, saw Cow do number two for the first time.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: The first time.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Wow. And was, taken aback. Let's just say that. Well, I stepped in it, so I I get it. And we always do this. That was not the thing. So but you're you're right on, and it is an example of how it reaches out of the community.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Yeah. So

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And their proximity is close to the where the residential Yes. Kind of

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Very much

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: so. Hub of a community is Yeah. Often

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: Absolutely. And it takes it in, Woodstock is, it takes advantage of the exponential.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, we were just at Billings Farm last week for the Connecticut Rivers Farmer Association annual meeting. Yeah. And, right along the river. Yeah. And it's like at an intersection of, you know, traveled roadways in Woodstock. And there were, you know, an unbelievable number of farmers at this meeting talking about, both the creative opportunities that they see and the innovative strategies that they're making as businesses and kind of like bonded together in this watershed group around, particularly they were talking about their water quality strategies, shared equipment, and the ways in which they can form their own ag community, and that requires being in close proximity. That means that you're in relationship and in connection with one another, not isolated up in the hills and not talking to one another, but actually feeling part of a community. I think we're fortunate to have a lot of that in place in Vermont. So, there was a question of why our agency feels it's critical to restore the municipal ag zoning exemption, I thought I could just touch really quickly on, like, the uniqueness that our agency plays. And this is not exactly my area of expertise. Laura DiPietro, who's the director of our water quality division, would be a good person.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: But she is coming in. Oh, good. She's coming in tomorrow. Wonderful. So we can So you

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: can hear from her on, like, the logistics.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I think what would be helpful for us, and I don't want to speak for a committee because I want them to speak for themselves, so I'm not saying what would be helpful for me. I think that we are in agreeance. I would say that we're in agreeance, again, the committee will speak for themselves why it's important. For me, it's being able to understand the language of what we're saying so that we can go out and sell this to the rest of the building, is what we gotta do, which we're very fortunate. I think that we do have broad support within this building for the most part. So it's not a big sell. I just want all of us talking the same language to find why it's there. I think that that's probably pretty. Yeah. So mean, if you could, this is, again, speaking for myself, my committee will speak for themselves as well. We tend to speak as one. I think that we see it as this. And I'm not in any way do I want to sound like I'm being adversarial to the Supreme Court. I'm not in this way. But I think the Supreme Court basically said, We made a decision based on the language that we saw. Picture language. And I think this is what we're going to do. We're trying to fix our language. They could have gone in a different direction. They want to, for whatever reason, they chose not to interpret it any further. They chose not to look into past precedent. They just said, Well,

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: this is what it says.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. So this is our decision. They said, If you want a different outcome, picture language. I think this is what this is attempting to do, and as long as we can understand that, I think that we stand a pretty good chance of getting where we want to get to.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Mindy? Yeah, I think that pretty well sums it up. We assumed for twenty plus years that it was kind of viewed that way. But when you look at the words on the paper, there was another interpretation available, and that's what the Supreme Court did. But I think they are in not a very They're not directly I mean, none of the justices have reached out and said, Hey, fix the language. It's an opportunity based on their ruling that we wanna look at and change. I've been pretty clear if we could go back to where it was before the decision, to me, that's the best possible solution.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Member)]: Sure. Plunkett? Yeah, and I agree with Brian. What I feel we should do is go back to where everyone understood to be before. If we wanna do something else, do something else differently at a separate time. That'll be a discussion because the language has some changes. I do I I appreciate what you said, chair Ingalls, about we're not criticizing Supreme Court on this. I do I do wanna change. It's just in I think it's just in the findings or or legislative intent section, but I hope we do temper that language a little bit. It's it's it's too deep. It's too critical of the Supreme Court, I think. Yeah. But I also understand there's a reason why it's there. We're clarifying what the what the statute is rather than changing what the statute is. So I wanna talk about that language a little bit when we get to that. Grants, are you saying something?

