What happened: Agricultural and food‑system witnesses including NOFA‑Massachusetts, American Farmland Trust, the Massachusetts Food System Collaborative and local farmers told the committee they support the Mass Ready Act’s inclusion of food security infrastructure grants, agricultural program funding and healthy‑soils initiatives, and asked for targeted earmarks and increases.

Why it matters: Witnesses argued agriculture and food infrastructure are frontline climate sectors given alternating drought and flood conditions; investments support local food access, farm viability, and resilience. They noted the bill treats farms and fisheries as part of the resilience portfolio rather than as separate line items.

Requested changes and program detail: Speakers asked the committee to (1) earmark $5,500,000 for the Healthy Soils Program annually to scale farmer technical assistance and demonstration projects; (2) allocate $42,000,000 plus carryover for the Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) program with a $20,000,000 set‑aside for MDAR’s buy‑protect‑sell authority; and (3) capitalize the food security infrastructure grant program at levels that meet demand (testimony asked for larger authorizations to address oversubscription).

Examples and local impacts: Farmers and regional food‑system groups provided examples of how prior grant rounds funded refrigerated storage, on‑farm processing and other infrastructure to extend local distribution in winter months; they said that without state investment, farmland loss and local food instability are likely to continue.

Next steps: Ag advocates said they will send written recommendations and asked the committee to consider adding language and earmarks so that Healthy Soils and APR funding are clearly available and targeted to disadvantaged and underserved farmers and communities.