 Good morning everybody. This is a joint meeting between the House Ag Committee and the Senate Agricultural Committee. And I want to welcome you folks to our joint meeting. This part of our meeting is covering rural Vermont and their issues, as well as Norfolk, Vermont. We've been quite busy working in the committee so far this year. I've done quite a lot on small farms or small plots, cannabis plots for farmers. And I expect we'll hear some updates on that before we get started. I'd like to have my committee and produce themselves, Chris. Good morning, Chris Pearson, Senator from Chittenden. Morning, Anthony Polinawas, the County Senate. I call them representing the Rutland County District. My parent represent Franklin County and Alberg. Yeah, and I'm Bobby Starr and I represent Orleans Essex counties along with Richford, Montgomery and Wilkhood. I'd like to, at this point, introduce Carolyn Partridge from the Chair of the House Committee, Carolyn. Thanks so much, Bobby. And I want to thank everybody for joining us today. And we can introduce ourselves. We go in the room, starting with Rodney. I'm Rodney Graham. I'm from St. Orange One District, which is where it was found last in Orange, Chelsea, Fairshire and current. And I'm currently the Vice Chair. Heather, do you want to go in and we'll go to Terry. Heather, I'm not going to represent Windsor 401, just Barnard, Pompry, Quichy and West Hartford. Terry Norris, Rutland Addison District, Benson Orwell, Shoreman, Whitey. Tom Bach, I represent the Towns of Chester, Andover, Baltimore and part of North Springfield. Representative Vicki Strong, and I represent Albany, Barton, Craftsbury, Greensboro, Glover, Wheelock and Sheffield. Henry Pearl, Caledonia, Washington District, which is Danville, Peacham and Cabot. John, you want to go? Hi, I'm John O'Brien. I represent Royalton in my home town of Tumbridge. And I'm Carole Partridge. I represent the Towns of Athens, Brooklyn and Crafton, part of Northwestminster, all of Rockingham and my hometown of Windham. And I want to thank you all for joining us today. I can't wait to hear about an update from you all. And thank you for joining us. Well, thank you, Carolyn, and welcome to all your house members. We have a list of witnesses. I think maybe some of you folks have the list as well, hopefully all of you. And we'll start this morning's testimony with Mark Hedges. Hughes. Mark Hughes, Mr. Chair. Well, this is exciting. For the record, my name is Mark Hughes. I'm Reverend Mark Hughes. I am the Executive Director of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. And justice for all, I want to thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting us to the committee this morning. And I'm here not just representing Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, but there is a Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition. That coalition includes Royal Vermont, as well as NOFA Vermont, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, the Vermont Growers Association. And we also have a good friend of ours, Josh Decatur, who's the former CEO of Trace, if you recall. I'm going to be covering a number of topics. I apologize in advance for not being able to be around with you for the duration. I appreciate you front-loading me on the agenda. We'll be talking about some social equity recommendations that we've been pursuing for the last couple of years, last year in S-25 and the year prior in S-54. Definitely some great conversation we hope to have with you on all outdoor cultivation, direct sales for producers, live plant sales, increasing the allowance for home cultivation, amongst other topics. So that's what we'll be covering collectively. There's also some constituencies, some of our constituency that's out there that's going to be joining us. We're really, really happy to bring you to voices from the community as well. Regarding the first topic, which really gets into this whole idea of the social equity recommendations, one of the things that we recently recommended was that there'd be a 5% excise tax to the Cannabis Development Fund, as well as a 20% to the community reinvestment. That's something, although there's probably maybe five or six policy bills that are floating around right now, we've yet to see that stick anywhere. So we're hoping that not just in this joint committee, but obviously there's a cross-pollination across the Senate and to other committees, and there's also relationships. We would just like some guidance on how we get that happening. I think the main thing about this social equity fund that's been set aside for ACCD is that we want it to be sufficient and we want it to be sustainable. So perhaps there might be some thoughts that come out of this committee, maybe this committee might be able to give some of the other committees a nudge. You may recall in our moral budget memorandum that we sent over to you last year, it was probably about 255, 355 days ago. We sent you a moral budget, and I'm certain that every elected official on this call received a copy of it, and I just wanted to just highlight one thing that we said there was that we at the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance were proud to advocate for state policies that empower American descendants of slavery and Black, Indigenous, and other people of color and seek equity for these groups in our community. We believe that the racial reckoning that continues nationwide and in Vermont has the ability to bring the transformative change needed to reimagine our state systems that have far too long left American descendants of slavery and BIPOC behind. We stand at an intersection of the compounding crisis of systemic racism and COVID-19. This crossroads represents an opportunity to undergo the paradigm shift that's needed to disrupt and dismantle systemic racism in Vermont, so that is from that memorandum. The reason why I brought that up is that we have been advocating for policies that economically address systemic racism across the state. That one was loaded with them. The Joint Finance Committee I testified to last evening, and some of this also came up there with upwards of $3.5 billion that have come into the state recently. I think we can do better. So I would ask you to consider that 5% equity fund, the 20% community reinvestment, and how we get that moving. I think that, again, we've been advocating for this for quite some time, and currently right now we're still stuck at $750,000. I think there's a $500,000 investment that comes out of the general fund, and then there's another $50,000 that comes out of each one of the integrated license holders. I know which committee I'm speaking to right now, but I do believe that you do have the influence. You have the power to effect change to get that moving. I want to also remind you of R113, which you passed last year. In this resolution, you decided that you would make some moves relating to racism as a public health emergency. And so I just wanted to just remind you that one of the resolve clauses, it's resolved that the legislative body commits to quote the sustained and deep work of eradicating systemic racism throughout the state, actively fighting racist practices and participating in the creation of more just and equitable systems. I will leave that there. Now, I want to tie this whole conversation about systemic racism together. And I would like to read into the record with the chair's permission, a definition that we have prepared. You may know that the work that we've been doing brought about Act 54, 2017, which created the RDAAP, as well as Act 9, 2018, in the special session, which created the racial equity executive director's office. You may recall last week that you did something historic. You decided to abolish slavery in the state of Vermont and PR2. And also that Act 33, the health equity policy is also something that came from the Racial Justice Alliance. And that work is ongoing. What we have here is some commitment to the work around systemic racism, but not an agreed upon definition. And I thought it would be fitting today to share