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: You know.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Easy. So I, that's, yeah.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I mean, I think this, maybe I'll offer one sentiment and maybe this, if the committee is open, this is where Steve Colliers, our general counsel, might have a helpful perspective on the language. But I want to just share that from experience when engaged, with when we've been municipalities on accessory on farm businesses, which has been, I would say, a successful relationship. There is a set responsibility at the Agency of Agriculture to do farm determination, and there is an accessory business responsibility at the municipality, but an education that needs to happen and a communication and relationship building that's occurring between zoning administrators, municipal staff, and agency staff. The one thing that I will share is that the different interpretations at the individual town level has been challenging. And it has been resulted in a lot of questions between farmers and town officials about the the about the fairness and the equity that an equity that may or may not be in place between communities.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I see, and I do see that, but I see it just as much as the HNAP resources through some of their layers of bureaucracy not coming to the table to have a real conversation about it. I think that there needs to be an understanding, again, not to put it back on the towns that they're not understanding as well, but I think that there is a difference between agriculture and business in the state of Vermont. As much as we want to talk about ag as a business, there's some there. I like to see, I'd like to say to the ANRs, where's the rub? Help us figure out where this rub is and help us get past this. And I think that we can work with the towns very well. I think the towns are going to do with what they want to do. The towns actually understand the importance of what agriculture does for their communities. They see all of that. I think that's all workable. I think our biggest battle, and I don't want to fight with the towns over that, and I don't think we have to. I think that there's a path forward with that. I see our battle with the farm except for buildings is the battle within the agencies of the state. Where's your rub with this? Come Let's just talk about it. Let's not just say, That's the ruling. Let's talk about it. I don't see that conversation happening, which bothers me.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Member)]: Understood, yeah.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: What do you think? Is this a time, do you want to hear a little bit more? I mean, think there's this whole background that exists around the regulatory authority that already is encompassed in the REPs, which again, I think Lauren and Petra can speak to best. Yeah. You know that's very true. Okay. Which I think is just valuable to think about the fact that agriculture and farming is not an unregulated entity if it's not a part of Title 24 and part of municipal jurisdiction. I think there's a lot of thresholds and requirements and expectations that exist under the RAPs for agriculture, even for farming already. But if you wanted to have the conversation about of like the language, either back to what the pre tax Supreme Court conversation or decision was and or the changes that are being proposed, I might recommend that a conversation have a Steve come and check that That would be valuable. I apologize.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So, do you wanna go through our language with us on this? What's our next steps to move along or whatever? Committee, what do you wanna hear on this? Do you wanna go through the language in section one right now and

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: just get some counsel idea about

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: what it's saying? I'm happy. Every time.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Thank you. Steve Collier from the Agency of Agriculture. So we've discussed this already, and I guess, had to go through the language, but it's really, again, the principles, I think, that drive this discussion. And I I guess the, back when the Supreme Court ruled in May, we tried sort of feverishly to get the legislature to undo the Supreme Court decision. You know, we we asked we we had several discussions and said, look, you're still in session. Can we just make it clear that this is not what the legislature intended to maintain the status quo? And we weren't able to do that because there were different opinions about what should be done. So and our thinking about this language, we're not just thinking about how all of you feel about it. We're certainly considering that. But most importantly, we're thinking how can we get something that works for farmers through both chambers in this building. And there are people in some committees who think very differently than the people on this committee, and so our first step was to try to build a consensus with the League of Cities and Towns and with the farm groups, because the League of Cities and Towns obviously has a big role in municipal regulation, and we knew directly from them they did not want to go back into the status quo, and that was one of the roadblocks we faced when we we tried. In fact, we even tried just just put it just just put it back where it was for until next session so that we can have a, you know, a fulsome legislative discussion. We've got resistance for that. So the league was, you know, very cooperative and doing exactly what we asked, which was to to discuss these issues, and we had them. We talked about it a lot, and they just don't feel the same way as we do about it, which but but mostly they do. In in general, they they agree that towns should not be regulating army through zoning, which is great. But there are some areas where they want towns to be, so we don't we don't agree with that. But in in trying to build a consensus that would hopefully make it easier for every committee in this building to restore the exemption. What we committed to the league was we're not gonna change our position. We're our position is this language that's in front of you. We're not gonna change our position. You won't change yours, so we so we're narrowing the issues unless both of us together could come up with something different. So that's why we have the language that we have, actually, I think our proposal was better than it was before. I think it makes more sense. I think there were some holes in what was there before, And in trying to find a solution, it was balanced, like what's reasonable, what's not. I mean, you could say, and this is true for Act two fifty, you don't have to meet a certain farming size under Act two fifty, you just have to be doing an active a farming activity and you're exempt. I And think that's the way it used to be for zoning as well. Like, there was you didn't zone farming regardless of the level of the size. That changed in in Vermont, and so you had to be farming under the required agricultural practices to be exempt from municipal zoning. And I don't know exactly why that changed, but I think it was probably for some of the same balance of issues. As an example, we don't need, the agency of agriculture probably doesn't have a place regulating 10 chickens downtown St. Johnsbury. Not not that we couldn't, but we don't honestly have the staff capacity to do that. So if you're saying we're regulating that, we really can't. I mean, we we can, but if we were doing that in every community throughout the state and somebody had a complaint about those chickens, we we don't have the staff or the capacity to respond to that. So essentially, it's unregulated, which may be fine, but our proposition is if there's towns that do wanna regulate these things and they have that capacity and it's on a tenth of an acre in the middle of town, that's fair game from our perspective. We don't want those 10 chickens to be regulated, but it's not something we can fairly regulate. So let's focus our resources because we get, you know, we get criticized for being for not being aggressive, and often enforcement, I disagree with that, but but it's a criticism. And so if we're not but

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: if we're not out on the large farms and medium farms and small farms,

