Senate Agriculture committee opts to keep farm-security bill unchanged, rejects amendment limiting awards

The Vermont Senate Agriculture Committee on March 20 voted in committee to keep a proposed farm-security assistance bill unchanged and declined an amendment that would have limited the number of awards a single farm could receive to three in any previous 10-year period.

The amendment, moved by Senator Horchke during the committee meeting, would have added language directing the secretary to “establish criteria for awards under the program, including determining the amount or level based on the annual net income on the farm and in relation to the median net income of all farms in Vermont, limiting the number of awards an individual applicant may receive under the program not to more than 3 awards in any previous 10-year period, prior to prioritizing awards to applicants who have not previously received an award under the program, and requiring applicants to demonstrate the assistance from other sources is unavailable to provide reimbursement for the losses claimed in an application.”

Committee members spent the bulk of discussion debating the tradeoff between placing a hard limit on repeat recipients and preserving flexibility for the secretary and the board the bill would create. Supporters of leaving the bill unchanged said the board should retain discretion to assess need and timing, particularly during unusual weather years, while backers of the amendment raised concerns about the appearance or reality of repeated awards concentrating in a single geographic area or industry.

Members said they had limited statewide data on disaster-related farm losses and suggested it was prudent to see how the program operates before imposing a statutory cap. One committee member cited recent farm loss figures discussed during the meeting, saying last year’s farm losses totaled about $13,000,000; another member referenced an existing VGAP program that had issued 86 awards and received about 340 applications as an example of how awards had previously been distributed.

After discussion, the committee took a straw vote and “kept the bill the same,” with members indicating a unanimous preference to proceed with the bill as introduced rather than adopt the proposed amendment. Committee members said they expect the secretary of agriculture and the program board named in the bill to exercise judgment in awarding assistance and that the legislature could revisit statutory limits later if needed.

No formal roll-call vote on the amendment was recorded in the transcript; the committee’s stated outcome was to allow the bill to proceed without the amendment.

Why it matters: The committee’s decision preserves administrative discretion for award criteria and prioritization in a program intended to provide rapid relief to farms facing losses, rather than enshrining a fixed numerical limit in statute. That discretion affects how quickly and to whom recovery payments are awarded in times of weather-related or other losses.

What’s next: The bill will proceed as introduced from the Agriculture Committee to further Senate process; committee members said they may monitor program outcomes and consider statutory changes in the future if patterns of repeated awards emerge.