with you the definition that the Racial Justice Alliance uses and has used in this work. And I would love to read that into the record. And it states as follows, and I quote, systemic racism involves both the deep structures and the surface structures of racial oppression. It includes the complex array of anti-Black practices, the unjustly gained political economic power of whites, the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines, and the emotion-laden racist framing created by whites to maintain and rationalize their privilege of power. It goes on to say that systemic racism thus encompasses the dominant white racial frame with its white racist attitudes, ideologies, emotions, images, narratives, as well as the discriminatory actions and institutions flowing out of and linked to that frame. This racism is material, social, and ideological reality, and indeed systemic, which means that racist reality is manifested in all, is manifested in all major institutions. And I quote it from racist America. This is Roots, Current Realities and Future Reparations. It's a book by Joe Fagan and Kimberly Ducey. In closing, I would just say that there is an inextricable connection that our fight for equity as it pertains to race has to that of equity and farming. I've been in Vermont now for about 14 years, and some of you, because I've listened to your introductions in the areas in which you represent, you may want to know I resided in Cabot Vermont, and what I mean by Cabot is, is I'm talking past Marshfield Dam, up the hill on Route 2, out there on the left, before you get to Damville. I hope some of you know what I'm talking about. So I'm talking about the sticks. I've also spent some time living in Woodbury, and that's up on the hill on the other side of the golf course there, back in the sticks. I spent some time in Williamstown as well. So I've had plenty of opportunity to hang out with my brothers and sisters across the state. I'm not just a flat lander that just blew in from out of state, and it has been in Burlington the entire time. In fact, some of my better years have been in the sticks. What I do know is that there's only one 1%, and what I also know and what I came to understand in this fight that this coalition has successfully put together. My mother told me is, you know that you have, you have began to make progress when people start picking on you, or else they start talking about you, or else they start giving you a hard time. Well, I think we've set aside all of that criteria. We've made some noise. I think Senator Pearson would probably agree that we've made some noise and we're going to continue to make it noise. We are together. You know, the fight for the LGBTQIA community, the fight for clean water, the fight for against global warming, the fight for equity and farming, the fight for racial justice, all of them are inextricably bound. We are not an uncommon alliance. In fact, we are a very common alliance, and I think you'll see this occurring more and more often. I stand for what my colleagues stand for, and they stand for what we stand for. And we're here collaboratively, and we're doing so with all of the effort that we know how to bring to your attention these challenges that create disparities in the rollout of this industry across Vermont. This is the first time in history that we have ever rolled out an industry in Vermont acknowledging that systemic racism is a thing. My hope is that we would take that into full account as we do this work. Mr. Chair, I thank you for your time this afternoon and those who have appeared in this committee, those who represent in this committee. I thank you for your work. I've given a very extensive list of a lot of the work that has been done by this body around some of these areas. I'm confident that we can continue to move this work forward. Thank you and have a great morning. Thank you. Thank you, Mark, and we'll move right along to Graham. Morning, Graham. Morning, Senator and committee members. Thank you for having us all today, and this is the first of a few of our small farm advocacy days, and it's focused on my canvas this year. So I really want to make this space for a lot of the folks who came in here today to advocate for themselves, to tell you about why this is important to them and their roles, not cutting marketplace, their concerns and ideas are. But I'm just going to quickly run through some of our main concerns. I do hope that I'm able to talk with some of you all tomorrow morning again before S188 moves from your committee or at another time soon because there's been about two weeks of testimony with a lot of juicy stuff I'd love to respond to. But just real quick, I think what Mark was just talking to, I just want to hammer home why that's important to agriculture. Given the present demographics of agricultural land ownership, the history of disinvestment and discrimination faced by Bogg-Puck communities, agriculture and rural areas all across the US, you see with the USDA right now providing compensatory payments for this discrimination, acknowledging it, etc. But also those who've been disproportionately impacted by cannabis now. I've included, I've talked to a number of farmers whose parents, space, time and prison who were taken from their families. I've talked to one person who they have their family lost their farm. There's a lot of damage that has been done in agricultural communities around these laws over time. And that's why it's important to make sure there is ongoing funding for the cannabis development fund that's currently not in statute. We kept being told to go back to the CCB and ask for what we thought was important. The CCB has now affirmed that this is very important. 5% of excise tax to the Cannes Development Fund, 20% to reinvestment communities. We just want the legislature to act on that. In terms of the ag stuff, you know a lot of our points. I'm going to really quickly just run through them and then let everyone else talk. But we think all outdoor cultivation should be agricultural and not just the smallest here and not just those that are already agricultural. I think it's really important to think about the repercussions given what we were just talking about. If you only make this for folks who already ag, 98, 99% of the agricultural land owned in Vermont is owned by people who identify as white. This isn't about any punitive measures towards folks who are white. It's more just recognizing that there's, if you don't provide those same privileges for other folks, and given the real challenges of access to land right now, can we really make room and have parity for everybody who wants to grow this crop outside? Some of the other concerns, as you know, are actually 50 compliance. The reality of having separate buildings, vehicles, equipment for crops that are agricultural and things that are not. You've been talking a lot about federal enforcement in the risks there. I think all kind of establishments face the uncertainty of federal persecution. Farms are will be some of the least visible in the state. Think about all the other ones in urban areas that will be actively selling product and advertising. I don't think to our knowledge that giving farms all the exemptions that would otherwise be called agricultural would make them any more likely to be persecuted. If this is the case, and if what Legislative Council said is true, we just recommend that the Legislature and CCB really draft guidance and outreach to all establishments so they can know how to protect themselves. Direct sales, extremely important. As you know, we've talked about a lot. I can talk more with you about the cultivator stuff related to live plant sales in the future and about increasing the allowance for homescale producers. But right now, I'd really like to just pass it on to the folks who we've really given are here to give you their time today and talk about their stories. Yeah. Thank you, Graham. Jeffrey? I don't know. Who's this? Jeffrey, unfortunately, was not able to join us this morning. It sounds like he is feeling under the weather. So I think I'm next on the list after Jeffrey. But beyond me, I'd also like to cede my time to some of the other folks who are here. It looks like maybe the next person that we have on the agenda who I think is here is Kyle, I believe. I think the name Kyle. Okay, Kyle. Hello. Let me try to get my camera turned on here. This is Patricia Kyle's wife. Hi, I don't know if you can see me now. Hi. I'm here representing our, good morning. Thank you for having us and we appreciate your time. I'm here representing Mystic Mountain Cannabis. We're out of Bristol, Vermont. We are a family-owned veteran operated small business, hopefully entering the cannabis market here come May 1st. I don't have like any talking points today per se. I'm just trying to be involved with the legislation and represent this market in a positive manner. And I don't really have much to say other than I really appreciate your time. And I hope that if you have any questions about, you know, how we plan to stay within compliance or anything, I hope I can answer that for you. Well, thank you, Patricia. We'll get some questions for you after everyone test applies. Jen, Jen's with us. Morning. Morning. Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you today. It's great to see both the House and Senate committees here today, along with my fellow farmers and advocates. For the record, my name is Jen Daniels. I reside in Colchester, and I am president and co-founder of Marisum Farms, having farmed hemp commercially for three years, both in the N.E.K. and in Shelburne, specifically, Irisburg. Before I became a hemp farmer and business owner in Vermont, I worked for over 20 years in public service in community development, race relations, and as a landscape architect, designing public spaces to promote social equity. From that experience, I learned that one of the most important factors in supporting social equity, probably the most important, is meaningful economic opportunity. So not just so people can get by, but to have a real chance to create abundance and build intergenerational wealth. I've seen it in my work with Native American communities in the southwest, and Indigenous communities abroad. And I've also seen it in my work with Black and Brown or global majority neighborhoods in Connecticut and Washington, D.C. I am seeing it all too clearly here in Vermont. And as you all know, as land sky rockets in value and transfers out of productive use, the problem is only getting worse. The launch of Vermont's new cannabis market is a historic moment for developing that kind of meaningful economic opportunity, especially in outdoor cultivation, where those who lack access to large amounts of capital have a real shot at creating that abundance and building intergenerational wealth. And at the same time, which I know is very important to this committee, preserving working lands as we just listened to previously, listening to the working lands enterprise. But that opportunity will be lost if the barriers to access are not removed. And I'd like to share two solutions to those barriers today. First, something I think Brand has mentioned, all outdoor cultivation must be considered farming under state law, and thus not restricted by Act 250 and local zoning. Such restrictions have been used all too often to not only restrict access, but as a tool for racial discrimination. And we can look at the history on that. And it's not enough to do that only for small cultivators. The small cultivation tiers are not a means to build abundance and intergenerational wealth, particularly outdoors. And the environmental and zoning impact of outdoor cannabis farming is really is no different from hemp, which is considered farming at any scale in Vermont. And the impacts really aren't much different from any other type of farming either. The second solution that I'd like to share with you, my opinion, to those barriers, is that the state needs to support community land trusts and other alternative models to land ownership and land access. I know there's a fantastic report in Farm to Plate all about this. And again, I want to reiterate as land values skyrocket, this is becoming increasingly necessary to ensure access to those without large amounts of capital, not just in cannabis, but in all agriculture. Four years ago, I left the public service and moved to Vermont to start a hemp farming business because of Vermont's working land ethic and the economic opportunity that's just presented and our three teenage kids. And we have privilege because we are white. I'm going to say that again, we have privilege because we are white and had some access to modest capital get started. States all over the country are struggling to get social equity right, whatever that means in cannabis. But because of Vermont's commitment to working lands, economic opportunity and racial and social justice, we have a golden opportunity right now to become a model for the nation in how this can work. Thank you so much for your time. And thank you, Ro, Vermont and Nova and Vermont Racial Justice Alliance for creating this opportunity. Yeah. Thank you, Jen. We have, is it, Ed, you're, Ed? Yeah, Eduardo Jaime, you can call me Ed, if you'd like, that seems to be easier for people. That's my name. Together with my friend in Randolph, we are fine but farms. We're vegetable and cannabis farmers. I've worked on farms in my late teens, in my early 20s. I continue to play with soil and plants. I do want to say I'm a recent, I'm a fairly recent Vermont transfer in here having moved from North Carolina, where I was a paramedic and were many, many great small farmers. I came at the beckoning of my friend. I'd like to thank, you know, VGA, Nova, Ro, Vermont, the Racial Justice Alliance and many others for their efforts. I'd also like to thank you, the committee, for hearing me today, hearing my colleagues and also thank you for the work that you're doing. You know, I know it's not, it's not easy with cannabis' federal status. You know, I've been watching y'all and, you know, very impressed, very happy that y'all are in charge here. But all that being said, I'd like to speak on S188. It's, because it's a crucial piece of legislation, you know, that can ensure a cannabis marketplace that represents the small farmers in the state, particularly those that have already been growing, you know, as part of the underground market. Unfortunately, you know, cannabis' commercial status triggers Act 250, you know, as many people have already said. And for many small farmers across the state, you know, not to mention the other regulations that they could be subjected to, whether municipal or like, you know, it's a cumbersome process. You know, having gone through a majority of it myself, you know, I can attest to that. And I can attest that it will be a barrier, you know, for many talented small farmers, whether it's self-imposed, financial or, you know, people just don't have the time. It's a very time-consuming process. And then once it's filed, you know, from there it goes on and travels on down that pipeline. So as they've already said, you know, I think outdoor cultivation as well should be regulated as farming or somehow regulated as you stated the other day, I think under the CCB, so as to kind of circumnavigate that whole federal thing. I think that's a great idea, you know, so it'll ease the burden on small farmers and we do know that it is farming, right? You know, the stigma should end. And also tying into that as farmers already in the state do, when they sell plants, they sell seeds, you know, they sell their products to one another and the public. I feel cannabis cultivators should have that same ability without the need for a retail or wholesale license. It's not required for any other farm-based products. So one of the things I've come to love about this state really is it's seeming dedication to farmer sovereignty, you know, which is something that I've seen lost in many places, you know, it's happening all across the nation, you know. And I would love to see cannabis CSAs, farmers markets, you know, farm stores selling their