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: and if we're not out, we're not responding to somebody's complaint about manure spreading or an overtopping pit or whatever it is, and we're instead in Downtown Saint Johnsbury looking at 10 chickens, we're probably not really focusing on our broader mission very well. So it's about that balance. So so when we had when the RAP is the way it was, is basically that, as we've discussed, the default position, which you need four contiguous acres. That's a sizable bit of land.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: For anybody that's confused about what an RAP would be, and for anybody listening online on all of this, RAP is a plan that you are following as a farmer, and that's what it is. If you're following that plan, you're protected in a sense as a farmer by following this plan.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: I mean, yeah, it's two things. What it is is a requirement. It's it's laws that farms have to follow. So they're not I mean, it's not a good arguably, it's not a good thing to be subject to the required agricultural practices because that means you're then therefore responsible for I mean, talking about from the farmer's perspective, you you are now regulated, and you have to meet those. A lot of towns don't have any requirements at all. Right. So if you're in a town with no zoning, like, being subject to the required agricultural practices, means it's good for water quality, has bigger, broader purposes, but it's not necessarily good for the farmer. So there's some benefits if you have 10 chickens to not be regulated at all versus having to meet all the maybe you can't meet the setback from the well that's required under the required agricultural practices, but maybe that's not important if you only have 10 chickens. So it's kind of a balance of interest, but yes, like the way that it's set up is the required agricultural practices apply to all farming that we regulate, but there are some farms that are so small, and we can we call them, colloquially subjurisdictional, like they're below our jurisdiction, that they're not regulated by us. And the way it was set up was if we're not regulated and a town wants to regulate, then they can. So that's the whole that was what was in place, and it worked pretty well. I mean, there were some issues here and there, but it mostly worked. The biggest point of contention was that you could be farming, selling $2,000 of agricultural products, or filing a schedule f. You might not have any land or very little land, and you're still subject to the RAPs, so towns couldn't sell you. And that's the case that ended up in front of the Supreme Court. He got a subdivision in Essex with a half an acre. That farmer, from our perspective, was not doing anything wrong, was doing everything right. We believed he was exempt from his municipal zoning. We told him that. We told the town the city of Essex that. We we thought the trial court got it absolutely right when they said that he can do that. We we enforced not well, we didn't enforce on him, but we responded to complaints and refute his property, and we thought he was meeting all the requirements that he needed to meet. But but maybe that's not the best use of the state's resources for agriculture to be on that subdivision in Essex on a half an acre. So and the reason he met that threshold was because of the the $2,000. So we don't the $2,000 is fine, but what we're trying to look at is what should we actually be doing, and what should we allow towns to do? And that's why we came back to these principles. We want everybody, regardless of whether you're selling, technically farming, food, to be able to grow your own food, period. You can grow your food. If you wanna raise plants, you can do that, you know, excluding cannabis, because that's a different issue. But if you wanna grow a garden, you can do that. That was that's not currently patented. So that's that's something that I think is an improvement in the proposed language. Now people weren't regulated, and I'm aware of, but if you don't have a clear protection, somebody can regulate. So make it clear. You wanna grow food? You can do that. You're not subject to something. The poultry ex exception that we recommend is is the same thing that the Essex person had. You wanna have some backyard chickens, and you want because you wanna raise eggs, and you wanna have your own food, wanna have meat, you should be able to do that. Now, we we said small backyard We poultry don't know if that I mean, there may need to be a number on that. I don't know. But it's just, right now, you can't do that. Towns can towns can regulate that, we excluded roosters, because roosters obviously create some some issues. But let's to me, that's where this is better than what we had, is we're saying to every Vermonter, you wanna grow food, you wanna have this small backyard plot, you can do it, you know? That was good, but it doesn't necessarily mean the Agency of Ag needs to be there responding to a neighbor complaint and applying the REPs. You got it. Now, keep in mind that the ability to have chickens is different than the ability to let your animals trespass. Towns already have the authority that if you don't properly maintain, and if you don't keep your animals in, whether it's livestock or poultry or anything, that's something the town can enforce against, because no nobody has a right to let their pigs go eat somebody else's garment. So that that's a different issue than this. This is just like, can have your you can have your animals, you can raise your food. So then the question becomes, well, when should the agency bags step in? And so that's where we try to find this balance where, okay, was already the four acre was the basic standard, but we don't want to have just four acres because there are some viable farming operations, many on much less than four acres. So we and and some of those folks are doing things like selling products, and they need to be able to therefore have an accessory on farm business, be able to have a farm stand, be able to perhaps, like, sell somebody else's farm products. So we don't wanna exclude people who are under four acres, but we want so if you're in the business of farming and under four acres, then you should be covered by us, you should be exempt from zoning. So so that's why we we said under four acres is still behind us, but but the compromise here was this prior standard was $2,000. Now that was enacted ten years ago, so it's probably more like 3,000, 3,500 now if you just adjust for inflation, and the league wanted us to go up to $10,000 because they thought that was better. They said that's that's too much. That impacts too many people, and they and they compromised on $5,000. So that's just to compromise.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Would that have put the, Essex situation out of reach, at that at that number? So the way

