NOFA-VT asks Senate Agriculture panel for $500,000 base funding, proposes Farm Security Fund for rapid disaster relief

Members of the Vermont Senate Agriculture Committee heard a presentation Jan. 14 from the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont about the group’s programs, certification work and legislative priorities for the session.

Maddie Kempner, policy and organizing director at NOFA-VT, told the committee the organization is requesting $500,000 in base funding for two local food-security programs — Crop Cash Plus and FarmShare — and is supporting a new bill, the Farm Security Fund, to provide “rapidly available relief” to farmers hit by climate emergencies and extreme weather.

The request follows one-time funding of $300,000 that NOFA-VT received for fiscal 2025, which the organization said helped run Crop Cash and FarmShare last year but was not sufficient to sustain an expanded Crop Cash Plus pilot launched in 2023. "When we get food and farming right, we get a lot of other things right," Kempner told the committee.

Nut graf: The funding ask would back programs that aim to make local food affordable to low-income Vermonters while supporting farm incomes, and would establish a standing emergency fund to get money to farmers faster than existing federal or state aid, NOFA-VT says.

NOFA-VT…