 Good morning everyone. This is Representative Carolyn Partridge and we are having a joint hearing with the House Agriculture and Forestry Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee. And today we are having a presentation by the Vermont Housing and Conservation Coalition. We really appreciate the work they do. And I'm going to suggest that we very quickly go around and introduce ourselves. I'm going to start with the House and I'm going to go to Rodney Graham first Rodney. Rodney Graham Vice Chair of the House Committee of Ag and Forest, and I represent Orange One District which is Williamstown Washington Orange current first year Chelsea. All right, Tom Bach. My name is Tom Bach I represent the towns of Chester and over Baltimore and part of North Springfield. I represent the Terry Norris I represent Benson Orwell, Shoreham and Whitey. It's the Addison Rutland District. All right, John O'Brien. Good morning everybody. I'm John O'Brien I represent Royalton in my hometown of Tundridge that's Windsor Orange One. Vicki. Good morning I'm Vicki Strong from Albany, and I represent seven towns in Orleans, Caledonia one. And Henry. I'm Henry Pearl I represent the Caledonia Washington District which is three towns, Danville, Peacham and Cabot. Heather. I'm Heather Supernaut and I represent Windsor for one which are the towns of Barnard, Palmford, Quiche and West Hartford. And I represent the towns of Athens, Brookline, Grafton, part of Northwest Minster, all of Rockingham in my hometown of Wyndham. And Bobby, have you managed to become audioed? Yes, I switched. Switch machines and the old ones work. It's great to be with you and welcome everybody. I'm Bobby Starchair, the Senate Ag Committee and my members will introduce themselves. If they're, I can't see them all but go ahead. I think they're all here. Hi, Chris Pearson, Chittenden County Senate. Hi folks, Anthony Polina, Washington County. Good morning, Brian Collamore representing the Rutland District. And then Corey Parrant, I represent Franklin County in Alberg. Great. Well, thank you all for joining us today. And I'm going to turn this over to Abby White who is the Vice President for Strategic Communications for the Vermont Land Trust. And she will be introducing her folks today. Go right ahead. Great. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. It's wonderful to be here with you all today, albeit virtually. I am Abby White with the Vermont Land Trust. I am also one of the co-chairs of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Coalition. And we are here in the virtual State House this week talking about the great work that people do on the ground in communities every day in service to our state in the areas of housing and land conservation. So we're really pleased to be with you here today to talk about the work we're doing on the working and natural lands in Vermont. So just I'll be very brief and then I'll turn it over to the real stars of the show, but I just want to provide a quick background so the coalition is a is a is an entity of about 50 organizations all throughout the state and we are the service providers that deploy the VHCB dollars that you allocate and affect the lives of Vermonters every day. So this coalition is asking you all to support the governor's recommendation of 34.8 million to VHCB this year so that we can continue this vital work. It's critically important right now, especially as we as a state recover from the pandemic, both from a health standpoint and economic standpoint community, and those are some of the issues that we hope to touch on today. Furthermore, we're also asking you to offer and provide flexibility to VHCB and how those dollars are allocated, recognizing that community needs differ throughout the state. And in certain instances it may be best to invest those in housing and other instances it may be best to invest those in conservation. If you have more questions about that please reach out to Jen Holler or Gus Selig, both with VHCB is there recommending some language to the appropriations committees on that. So without further ado, I am so pleased to be joined by five reminders today, who are working across the state and deploying these resources and enriching the lives of our communities. So I will introduce them briefly and then let them tell you more about why they're here. So first up we have Clara Eyre with Fairmont Farms. Then we have Chief Don Stevens from the New Hegan Band of the Abeneke Nation. And Chief Rose Leonard with Snow Farm. Stephanie Pope with Iroquois Acres, and finally Barrett Grimm with the Huntington Conservation Commission. So I think at this point I will turn it over to you Clara. Thank you. And thank you all for the opportunity to come here virtually and speak with everybody. I really appreciate it. Clara Eyre from Fairmont Farm. I'm a co-owner in my family's farm. We are an Eastmont Pellier and also Crestbury, so Washington and Orleans counties. A little bit like a brief, brief history about us. We're a third generation dairy farm. We currently have four families in ownership. We milk up about 1,450 cows. My parents were part of our original ownership. And one thing we're really proud of is we've been able to successfully retire three families and they've since brought on three new families, myself being one of them. So that's kind of how we got where we are. And then I wanted to talk about Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and what they've meant to us over the years. Basically, one thing that people know a lot about Vermont Housing and Conservation Board is the