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: so I don't know if he could have made $5,000 or not, but the intention of this language is that the Essex situation would if it related to livestock, it would not fall within our authority because it's less than an acre. So what we Okay. So what we what we said, because that was kind of the livestock. So livestock we treated differently than all the other types of farming, because livestock are what caused the a lot of the problems with neighbors with I mean, if there's manure, as senator Major pointed out Or or at

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: least the cannabis part of it too. We we hear about this panel about that.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: And cannabis isn't us.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Right. No. Get I get that. Yeah.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Yeah, but livestock are where there are issues. If you have livestock, you need to be able to manage the nutrients they need, their feed, their waste, those create a lot of issues that growing carrots don't. So that's where we try to find this balance. If four acres works, you can still have livestock under from one to four acres, then you can have have livestock and be covered by us, but you've gotta prove we have to be able to determine you have enough land to have the livestock you wanna have. So if you're trying to put 600 cows on acre and a half, we're gonna say no. That that doesn't you can't possibly comply with the RIPs and do that.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So the RIP discussions, what I'm hearing from the people, some concerned folks, is that by raising making the changes to that,

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: it opens all up the discussion about RAPs, and it's got a bigger can of work. But you see it more as a solution to get to where we wanna be as more than anything. I feel like we can't make the tweaks that the league has I think it arguably, that's their their requests are reasonable. We don't agree with all of them, but they but they have, you know, they have their own concerns that they're trying to, and we can't make the we can't compromise without changing the RAPs. Yeah. To me, that's a I mean, other people feel differently, understandably, but the most people would be cut if you have four acres, you're and you're farming, you're covered. If you have less than four acres and you have a and have livestock and you can manage the nutrients, you're covered. If you have $8,000, which is not nothing, but it's not a lot, you know, you can make $5,000 pretty easily if you're farming a significant amount of produce, you know, on under four acres. I think I think we're gonna cover people who are who are farming, you know, or or any part of their livelihood, and we're also protecting anyone who wants to grow food and allow them to grow food and allow them to have poultry. It's just livestock that would be treated differently, more favorably in some ways. Like, right now, livestock aren't covered the way it was before the Supreme Court decision. Livestock weren't covered at all, except unless you had four contiguous acres, except for this $2,000 Schedule F exception. So it was never really envisioned that you're gonna have 600 chickens on a half an acre and meet the RAP's threshold. It was just, it wasn't, I think it probably wasn't contemplated exactly. So I I mean, I there's no perfect way to do this, but what we're most concerned about is getting everybody and a majority of of both chambers in this building to say towns don't regulate farming. And so I'm a lot more worried about that than I am about whether it's $5,000 or $2,000.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: But the section one work if we don't stay with that $5,000 language? Does section one work? If you stayed with

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: $2,000 Yeah. That's absolutely if you if you if you did that, then you would not be doing what we proposed, but it would absolutely fit, and you could still protect the growing the plants, like, the growing food that we suggested, the poultry that we suggested. Yeah. You could do that. That that threshold does not need to change. We are asking that it does because of our agreement with the league, and I wanna be clear about that, but ultimately all of you will have to make the

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay, so we'll harp that for a minute. Everybody good with that? Yeah. We'll ask for some

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: questions for So to the chair's point, does amending any of the RAPs open up the possibility, okay, now they're open, we can, I say we, someone, could change other requirements within the RAPs? That's my first question. I didn't know whether I mean, if people just had common sense, maybe a lot of this wouldn't even be necessary, but sometimes people don't. Was there ever any discussion when you were talking with VLCT about a temporal threshold? In other words, if I understand the Taft Street decision came about as a result of someone that was on that land that wasn't doing it at one point and then decided to to start raising chickens. That if he had not done that, it probably would have never happened. I don't know what the right number is. Okay. If they've

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: been there five years, if they've

