House Appropriations Committee hears S.60 to create Farm and Forestry Operations Security Special Fund

Montpelier — The House Appropriations Committee on April 30, 2025, considered S.60, a bill to establish a Farm and Forestry Operations Security Special Fund administered by the Agency of Agriculture to provide direct payments to farms and forestry operations for losses from eligible weather conditions.

Committee counsel Michael Grady described the bill as creating “a special fund at the Agency of Agriculture to provide financial assistance in the form of direct payments to farmers and forestry operations that suffered eligible losses,” and said the measure adds a new subchapter to Title 6, chapter 207 and borrows structural elements from the Working Lands enterprise board model.

The bill is intended to fill gaps in existing federal and state programs, committee members were told. Grady and others said federal crop insurance often does not serve small or diversified operations and that the fund would offer a quicker, administratively streamlined source of relief for events that are not part of a federal disaster declaration.

Under the draft language reviewed by the committee, eligible weather conditions include high winds, excessive moisture and intense precipitation or flooding, extreme heat, abnormal freeze, wildfire,…