partnership that they have with Vermont Land Trust. My family growth has been a huge part of our success in our generational transfers. It's made it possible for us to continue to grow by buying farms or land at competitive prices without putting unnecessary financial burden on us. It's also been able to preserve land for farming for the future and for future generations. Another thing that's been really important to my family is community. When we're out there farming, we know that we have a huge effect on everybody around us. So it's been really important when we talk about these projects with Vermont Housing and Conservation Board that it's also included land easements. That way we're able to give back to the community around us. And I did have, so I just want to mention, currently we've conserved 1,876 acres, 1,559 of them have been with the HCB. And we do have cross Vermont trail easements on at least three of the projects that we've done. And then a lot of the other projects have included, like for instance, easement pillar trails or vast trails or things like that. That just allows our community to be able to recreate on the land that's been conserved and enjoy it like we do. Also important dimensions, so we probably only own about 25% of the land that we farm. So a couple of things that means for us, one, it's a little bit risky because we're relying so much on the community around us to continue renting the land. But also, just it makes it that much more important for us to maintain those relationships. So that's kind of a brief part of the well-known part I think of Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. I also wanted to talk about a couple projects we did this past year. So Vermont Housing and Conservation Board did a water quality grant. And we applied for that and we're awarded $20,000. It was in conjunction with a SEAP grant that we got. And it was for a manure spreader with an injector and a flow meter. So the total investment was 101,000 and VHCB put in 20 and SEAP put in 50. And so we put in the remainder. Last year we were able to use it on about 800 acres. We had some difficulties because of manufacturing and COVID. So we didn't actually get it running until the fall. We expect to use it on at least 1500 acres every year in the future. What we're really excited about that is one, by injecting your manure, you're able to retain the nutrients right where they're needed in the soil. It's a huge reduction of runoff risk, which is good for everybody. But also some of the other things that are smaller with injection, but also wonderful, especially for the community is reducing smells and things like that. And also we're able to inject at a little bit of a higher rate than we would be able to just spread, which one that reduces the amount of times we're going over a field, which is also good for reducing soil compaction and increasing soil health. It also means less trips over the road. So our big heavy equipment is affecting the community a little bit less in that way too, when we're able to spread heavier, or I'm sorry, inject heavier. So we're really excited about that and thankful for that partnership. And then I guess the last thing that I also wanted to mention that we did this past year is, like many farms, we had kind of some hiccups and some challenges with the year that 2020 brought us. We have a small farm in East Montpelier, that's a 60 cow tie stall. For financial reasons, we had temporarily stopped milking about two years ago. So we had actually recently just started back up before COVID hit and with the base plan that was introduced by Agra Mark, it really didn't give us much option. We weren't able to continue shipping milk from that farm. So we lost that milk market and had to kind of figure out what that meant for us and transition into something new at that farm. So we decided to start a small meat market. So we are selling beef, pork and lamb. And this is where VHC became in. So we applied for one of the farm viability business planning. I don't know what it's just a program I guess that they have. Yeah, it's a small application fee, and basically we get a year's worth of help with our business planning so we were assigned to people. One Rose Wilson who's the independent consultant, I believe, and then Zach Smith who works with you the extension. It's so helpful in business planning that side of things. It's something we are unfamiliar with in the past. We hadn't gotten into meat or direct marketing at all. So those were things that we could really use some outside help with. And it's also been really helpful in learning to enterprise that specific business kind of away from the large dairy and really drill down into what that business actually means and help us budget and figure out how to grow it into something. We're hopeful that it could potentially turn into maybe even a small direct dairy product of ours in the future. So anyway, those were the three things I really wanted to mention about the hcb they've been just a wonderful partner for us. All throughout all the years, especially this last year we're really excited to partner that with them in a few different ways. If there's any questions I'm happy to take them. Yes, Clara. What I'd like to do is maybe run through the witnesses and hold our questions till the end. We have until 10, and I want to make sure everyone gets a good chance to testify here. Is that okay with everyone. Yeah, good idea. Thanks. Thanks Bobby. Next up we have Don Stevens. And don, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself. Thank you. Can