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: been there ten years, I keep going back to that situation where someone will move near or next to an existing farm that's been there one hundred years and then start complaining about the fact that they can smell manure, much like people move next to an airport, and then they're amazed there's actually planes taking off the landing. Those are my two questions. Does the fact that we potentially would amend any of the REPs mean that anyone could come in and say, Okay, I don't like this one. Let's change that. Then secondly, is there an an answer for how long someone's been doing this? Sure. So great questions.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: The the first one is with the RAPs. I have the same concern. You know, I don't I don't want people I don't want them, in general, the legislature digging into our rules, because there is some separation of of powers issues there when the, you know, the legislature does one thing. They you tell us to write rules, and you give us direction, and the and the executive branch does that. Yeah. So I I do and if we were to open up the rules in general, I think one thing you may be thinking about is if an agency goes through rulemaking, then we have there's a very public process, and that opens everything up for discussion. Yep. This, to me, is no different than when you write any law. You you could write a law repealing the RAPs. You know, this you you can change the r you can, you know, write a statute that changes anything you want in the RAP. So, yes, that possibility is there.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Okay.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: But I don't think it's any different. You can change the statute the same way as as the RIPs. The reason for doing it with the RIPs this way is just because we're trying to stay with the framework that we had. It could be all spelled out in statute instead of the RIPs, but we feel like people who are familiar with the RIPs, the system mostly worked. And so rather than kinda creating a whole new universe, just tweaking the RIPs a little bit. But Okay. I don't think it's any more risk than it ever is. Right. So when this somebody is trying to find a compromise. The the second issue about timeliness, I I think you're thinking kind of about the similar to the right to farm discussion we've had in the past, and there's this under nuisance law, there's this theory of attracting coming to the nuisance, and and traditionally, like, people are protected. If you already preexist and someone else comes to that, the preexisting, you should be protected. Mhmm. But we actually sort of tried to jettison that, I think mostly did, with the right to farmable because of the things that Abby was talking about. You know, it's not just protecting traditional farms, it's not just protecting traditional dairy, it's trying to make everybody be able to diversify and start farming. So we don't want there to be sort of this presumption that you have to be there first. What we want is that you're farming and doing it responsibly. So it's a great point, and you're right about that. When people move next to a farm and then they complain about smell, that's pretty obnoxious in some way, but we want people, we don't, or have so limited land. Right. You know, if we had land, if we had all the land in the world, maybe it wouldn't matter, but instead we got limited land, wherever it's viable, as long as people are doing it responsibly, we want them to be able to.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Gotcha, so great answer. Thanks. So

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: we've talked about that. Other things should we be paying, is that all that we should be paying attention to in this part of this language? Is there anything else? Is there a two part discussion on this section? We have the 2,000, the 5,000, the one, the four, the number of animals and all that. Is there any other part of this section that we should be paying attention to to help us with our argument? That make sense? Yeah. Is it all is it all yeah. I mean, I I'm not I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Understood. Yeah. Understood. No. I think you understand this. You know, we because we've really grappled with this, and, you know, when we were applying the RIPs the way they were before, we understood there were some holes. Not there's always going to be some holes, but when you know, I brought up the example of the goats in the basement on a tenth of an acre downtown. Like, we arguably, they could have enough goats, milk, to have $2,000 and arguably, they were therefore entitled to not have the town zone them, but we couldn't apply the RAPs there. They they didn't have any land to manage their waste so that it wouldn't run off to the neighbor's property, but but our you know, so we had to make that judgment, but it was susceptible to chant. They could say, wait a second. There's nothing in here that says that I'm not eligible, but just looking at the REPs more broadly, there was no way they could comply. So if we did say they were subject to them, we would have been out there enforcing and telling them to stop, but that that wasn't the greatest system where $2,000 is enough. So that then, arguably, if you're in your kitchen raising herbs and you somehow make tea for $2,000, is that us too? I mean, it's it's like we want we wanna be reasonable. Right. You know?

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So if we all change this, we just stick with the $2,000. We really bear the risk of not looking reasonable. Leave us alone. We didn't do anything wrong. We're going just stay where we're at. Well, it doesn't look like we're trying to come up with a solution and to be negotiable as far as to protect farming in a way. Yes, we understand. Sorry the ruling happened, but yeah, okay, we see you some and don't agree with you 100%, but here's our compromise to you. Is that?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: I think that's a fair, you know, characterization, but I would add this caveat that that the livestock is where a lot of the issues come, and so if it was and I I think this language might need to be tightened up a little bit on this point, even with the $5,000 sitting there right now, is that if you're under four acres and you have livestock, you can't meet this threshold unless you have an adequate land base. And I I kinda wanted to get started on the conversation before we typed everything perfectly. Sure. But I so my point is, if it was crystal clear that for livestock, you need enough land, and then the $2,000 was another avenue aside from livestock, then that's not significantly different than what we're proposing, the $5,000. But if you leave the livestock sort of loophole where $2,000 in livestock is enough, I think that's arguably not, you know, not a reasonable place to pay. You you raise one pig on a half an acre, you slaughter it for $2,000, and you're and you're farming and you're not such a disown, and that arguably that's not fitting every community and every part of

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: the world. I'm not trying to dwell on this. I'm not trying to make it boring to you, and I'm not trying to do anything like that. I'm just trying to get it to a point to where, you know, where we're just really trying to be able to defend where it's at. Because you are going to get some pressures. If we stay with the language the way it is in this bill, you're going get a ton of pressure. I can tell you where it's going come from. It's going to come from people within our own industry. It's going to come from Farm Bureau. It's going to come from NOFA. It's gonna come and all rightfully so. And I'm not I'm not, you know, picking on any of that stuff. But that is where you're defending of this language is going that's where you're gonna get the pressure from.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: So you gotta be good with it. Well, one of the things that you'd asked us to do is come up with witnesses for each of these, which we'll we'll do after after Yeah. Farm Bureau, all those sort of farming groups I think you should have commenced and talked.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And I think it's important that we understand why we are at where we're at. That's what I'm just trying to get

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: to with you guys. How long ago was 2000, when was that statute written?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: I believe it was 2015, or maybe 2016, when the RAPs appeared.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Inflation in that, you know, I'm thinking that where