harvests, direct sales of one's own products is paramount, I think, for a just and equitable market that puts the power in the hands of small Vermont farmers rather than giant corporations that could really care less about those small farmers or selling a subpar product to the public. You know, as small farmers we take pride in our craft and we want to share that with people. And I also like to take this time to address personal cultivation, you know, I feel a higher plant count is more realistic and consistent with what's already happening, you know, with farming you got to count for losses, having higher plant counts can allow for a home grower to mitigate that and other mishaps that might come up. Also, you know, as a cultivator I'd love to be able to have direct access to those home growers and give them, you know, clones and seeds if they would like, you know, again, de-stigmatization of the plant isn't necessary. And lastly, I'd like to recommend, you know, putting the social equity recommendations from the CCB into statute as well as reiterate with Reverend Hughes and Graham and Jen all stated, you know, we all know that communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by the failed war on drugs. And that criminalization of cannabis to begin with was, you know, racially motivated. So I believe that a necessity that might be reinvested in those communities from taxes collected, you know, it's long overdue. And once again, reiterate what Jen said and in my opinion, you know, this is a very real chance to have a recreational market unlike any other in the country, you know, of the people, you know, by the people and for the people, as they say. So that's all I have. Thank you so much for your time and thank you very much for your work. Yeah. Thank you very much. We have Matt up next. You're muted, Matt. Good morning. Can you hear me now? Yes. Awesome. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you to NOFA for putting this on. Certainly all of your efforts and everything involved in this are highly appreciated the time and labor that's gone into this. Probably going to reiterate some of the points that have been eloquently said ahead of me, as I think they need to kind of be beaten here a little bit. So I'm Matt Leonetti. I moved to Vermont in 2000, been involved in agricultural pursuits here ever since. I own and run with my partner, an organic certified organic hemp operation in year five. I also work for Clean Green, which is the largest nationally recognized certifying body for cannabis has been since 2004, with standards that go far above the USDA baseline. I am also a convicted felon for cannabis and was facing 127 years for cultivation in the 90s. So I am well aware of the impacts of the war on drugs. Even to this day, 25 years past my conviction, I still had the amount of scrutiny that I had to go through to simply be the tree warden for the town of Richmond and to even coach rec soccer is ridiculous. So the impacts are extremely real and they are still tailing a lot of us to this day. So I am all for a lot of social equity components. And I think these need to be put into statute. This was a key cornerstone of legislation going into this to work to remand some of and repatriate some of the badness of all of this war on drugs and how that has impacted communities and disadvantaged folks and everyone else and myself included for all of us. So this is a huge key to me. And it's very important needs to be addressed. And I think it would help and support encouraging community, which I think in this day and age, we've kind of lost. We need to go back and rebuild community. So when I think of Vermont, I see this beautiful landscape. It's a patchwork of family maple syrup, cheese, meat, vegetables. That is what Vermont represents to me. Even though I wasn't born here, that's how I see it. Small family niche far cannabis plays into this absolutely perfectly well. So let's look at our farmers now. Farming is a razor thin margin of profit or loss. Right now we have an opportunity through the cannabis industry to create a level of wealth that we're never going to have an opportunity to have here in Vermont again. Vermont's a tough state to make it in. Honestly, we all know this. We have the fifth highest taxes in the state. We're a very rural state with not a lot of big business, not a lot of big paying jobs. They don't come here. They go across the lake for the tax incentives. So right now with cannabis, we have an opportunity not only to bring a lot of people that actually really care about being land stewards and cultivating cannabis in an extremely clean and craft way, but the level of wealth that we could bring to Vermont to rebuild our communities, to rebuild our families. This opportunity is not coming again. You're not going to see another crop do this. In two years, Maine, one crop is now the largest crop in its cannabis. This is a very powerful plant. Got a lot of healing properties, and we should do it right. So I think when we look at this, cannabis is an agricultural pursuit. It has grown just like any other crop. It probably has more care put into it than a lot of other crops. So to say that cannabis is not an agricultural pursuit, I think if we look at the definition of what Vermont has actually defined as farming cannabis, absolutely falls into that. So I believe that the barriers here act 250 and all these separate buildings, again, these are barriers to entry because the cost of getting into this is ridiculous. I think we need to think about rebuilding our communities and allowing, this was supposed to be a market that was inclusive and equitable. Let's allow it to be that by again, removing some of these barriers that would allow other folks into it. But again, we have a farming landscape and these farmers operate and have great interactions with clients through direct access. Cannabis farmers should absolutely have that same respect and opportunity to have direct access to those folks that want to support them. Know your farmer, get to talk to them, look at them in the eye. We should have that same thing. And that is also what builds community. And that's also what we're trying to do here. On top of building an industry, let's rebuild the community fabric of this state. You know, another big one for me is the homegrown plant numbers. I think they're absolutely ludicrous. If you actually sit down and do the math, there's no way a cancer patient has enough material to grow their own medicine in a year. So I am all for upping these plant counts. I think they should be up significantly. We have not seen any undue and bad response by allowing home grows at this point. And again, this is an empowerment thing of people. So let's empower the people if they want to grow their own, or if they want to support a regulated industry. So again, let's give them the option to have the amount of plants that they should. I also think, again, that CSA model, farmers should be allowed to sell their plants directly to consumers. We don't need wholesalers and retailers to be those middlemen. Let the farmer have direct access and let him keep the profits to build the wealth, to build the community, to rebuild the family. And I think on that, you know, the one thing I would really like, we really have to think about this and this has been beaten into us constantly for all these years of working on this is the fact that this should be an equitable and inclusive market. And there are still so many things in these bills that don't allow that to happen. Again, we don't get a second shot at this opportunity. And I think what we can create here and what we can model because we're a small state and we have a more unique opportunity than the bigger states is absolutely amazing. So I really would like you guys to listen to us, to hear us, to take these to heart and really think about how you have an opportunity to create something for Vermont that you might not get an option to do again. And this is through an agricultural pursuit, which represents the social fabric and the beauty of the day. So I appreciate the time that you've allowed me to speak this morning. I appreciate all of your efforts. Thank you to NOFA, VGA, everyone else that's here. Great comments. Thank you for your time. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Well, thank you, Matt. Do we have another Matt here to testify? I think we had someone signed up, but I don't see him here. So I think we can move on to the next witness. Josh is up next. Hello, everyone. I have a slightly unstable connection. So I'm just going to be going over voice. My name is Joshua Decatur. Good to see many of you again. I've testified here before and some other councils. As background, I was the founder of Trace, which is the track and trace system facilitating the Vermont hemp program. And I'm also a member of the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition. We've been working together for well over a year, year and a half, maybe more now, bringing all of our organizations together to focus on equity in cannabis and all of the intersectional issues. I've heard a lot of great testimony today from community members and members of our coalition. So I'm going to keep it short and sweet and focus on a piece of the story here that I think may be missing right now. So last time we spoke, I think last year, the emerging cannabis market was more or less a corporate handout. And the reality is that it still is. In some months, vertically integrated companies will be able to run their businesses and sell products to Vermonters and will have no imperative to support Vermont agricultural communities, Vermont farmers, or be proactive members of our community in any way. 100% of those vertically integrated permits are owned by out-of-state companies, two of them publicly traded. And every single dollar that goes over the counter in the first retailers in Vermont currently will be going out of state. It's for reasons like this that it's so important to allow things like direct on sale farms. But honestly, if the legislature was brave and stood up for the interests of the people of Vermont, they would actually intervene in the timeline of the market rollout itself. Vermonters have struggled and suffered within the medical program in the state, more or less since its inception, due to companies not really having an interest to care for their patients, instead only having profit incentives. And they've told narratives publicly that portrayed them as struggling companies that invested a lot, that did not have an opportunity or a return in their investment that was worthy of the investments they made in the state. And that was used as justification to give them early access to the emerging market. We know now with more time that that's simply not true. These companies had different tax obligations that forced them to run their companies at a loss and pay out money through consulting agreements to other entities. So they were making money the whole time. I just want to put that on record. No, there's been a lot of people in the community parading around cannabis legalization as if championing it as a progressive win in the state. But the reality is the market currently is not progressive in any way. It's actually regressive. If you look at it, access to Vermonters is going to be very difficult. And first mover advantages are very significant in any emerging market. And right now they're going to, as I said, a select group of large companies. Small farmers, BIPOC Vermonters are being left out. They'll still have opportunities for sure, and it's important to codify social equity rules that have been put in place, but they're going to be fighting against a tide that right now, and they're going to be fighting against rules and a market structure that right now is not in their interest unless there's some kind of intervention from the legislature with respect to many of the issues you've heard today. Treating cannabis as an agricultural product, permitting on-farm sales for producers, direct sales and direct purchases for consumers, increasing home cultivation, plant counts, enabling live plant sales for cultivators and nurseries, etc. So with that, I would just urge all of you to please stand up for the people of Vermont and the interests of small farmers and everyday Vermonters in the BIPOC community in the state over the interest of a small group of out-of-state companies. Thank you. Thank you, Josh. We have Ben Wilcox. Yeah, hi. My name is Ben Wilcox. I own an operate off-piece farm, which is in Sutton, small town in the Northeast Kingdom. And thank you a lot for having me today. Thanks for doing the work to support Vermont agriculture. And also thanks to the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition for inviting me to talk about my experience in cannabis in Vermont. I've been growing hemp since 2018. I've grown about a half an acre for the first three years, and then last year I dropped it down to a quarter acre. And I've seen just in the four years in the hemp business, which I'd mostly grow for high CBD flower, which is not similar to how one would grow for high THC flower in an outdoor setting. You know, the very first year I was able to sell my whole crop at wholesale price and did well enough to get excited to grow again the next year. And then the next year a lot of people grew and the price fell. And it's been a little bit of a struggle ever since then to compete with larger operations who can grow more volume and seem to be able to sell at a lower price. But difficult for me as a kind of a sole proprietor to compete with that. And so I've been trying to experiment with other ways to generate some revenue through growing hemp, which kind of my goal when I started was to try to make a little bit of income off of my land. I also do carpentry work and stuff as well and teach ski lessons and stuff like that. But as far as the hemp operation goes, I decided to try to start offering pick your own hemp, which the first year was during the pandemic. And I said a couple of people come, but it didn't do as good as I was hoping. I did it again last year and I had several more people come and purchase plants out of the field. And it was exciting to talk directly with the consumers who came. They were all really interested in CBD. They all use it for medicine and my crop is certified organic. And they were all really excited to be able to come pick an organic plant to go medicine with. It was also exciting for me to talk directly with consumers and people who will be using the plants that I work to grow. And I'd like to continue doing that and it would be great to be able to do some THC cannabis. People also use that for medicine and for me to be able to grow quality plants and then sell directly to them would be great. I also started offering hemp farm tours of my operation. Again, generally the people that came were people that were interested in cannabis cultivation, interested in this new market. Asked a lot of questions about it. And it was fun for me to interact with them also and just talk about this new industry and what I've learned over the last four years. And one of the things I love about the business of growing these plants and cultivating is that I learn a lot every year. The learning curve doesn't seem to really slow down and you're putting seeds in the ground or starting plants and growing them through the summer and harvesting and selling them. I mean, that's, it's an exciting kind of long-term process that I've really come to enjoy. So the hemp farm tours were great. And then I also started, I built a couple of campsites last summer on my property, some hemp platforms. You know, we have a fair amount of people come to our area in the summer who are here from mountain biking thanks to the Kingdom Trails Association. I'm fairly close to East Burke. And I thought, you know, there's people, there was a shortage of tent camping sites and sheet places for people to stay. So I offered these sites for pretty low prices. And people came pretty much every weekend and some of them came on my hemp farm tours and some of them also bought CBD oil from me and things like that. And