you hear me all right. Yeah, I am. I am Don Stevens I'm chief of the no hegan band of the kusak abanaki nation. We are a place based people were one of the largest tribes in the state. I think many of you are pretty familiar with me have seen me around and testified on a few different bills. I'm going to approach this in a in a different way. You know I'm here really to support the funding of the Vermont housing and conservation board, and any means necessary and also the Vermont land trust. You know, land access and ownership or stewardship I'd like to say was never really an issue with us before Europeans came. I mean we had access to all the lands in Vermont and we also manage them and we're stewards of them and, and it provided natural food sources for us. You know, and as those as those lands were removed from our stewardship. We, we didn't have those securities. When I say securities I'm talking about food security. I'm talking about resource security, and now in these modern days financial security. And as Clara had mentioned, many of the lands and especially farms are generational. They're, they're a wealth, they're wealth to the people who acquired them. And when we were removed from the lands people had mass they took mass amounts of land, and then broke it up and then remove and then handed those things down in their families and also generational farms so they they already had the equity that we had previously. And what the reason I'm saying all this is because I want you to think about something. When we went to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board in 2012 to prove a concept that a tribe could only and just like a town could own a town wanted to prove that concept. And that was the, and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board gave us $112,000, which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of budgets wise but it meant the world to us, because that was the first piece of property that was actually deeded to a Abanaki tribe and over 200 years. Think about that. That was the first land and over 200 years that we actually got back to be able to use but it was, it wasn't the ideal piece of property. It was a proving ground because it's in the middle of a forest. It's like a half mile in to get a quarter mile in to get in there and our, and our handicapped people have a hard time getting in and, and it's got to go through a bunch of other properties just to get to our land right. So, that was approved. That was a proving ground that we could actually have a piece of property that no one could remove us from that no one could remove us from. The bad thing is it's been nine years since since we have actually been ever been able to acquire another piece of property and this uplifted entire community. Think about I have over 1500 Abanaki citizens that could come to this land smell it. The soil know that their ancestors walked on this and nobody could throw us off from that land ever again. Just just the thought of that alone was uplifting to an entire community. But we've had trouble getting access to other lands like owning land or stewarding land. And I think by giving the Vermont Housing Conservation Board flexibility to be able to prioritize Abanaki and other disadvantaged people might give us some of that security back. And, and in the interim, because we've had difficulty because we're not funded, we don't have any, you know, industries that we can rely on we rely on the generosity of people. So if you if you what what I tried to do was then get access to land because if we can't own it we still need it to be able to gather, you know, native natural foods and medicines and and artistry things and and I if you went to our website You'll see all of the permits and licenses and land access that I worked with people to actually at least be able to continue to gather natural foods, but that's still those are, you can still be thrown off the land, the licenses can be canceled the permits could not be renewed. So with that security. And if you go to our land link project under aha and more be especially during this coven I've worked with three colleges, 15 farmers to help grow our food because we don't have land to grow it So it's providing food security but not food sovereignty. Right. So, so with that security, I'm relying on the generosity of other farmers who have this generational land that is willing to grow a little extra food so that way our people can Because we don't have our own land, we don't have our own property and and and I, I moved from from that vegetable type growing, which was over we did over 700 pounds of squash 100 pounds of beans, and we're feeding our people we got three food shelves that we're we're contributing to. And I'm moving it to bison and beef. I have, I acquired to her to bison for our Norwegian people 26 head but guess what we have no land to put it on. I'm relying on two farmers that are not indigenous to house these for us. So I'm, I'm, I, it's almost like you're, you're waiting in line for charity when we can't own our own land. And the sad thing is there's no full time avanaki people to work on land access, work on land security, work on food security. I'm hoping that the Vermont Housing Conservation Board, who might have the authority to create a position for maybe an avanaki person to be able to try to to get these lands or to manage these lands or to be able to work with other people to build industries like biochar and other types of things. But we, we don't have any, any full time positions to work on things. And Catherine Sims from our