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: 5,000 is not too far off in

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: the special

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: day's time, so that's how we justify that we decided to buy a thousand

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: because Which is better than 10,000.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So it's already been negotiated, So won, it's got negotiated down to something the physician to the HCAG could stand with.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Okay. The other concern that Senator Plunkett raised, I don't know how we to use the verb misconstrue, I don't know whether that irritates the Supreme Court or not. I'm just raising it as a potential softening of that language. I think it would make the intent clear.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Maybe just I'm going to do everything I can do to protect every committee member as far as all that. And if that's his concern Yeah. I'm willing to make sure that he's not concerned about that anymore. Okay.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Yeah. And and that wasn't our language, but I think it's important for you to have your intent in there Yeah. So that they can't be misunderstood. Right. But absolutely, there's no reason to the there's no reason to be critical of the Supreme Court. Right. Can just simply be the understanding was different, and we wanna be clear about our intent. Yeah. And, you know, I think Yeah. That

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I'm happy. Yeah. Are we good with that for right now? Yeah. Everybody's good with that? Any more questions? You know?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: I'm sorry. No. No. Don't be sorry. This is just floating an idea, but this is also the house ag committee is also considering this bill, and and so it's going to, I think, be going through both sides, but it might make sense perhaps if you're gonna be hearing from all these witnesses maybe to do joint mates. You can. Maybe not.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Maybe. Some just don't. Know? I I I know I know all that, but, you know, I'm just gonna say I've been to a lot of joint meetings and I think that as much as each body is trying not to step on anybody's toes in there, I haven't ever had much production come out of that, I like to be able to get it right down to the bones and be able to talk with our committee about it and that's where it's at. I'm not a big fan of joint committees. That makes sense. No, that makes sense. I do appreciate that. I do. The relationship that we have in this room and the and the rules that we've imposed on ourselves to follow are just a lot different. And and I will go to war with these guys, and and the other folks, I probably won't.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Have job.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Well,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: it's just Honesty skit. You know? I I I just I just like what we do. Yeah. Absolutely.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: The broader point, though, is, like, it'd be great to have the two house the two agriculture committees pushing for something similar.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I bet we can get there. Yeah. I bet we can get there in the process that we do. Yeah. And at the at the end of the day, even if it gets sent to a conference committee of whatever, we're, yeah, won't drop anything else on this. I'll just say that I'm pretty confident of the ability of this committee. Well, we're

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: so thankful for the time and attention because we do really think it's important. We do just feel a regret that we weren't able to stop it from happening more effectively. It's yeah. Did Essex itself appeal the superior court? I didn't get No. The neighbors appealed. Ah, okay. But I but it it was kind of interesting because the the town the DRB, I think, found that it was farming, and then the the town, the select board, I think, over and over that time. And I was talking to their attorney at the time, and they knew our position, and and but then the neighbor, I think, is the one that appealed. And then it

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: went to the spirit court. The spirit court got it

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: in our opinion exactly right. So I'm like, yeah. That's right. There it is. And and then Supreme Court did something else.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, I certainly see all sides of that issue. I see I see all their to me, myself, I see all the arguments, and and I think everybody's got some validity in it. And and I think the part that made that the worst was the part that you guys couldn't defend, which I get is the marijuana part. It's awful hard to do that as well. So you couldn't fully defend that whole position because of the marijuana part of it. I could see

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: it's a perfect storm recipe to the disaster to why we're at where we're at. So Yeah. And the farmer actually feels has told me several times, feels the farmer feels terrible that this has led to an impact much broader than It's the operation. I think we all feel that.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We all know when you throw that. Yeah. I've eaten every duck sandwich. Anyways, yeah, some some comments you just hope that didn't get heard. So Okay. Are we good to get off of that for a little bit? Sure. Everybody's got where we've got. Yep. Can we ask you for a little help just going down through some of our miscellaneous and help also witness help Sure. About who we might wanna bring in and stuff. So I would direct everybody's attention, whether you've got a copy of it or it's online, it is on today's agenda, just on this page here, the miscellaneous page. If And we can go down through, I think section one we probably have, who we have, unless we ought to bring somebody in, we got Laurie DiFicero coming in and going through some more with that. Is she gonna get us to where we wanna get to, you think,

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Brian Collamore? Well, Laura is the one who's responsible for making what we call the farm determinations to decide if somebody is required to follow the RIPs, and then she's the one who enforces the RIPs. So she's got as much information you want as what you know, how we do our work and how we enforce the RIPs. The discussion we've just had, I mean, she's been part of that as has Abby, as as the league. You know, we've been but I think you have a pretty good sense of how that

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: And if anybody else wants to come in on that, we have her coming in when, Elizabeth?

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Next Friday.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Oh, so a week from this Friday? Okay. That's the earliest she can come in?