my, you know, one of the challenges I've had through growing hemp is trying to sell my crop. And I've gone around the state to different stores and tried to directly sell to store owners. And that's, you know, it's a challenge and you have to make a lot of transactions that way to even sell just half acres worth. So I thought having people come camp on my farm and doing these tours and maybe being able to sell a little bit directly to them at a higher profit margin, again, because the wholesale price is so low, you know, because of the large producers that, you know, selling directly to consumers at retail price, there's considerably better margins there. And also being able to sell live plants and seeds too would be awesome as a way to diversify income for small cultivators in the springtime. There's, I know a lot of people around here just in my, you know, Sutton's a small town, about a thousand people. The neighboring towns are also pretty relatively small. And as a small hemp grower, I've gotten a little bit about some of the local people have asked me about plants in the spring. And I have been able to, I usually just give them away because it's like a couple plants and I usually have extra anyways, but that could be another way to help diversify for small growers to generate some revenue in the springtime. And it could be, you know, any little bit helps. And it could be enough to help pay for some temporary labor in the spring when you need it for planting plants and whatnot. So all those things would really help. And, you know, keeping the outdoor cultivation as, you know, since you are growing plants and harvesting all in raw and plant material, I mean, it is farming really, I think, as far as I don't know the legal definition or whatever, but it seems like it is to me and keeping the various entries small is going to help, you know, anyone be able to join the market and hopefully have a shot at, you know, keeping the reputation of Vermont as producing high-quality agricultural, you know, high-quality produce, you know, essentially produce. So that's about, I'd love to take, answer any questions you want to know about small outdoor cultivation. Yeah. Thank you, Ben. Maddie, do we have anyone else that's come along that we haven't called on? We do, yeah. Thank you, Chair Starr. We have Charlotte and Janet joined us kind of last minute. So I appreciate them being here. And then I'm happy before we wrap to offer some, just a few closing words. And we have one other producer who is on the list, Matt Steinke. It sounds like he is trying to get to a place where he has internet access to join us. So he might join us as well. So we'll go to Charlotte next. Yeah, thank you so much. Good morning. It's so nice to be here. I am, my name is Charlotte Ruplum. My husband and I own a tiny, emerging permaculture farm in Decksbury, right in the center of the state, just east of Campbell's Hum. We both grew up in Vermont. I've known some of you for my whole life. Nice to see you. Gone to high school with you and your kids. And my husband grew up in, I grew up in Calis. My husband grew up in Heinsberg. We both left the state for a long time and are thrilled to be back here and to be participating in the stewardship of this incredible state. I just like to take a moment to presence us in the conversation. Cannabis is a plant that humans have been cultivating for almost 30,000 years. And the reason is because it has a special magic that creates a symbiotic relationship with human beings. Humans have what's called an endocannabinoid system in their bodies, which helps to maintain homeostasis in our immune systems and nervous systems and digestive systems in our brain chemistry, helps to combat mental and physical illness and degradation due to age and all kinds of things. And in our lifetime as humans, we use cannabis to help supplement our endocannabinoid systems to help us reach homeostasis more often. And as our environment degrades and our capitalist systems take such a toll on our mental health and our communities, especially during a pandemic, I think it's essential that we recognize a place of cannabis in helping us to supplement our ability to maintain any level mental and physical health, which our societies are not designed to do in general. I think cannabis is a beautiful and amazing herbal medicine that we've been partnering with for much, much longer than we've been having this conversation in this state. And I think it's really important that we empower individuals in our state to treat the using herbal medicine. My husband and I share six different chronic illnesses. And we struggle with pain and depression and anxiety, autism, ADHD, and autoimmune illnesses. And we use a lot of cannabis to help us try to reach homeostasis, but I am still disabled. I'm still not able to work a regular job outside of the home. I experience a ton of pain every day, nausea, along with my mental illness struggles. My husband is still able to work outside of the home. So we have a very small income and we're still trying to figure out how we're going to make our farms solvent. And that's the next subject that I'd like to get to, which is financial independence for Vermonters and for Vermont. I think that cannabis, the plant contains within it an incredible opportunity for us to empower individual land stewards and our communities and Vermont as a state to create a level of financial safety for Vermonters, which we are not currently providing. The cost of land is not within reach for Vermonters. The cost of farming is not within reach for Vermonters. And it's an incredibly unfair system for anyone who loves the land and wants to create a deep connection with it for a lifelong relationship of stewardship and preservation, which is what me and my husband would love to do. We are diversified. We are diversified. We're attempting to create a permaculture farm. So we'll have, we have animals and we cultivate cannabis for our own use at this time. And I also am the, we're founding an organization called Vermont Cannabis Coaching to try and help people understand the role that cannabis can play in our lives and in our connection to health, mental and physical homeostasis in financial independence. So that's two things. There's one is the deep connection to health that we have with the cannabis plant as human beings. And that endocannabinoid system is something that exists in all vertebrates. So it's not just human beings that have this deep connection to the cannabis plant. And then the second is financial independence for Vermonters. And for Vermont, I think it's really, really important that you understand that farming is not within financial reach. Land is not within financial reach for Vermonters. And it's really, as lawmakers, I'd like you to just take a moment to embrace your role as visionaries and to just picture in your mind what the future could be like if we empowered Vermonters, independent Vermonters and not corporations in order to take this relationship with the land to the level that will benefit our communities and our state. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Janet, is Janet here? Sounds like Janet just joined to listen. And I also forgot to mention that Graham had some testimony that was submitted to him from someone that wanted to have it read, if we can. Yeah, we aren't going to have much time for many questions. But if that's the way you'd like to do it, that's fine. Graham? Yeah, I think that can be brief. And then I don't really have too much to add, so I think we'll have a little bit of time. Yeah, Graham. Yeah, thank you senators. So this was testimony submitted to me by a cultivator who I've been with at times who didn't feel comfortable being here today. And I just wanted to make sure I made time to read it. First of all, so I'm from here on out. These are not my words. These are this person's words. First of all, a big thank you to all the people involved in this extremely complex and fraught regulated marketplace rollout. Your diligence and work, it's appreciated by those of us still unable or unwilling to speak directly and have our voices heard. As a multi-generational legacy cultivator who has experienced the impact of the war on drugs, I have been reluctant to be vocal or public about my intentions to enter the recreational market. I know I own this. While I look forward to the coming recreational market, I am also apprehensive. I am unclear as to why there are divisions among activities that are traditionally housed under one roof. There's a longstanding practice of hash making using ice, dry ice or screens to produce limited batches of hash, impressed oil that reflect the unique qualities of a crop. Hashish and rosin making coupled with pre-rolled joints, curio grown by the cultivator are some of the most traditional ways for small scale craft producers to increase their margins to value added products. As I understand the proposed guidelines, these activities are manufacturing and are to be separated physically from cultivation businesses as well as being registered as a separate business. This poses a myriad of problems around accounting, branding, employee handling, tracking software, real estate management, etc. And some questions he's written. Will craft producers be able to make hash, rosin and other value added products under their own roof using their own material? This would represent the same model as a farmer making jam or some such value added material on their farm site. If so, will the tracking software make managing both under one entity possible? Will the quote unquote manufacturing areas have to be distinct and separate from the quote unquote cultivation space? Will the quote unquote manufacturing quote unquote cultivation businesses require separation of books and employees? Why isn't growing plants considered agriculture if growing outdoors might be? Where can one gain clarity on the energy consumption guidelines? Many farmers from the legacy market are not used to using LEDs and this will create a bigger greater hurdle for them as it requires a different skill set and therefore a learning curve. How is the 280E tax law being taken into consideration? Thank you for your consideration of these matters. That's the end of the written testimony. I would just quickly say my own editorial here is I realized that a lot of these details were written into part of the rulemaking for the CCB. But I think what this communicates hopefully to you all is the real complexity that people are, that this market has inherently and some of the challenges and questions that people are facing when they're trying to understand how to run a small business or transition their legacy business into a regulated business. Yeah. Thank you, Graham. Maddie? Yeah. Well, I'd love to open it up to the question, Senator Starr, to your point, to give time for that. So we can just go straight to that if you want. Yep. Carolyn, you're going to have to let me know on your house members can hardly see you folks on the screen. But Brian, Senator Collamore has a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I deeply appreciate the testimony I've heard today. I want you to know that from each and every one of you that have given up some of your time today to testify. Concern was expressed early on as we entered this regulated market about us in the legislature making sure we didn't open up the possibility of large corporate entities coming into the state buying land and growing cannabis that we instead wanted to focus on small farming operations. So my question today is, can someone give me an idea of how that is defined? The CCB has identified six different tiers, which begin at a thousand square feet and go up to 37,500 feet, which is still under an acre, of course. And there's a plant differentiation with each of those tiers starting at 125 plants. I guess if you do the math, it comes out to 4,600 plants for the largest tier that they're going to regulate. My question again, and I'm serious about this, what's a small farm? At what point does it become a large farm, which would be of concern? Any answers to that? Jen, I think you're trying to answer. Well, unfortunately, my better half did the math on this and actually is his information is what the Cannabis Control Board has currently adopted into their proposal. I could ask him to come on screen and answer that question if that is okay. Maddie, I know you're, I don't want to derail, but it would help to answer that question. Are you all right with that, Maddie? I'm fine with that. And then it looks like Graham might want to respond also, but let's start with you, Jen. Okay. Okay. Well, with your permission, I'd be happy to introduce Rick Fox is my partner, both husband and business partner, so here. Yeah. And he'll be brief. So others have time to add, Graham. I'll be very brief. Good morning, Rick. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. And thank you. This is a great event. But would someone please repeat the question? I literally just walked in the room. What's a small, what's considered a small farm and explaining the plan counts from Senator Calamar? So in terms of what's considered a small farm, if you look at what other states do for cultivation, even at the very largest here, envisaged at all by the Cannabis Control Board, this would be a small farm in any other state at the highest level. So, you know, the tier five outdoor as currently proposed, I believe is 2,500 plants, that would be miniscule in any other state. You know that, you know, you can fit that quantity of plants on less than an acre, you know, depending on spacing. And even at the 4,188, which I think is being considered at a higher tier six level that the board may be holding off on for this year. I don't want to speak for the board. I just know whatever you are. Even that would be very, very small. So those numbers are based on equivalent productive capacity. So 1,000 square feet indoor can produce about 62 and a half pounds in 50 days. So our outdoor growing season is 100 days. So the outdoor equivalent of that would be 125 pounds. And the general rule of thumb is we all hope is a pound per plant, you know, that's not the mystic number as we've learned in three years of outdoor cultivation of cannabis for hand. So in productive equivalency, 1,000 square feet is equivalent to 125 plants outdoors. And we encourage the board to carry that through the rest of the tiers because, you know, with yields being lower and final product value typically lower for sun grown compared to indoor, you really, it's hard to actually have a viable outdoor cultivation business with 125 plants. So I mean, you know, you can try, but to give that flexibility to higher tiers is crucial. Thank you very much. Thank you. So, so how, how are we considered favoring corporate agriculture or big growers? If, if even at our largest size that the board has allowed, it's still considered small, most everywhere's else in the country. So that's my question back to the people we've had several speakers say, well, what we're doing here in Vermont is favoring the corporate company, big growers. And so I'd like to feel where we went wrong by allowing allowing the sizes that are before us in the, in the law so that we could maybe help fix it. So, Graham, did you want to take a bite that apple? My daughter really loves apples right now. So it's funny me thinking about that. Yeah, a couple of things. You know, one, I really appreciate the response just given. So Senator Starr, I think the point is that, you know, we really do think that the horizontal integration is really helpful at limiting the ability for folks to come in and take unfair market advantage. We really do appreciate the scales of outdoor production limitations have been permitted. And it's like this last respondent says we do feel like those are all small, relatively small. But where the, the issues come in is all the barriers to accessing those actual scales of production that we're just, we're just talked about by everybody and to the current market timeline and the current handing over of the market through that timeline to these vertically integrated corporations, which will have