Senators hear S.60 to create Farm Security Special Fund for faster disaster aid to Vermont farms

Senator Ruth Hardy, sponsor and a member from the Addison District, told the Senate Agriculture Committee on Feb. 18 that S.60 would establish a Farm Security Special Fund and a farm security grant program in the Vermont Agency of Agriculture to provide rapid, targeted recovery aid to farms after extreme weather.

The measure would create a grant program administered by the Agency of Agriculture, a Farm Security Special Fund Review Board with farmer members and ex officio seats for the secretary of agriculture and the state’s chief recovery officer, and a definition of qualifying weather events including high winds, excessive moisture or flooding, extreme heat, abnormal freezing, wildfire, hail and drought. "These extreme weather events have become more frequent in the last decade in Vermont," Hardy said, describing recent spring freezes that wiped out orchard crops and successive flood seasons that damaged fields and farm infrastructure.

Why it matters: committee members and the sponsor said many Vermont farms are too small to use federal crop insurance or other federal disaster programs, and they argued the state fund would get money to farmers faster than…