[Elizabeth (Committee Assistant)]: I believe it is, but I can Okay.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: I'll do it again, just suggestion. Vermont Farm Bureau, other farming groups, ELCT, and then obviously Laura would be representing the agency.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. Do we wanna so it's been suggested that those people buy, and one of those groups or two of those groups have been suggested to come in before Laura, or do we all want to have it in the same room? What does the committee feel is going to be the most benefit? Is that a joint committee to where we're not going to really dig down to the roots of it, or is that going to allow everybody to talk the way they want to talk?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Well, I don't think the diverging opinions are that far apart. I think if you did get everybody in the room at the same time, you might be likely to reach consensus more quick. Okay.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: I I from the agency's perspective, we we have nothing but respect and appreciation for the farm groups, how they're separate. How how invested they are in conversation and with the league as well. There's no hard feeling. At least from our perspective, zero hard feelings. It's all we wanted a 100% consensus. Didn't get there, but, yep,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: pretty close. Well, we have had some very good success this year as far as people nodding their heads in the right direction, so why don't we leave it? Maybe I might have just said, yeah, that we're very mulling together. Everybody good with that? The only thing that I'm worried about is just as what I've said to you before, the long windedness of we all understand and that's the point I want to make. We understand. Let's try to get to a consensus and let's give everybody a chance to say what they wanna say, but we don't need to have any, foreign discussions, long winded discussions about where it's at.

[Sen. Joe Major (Vice Chair)]: And I I think, to your point earlier this week, it's incumbent upon us to, you know, write them in if that happens. Yeah. And I think we can do that. Okay. Have to get them focused.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yeah. I agree. Okay. So And, we're not talking about 38 different issues.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: No. We're talking about a Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Where if you could say, tell you what, go back and forth quickly, Deal, deal. Let's go.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: That kind of thing. And we left that possibility open with the league. If there was a solution that was different than what we were, we'd be happy to address You

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: have the league on that list? Yes. Okay. Okay, so you have Linda, we will hire that with Linda. Yeah,

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Everybody good? Move on. Sections form five. Tax department. Tax department. Yeah, put I had the tax department. Anything that you guys want to bring into

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: that or anything like that? We don't have a position on this yet. Okay. We may, but yes, absolutely, the tax department. We've talked to them about some of these issues before and other people who are interested, but we're, I would say talk to the other people who are proposing it and to the tech department first, and we're happy if you wanna hear from us.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Is that coming from mister Wilson? Is this what this is coming from?

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: No. That equity is you said. I think it's

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: think it did come Paul, didn't it? No. And this was, I think so. Let's find out who opposes somebody who's affected by this.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Community Administrator. Yeah. It's

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: with my dairy producers, do you think that's who it was?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: I think probably. Okay. VDPA? I don't know that for certain. Okay. Let's

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I'll reach out to the VDPA about that. Okay. We good on that? Yep. Fax, and then we'll keep on working on that. Section six, the section changes to the sale threshold that are permitted, but required to construct a accessory on farm business. Senator Bennington? Well, I was really kind of leaning on you as far as what we've had here in the past with that. You want to get the LERP in here for that? LERP. Land use review board. Yeah. Yeah. DEC too. DEC. Yeah. So LURB and DEC and anybody else in your opinion?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: I mean, we can certainly we don't have a position on it either, but we can certainly we can certainly talk about it, hear from others first. My concern with this issue, it's there's there's really important issues here, but we barely got what we got a couple of years ago, and I am this is one of those ones that opening an office is a little bit concerning. Not to say that it can't be better, but I'm also quite concerned that this one could get worse.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I'm just looking for a- So- I'm looking for a compromise. Understood. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a serious compromise, and I guess I could almost be satisfied if somebody would come in and be willing to talk in that way. And then I haven't seen that yet.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: It might be nice to talk to a couple of other committees even privately about the viability only because we this was amended on the floor a couple years ago. Like, it it was a big battle. It was. And we got some changes that we've been pushing for for a long time, and they weren't perfect, but they were were better than a lot better than it was for farmers. So the only that's my only concern with this issue. Not to say that it's perfect because it's not, but but I'm worried that it could get worse. And so and I look at it

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: and I look at it very, very simply that we're not trying to open up the whole can of worms on.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Right. We're really, really not.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We're we're really just are focused on Right. We I'm not looking to change there's a lot of things I don't like about all of that. Yeah. But it's not what I'm after. It's just give me a compromise so that

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: we can work with. And we think that there are some things that should be more permissive. Yeah. I I agree. But whether or not we can get there Right. Is the is the question. Doesn't mean it's not worth trying, but but I'm yeah, just it's a sensitive issue that was, it's not supported everywhere.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: The next one, Section seven, that's Paul Rutland, I think. When's Paul coming in?

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Next week. Thursday.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay. That's gonna be a tax. Is tax gonna be on that? Section seven, the section amends the definition of agricultural land to include a presumption that land is used for agriculture purposes if a certain amount of farm crops are donated.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: To do more tax. This is current, yes.

[Abby Willard (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Take that one.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Current, so we don't want tax on that. Okay. So Tack and Paul Ralston on that. Farm kitchens, the section designates a farm kitchen operation as a new category of food processing establishment. Is that gonna be land use review board?