first moving in the market, as Josh described, and the advantages that the early market movers get in marketplaces in general. And the ownership of those, those, the only people who can have that vertically integrated business are all multi-state operators, two of them publicly traded companies. So again, this gets back to the timeline and that inherent structure and some of the barriers to people actually taking advantage of some of these relatively small scales of farming. That would be my response. Other questions and Carolyn, John O'Brien has a question. Sure. Go ahead, John. Thank you. Since there are a lot of witnesses here today with, with experience growing both hemp and cannabis, I just wondered both sort of from a plant perspective, but also thinking of CSAs or farm stands, what, how do they compare as far as what you could get, you know, sort of an ideal value added product? Is, is cannabis, you know, way more lucrative than hemp or is it just, it depends on the product? Anybody? Yeah. Well, we hope it'll be a lot more lucrative than hemp. But cannabis cultivation outdoors is very risky. And when I say cannabis, I include hemp. And as any hemp farmer in Vermont over the last three years knows, you know, frost, mold, pests, floods, that leaves about six plagues. Anyway, you know, the, the idea of getting one pound per plant sometimes feels like a foolish pipe dream when you consider the crop loss, really to get into this business and, and bank on any less than, you know, 25, 30% crop loss, you're setting yourself up for failure. You know, so the potential is there for lucrative. The other key thing to remember about outdoor is that given the nature of the product, its density, most outdoor production is going to go for, for lower value extraction into edibles and other, and other process products. You know, so, you know, we hope that a lot coming from the outdoor would find a home in the premium flower market. But realistically, very little does. And by contrast on the indoor, especially if you use, you know, what folks call a sea of green method, almost all of that would be premium. So, you know, I don't think it's, you know, hopefully it will be more, it should be at least somewhat more lucrative than hemp, but this is not, the margins are going to be much smaller than what people might think. Thank you. Other questions? Yeah, can I just add on to that? In addition to the factors that outdoor cultivators are going to face that Rick spoke to in terms of, you know, weather extremes and things like that, there's also huge risks to those cultivators in terms of huge risks and barriers in terms of market access, which is why we've included all of these points around access in, you know, our testimony and our recommendations as the Canvas Equity Coalition. When you think about, you know, the jump on the market that these multi-state operators have, as well as, you know, cannabis cultivation not being considered agriculture thus far, there are a lot of barriers in place. And so that's what really all of our recommendations are targeted toward removing some of those barriers and some of that market risk for these small cultivators so that they have a shot at making it in this marketplace. And, you know, big parts of that are allowing direct sales and allowing, you know, the sale of life plans to stay with cultivators and nursery licenses as opposed to wholesalers and retailers. So just this whole sort of constellation of recommendations that we're talking about is really our attempt at both kind of market and cultivation related risks. Yep. Another question that kept coming up is people were supporting cannabis as being farming. If you grow it, you're farming mainly for, to get around a lot of regulations. And what we found in our testimony was that if the ag agency regulates farming and if we left calling it farming, they, they would be the ones that would regulate it on farms and by them regulating it on farms and with all the federal programs that we have flowed through Vermont, they are subject to federal regulations. And one regulation to do this is that if if they run into illegal products on a farm, they have to report it to the agency and the agency has to report it to the feds. And what it would do is jeopardize many, many of our federal programs for water quality, direct subsidies to farms in a variety of ways. And so we had to change that not to, so that it wouldn't disallow all these other operations, but we loaded back in a whole bunch of tax exemptions, Act 250 exemptions and things like that. So we've got, we've got a long ways to go with this issue. And we have on the Senate side, seeing it's a Senate bill, we have very few days to get it across the finish line by crossover time. So a lot of, there's still going to have to be a lot of work done once this bill gets to the house to make it become a reality. Graham? Bobby? Yes. I just wanted to let you know that Terry Norris has a question whenever it fits. No, I can get to myself. You're more than welcome, Terry, to ask, and I didn't see, well, I can't see your hand anyways, but go ahead, Terry. Well, I was just going to say, it's all quite very interesting, but, you know, we represent a lot of people back home and here, regardless of what we think, there's a lot of people, you know, that aren't necessarily in favor of widespread cannabis growth and use in Vermont. So, you know, we can't just use our own judgment all the time, just a statement, but it's not with everybody. Some people are just old fashioned. Yeah, well, we all run into that, certainly in the bigger of the area we represent. We all get pushed back, but anyways, we are bumping up against noon and a lot of us have other meetings during the noon hour, but one more, I see, is it Richard, Jen, I've got to your hand up. I just wanted to react to the comments about, you know, some members of the community are, you know, have reluctance about widespread cannabis cultivation and, you know, I realize it's not just about odor, for example, but, you know, I would point out that maybe it's been stated already, so I apologize for repeating, but HEP is already considered farming in the state of Vermont at any scale, and I think we've all experienced now driving by a HEP farm in the summer. You smell it. Lots of other agricultural activities that we smell, and in terms of wastewater impacts, traffic impacts, you know, outdoor cultivation of cannabis is really just as light on the land as many other crops and there doesn't need to be a lot of traffic. So I know there's a whole host of issues and just broad stigma in general for cannabis, so I'm very sensitive and appreciate that remark. You know, I just, you know, encourage us to, you know, consider what we've actually learned over the last three years in HEP in the state. Yeah, well, I hate to cut you folks off, but we are going to have to move on because quite a few of us have other meetings during the noon hour. It never stops. So if any of you have testimony that you have written down and you could forward, if you would send that to Linda Lehman, who works for both of our committees, she'll certainly get that to all of us and hopefully we'll get 188 through the process because that is going to open the door up to help all your small cannabis producers and we will work like heck to try to get it right, but I'm sure we'll mess up on something. So stay in touch and, you know, come and visit with us anytime you want. If you see things going bottom side up, get hold of us and we'll try to right the boat so we can keep it afloat. So with that, thank you very much for your time this morning. Certainly appreciate it, and Maddie talks with us a lot and so does Graham. So, yeah, they're a good conduit to the committee and let's just hope that we get the best job done we can. So thank you all for… I'm happy to connect anybody here with Linda. If you do have written testimony to share, I can sort of be that liaison and just want to say thank you again to the committee and all of you for coming in to testify today. Really appreciate the conversation. Yeah, thank you.