House agriculture committee debates S.60 disaster fund; loggers seek inclusion and guardrails

At a hearing before the Vermont House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, & Forestry, witnesses and committee members examined S.60, a bill to create a Farm Security Special Fund to provide grants for agricultural losses caused by extreme weather, and discussed whether forestry and logging operations should be eligible and how the program would be triggered, administered and funded.

The issue matters because recent consecutive years of flooding and unusually wet winters have left some working-lands businesses — especially professional loggers and small diversified farms — without a federal or state mechanism for income replacement, witnesses told the committee. Proponents said the fund could close that gap if it is governed with clear eligibility rules, confidentiality protections and sustainable funding.

Dana Duran, executive director of the Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast, told the committee that Vermont loggers experienced repeated weather disruptions in 2022–24 that curtailed harvesting and increased costs. She cited a Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation survey of the July 2023 floods that found reported losses exceeding $2,500,000 and average reported losses per company of more than $46,000, while noting the survey limited claims to a seven-week period and capped individual company losses at $100,000. Duran said the sector was excluded from the state Business Emergency Gap Assistance Program (BGAP) because the program did not cover revenue losses and that federal programs require…