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: This is the

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Department of Health. Okay. There's now I'm not

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: sure who proposed this. It might be something Paul Austin did or it might be something think I actually it probably is also Paul Ralston, but I'm not certain

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: of that. Maybe I'll talk to, will, not maybe, I will talk to Jenny on that and get some ideas about that so that we don't overstep the bounds of many stuff and just say that we want to have a discussion and maybe she could give me some ideas as far as with that. I will talk to Jeannie about that. Awesome. This one, I think that the next one, section 10, big discussion. It actually kind of gets past where we have been talking about just in a big dialogue, trying to get everybody's opinions on it to actually there's a bill in the House, House Ag, so I think it's important that we bring in the sponsor of that bill, which would be Greg Burke, and bring him in and have him talk about that. I'm sure that once we put that on the agenda, we're going to probably have some other folks that want to come in that have already spoke about the people that are citing solar appeals, maybe even housing, but we'll see who jumps in on that bandwagon once we put

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: it on the agenda. If you dig into it, you may probably want the Department of Public Service and also us and ANR. We don't have a position now, but

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: So we'll put it on the agenda. Let's keep telling what happens. We'll get the bill and be worth it. Yeah. I think this is Section 11 milk producers I've decked up from you guys.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: This is awesome. Unless you have questions, I don't think you need to hear from anyone else. Just correcting an error in the statute.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Okay. That's all it is. So I

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: had co ops written down, but No.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: This this I mean,

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: maybe they wanna come in,

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: but the language, it's just an error. Like, they it just says purchaser instead of producer, which makes no sense.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Nobody's gonna like that.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: They shouldn't. I mean Yeah. It would be can't promise, but there's no reason to I'll just call it cleanup. And but there's I I mean, I can come in and explain it if you want. I think I did mention it before, it's just fixing an error that we discovered.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Maybe we would have you come in and do that. Maybe when we're we'll add it to something else here in Vietnam. Sure. Linda, we'll add that to just so that we have something, some testimony on it for what it is, and we can defend it on the floor. Farm to School Program contracts, the section would permit contracts in addition to grants for participation in the Farm to School Program. Is that the That's us. Okay. That would be Abby Willard. I don't know if she might want to have

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Gina Clifford come in too, but Abby is your point of contact.

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

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Harry, do you know if anybody else would want to

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: I don't think so.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: I don't think so. Pretty simple.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Big one right here. Oh, no. This one is. No. I'm sorry.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: It just cleaning Yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: That just cleaned up as far as on that. That was something totally different that the house is working on.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: And this could be me or or nothing. It's just So unless you ask me, doesn't exist.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: On section 11, we'll add you on this

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: one right here. Just clean

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: up stuff when we when we have you in. Yeah. And maybe at the same time, section 14, that's you guys as well. Fourteen 15 through 20 are both

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: us, and it's our plant industry division. So Steve who's the director, and Stephanie Smith, who's the director, director, would be the starting point.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I don't

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: think either of those are controversial, but they can come in and explain them. Okay.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Vita, we've had them in, pretty self explanatory. Again, maybe we should just have them come in one more time, or maybe not, or whatever. The biggest thing is just to be able to, when we go to report them on floor, we'll have it section by section. Just be able to support whoever's going report it, get billed and talk about it in a good way. Well, Plunkett's going do the whole thing.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: It didn't change anything. It's just

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: Changes everything.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Yeah. And all that

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: pretty That's new story. You haven't heard about specifically from us, but, yes, that's us. That could be me and We can put

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: you in on section 11. He

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: talked about Yeah. Section 11, section 14. We can put you in all in one day as far as on that. The floor drain study is bigger than what it is. That's probably gonna be the HH agriculture and VTC. VEC. Yeah.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: There's A and R and R. A and R? Yeah. Okay. I didn't realize I just noticed that this morning. I didn't I haven't really

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Antrim touched upon that a little bit.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: I understand what the broader objective is. Yeah. It would be so that would be our two agencies, I think, primarily.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: But who brought that forward? It might be. I don't know. Was it Paul? Might be. It might be Paul. I don't know. We'll ask Paul about that as well. And that gets us to the end? The only

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: thing I'd suggest there, I don't know, if sections one through three, whatever that person troop was, may be effective on passage, those three sections, and everything else July 1. I, maybe it doesn't really matter.

[Steve Collier (General Counsel, VAAFM)]: So, I mean, certainly it's not a bad idea, but I don't know that practically towns will be passing. I my sense is towns have understood that this will be revisited, and no and as far as I know, no one started any for this, but certainly no harm

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: in putting Yeah. Yeah. Kind of on it. I I don't know. Okay. We'll certainly talk about that. So that procedural stuff, as I told you before, just need help with that. Okay. Any more questions about any of that stuff? Everybody good so far with what we've got? Okay. Okay. Anything else? You folks all good? Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. You. Love your time and

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Member)]: attention.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, thank you.