district up in Orleans put in a bill h dot 232, which is in the Housing Committee on General the Committee on General Housing and Military Affairs who has about 29 or 30 sponsors are trying to change the priority of my housing conservation board to be able to to have that flexibility to be able to prioritize the funds they already received to help build up indigenous people and people that are disadvantaged to give them that equity or that that that is helping hand up, right, because that's what we need. We don't have the, if we don't have that generational wealth, then it takes a lot, you try starting a farm from scratch and see how much that costs you right, we don't have that generational wealth, so we have to start somewhere. And I think that you have the power to be able to help us do that. Other lessons that we could learn. Yeah, I think we need to find places where our citizens can access easier. So we need to acquire lands we need to continue to work with farmers and businesses to access land. Because if you think about 1500 citizens living around Vermont, have to travel the Barton to try to get together on our own piece of property that's it's two and a half hours for me, just to get to our own land. So, I'm not, you know, I don't want to spend a lot of time but when when I say this stuff means something to me, you have the power to help uplift an entire class of people. I mean, it's not just an individuals right, but, but, but being able to say look we're making a difference an entire native population who had land but don't have it anymore but maybe get a little piece back. I mean that's a huge deal. I mean, for us. And I appreciate anything you can do to promote that and actually provide assistance to be a resource for not only the legislators but also with working on land we have no full time to do native things. And we're always behind other minority populations who have these big nonprofits national that could help support those positions. So maybe be you know Vermont Housing Conservation Board could also help in those areas to allow us to be those to work on those resources. So I'm going to leave it there and I'll wait and and until the end and we can, if you have questions. Thank you for your time and listening to me. Thank you. Thank you Don we really appreciate you being here with us and to offer a different perspective I think it's really good to hear. So our next witness is Katie Rose Leonard Katie, you would you like to introduce yourself. Yes, thank you so much can everyone hear me okay. Thank you for the introduction and the committee for being here today to hear my story. My name is Katie Rose Leonard and I am the young farmer who will be purchasing the conserved snow farm with my fiance Brian Seward, and this is on track to happen in just about one month's time. And I'm here today to tell you a little bit about my background and how I got here and why the conservation project and the fund, the funding we were afforded through the htb is is really important to me. I started farming seven years ago through an apprenticeship program in New York on the east end of Long Island and by July of that first season I knew that this was what I was meant to be doing, and that in order to do it sustainably and long term I really needed to be doing it on my own and for myself and the way that I wanted to do it so since that first year, Brian and I have been looking for the perfect place to start a business together, and he grew up in South Newton so we had family ties to Vermont. But really, one of the biggest reasons why I think we ended up relocating was because of the support from the ag community and the incredible resources that are available to young farmers like myself who are interested in starting their own businesses. We visited Vermont so many times prior to actually moving to look at a number of different properties that the land trust had up for RFP. And when we finally moved three years ago, we've looked at countless properties since then. And we were introduced to John and Carol Snow through our networking over the years during our hunt and their property really checked a lot of our boxes of all the places we've seen it's really the only place that felt like the right the right fit for me and my business. We stayed in touch with them over the years while they went through a subdivision of their land and sorted out some additional estate planning. And we've discussed various lease arrangements in hopes that someday maybe we would, we would be able to pursue ownership and have a bit more security, but really, it's uneasy to think about investing in a place and building soil house soil health on land that may never be ours. So when John and Carol decided that they were willing to or wanted to pursue conservation in the fall of 2019 it really changed things for for me and gave me the confidence to pursue my dream and get started on starting my business. And since then, it's been about almost a year and a half. We have a short term lease in place while we're working through the conservation process and just on a couple of acres, and I have an acre ready to go this year it'll be my first growing season. And BHCB funding has been the key to making this project a reality. It's not something the town of Charlotte would have been able to do alone. It's a piece of land that they have really been interested in conserving for quite some time. And without conservation it's not something that Brian and myself would have been able to afford. And I want to speak to some of the attributes that really make this such a great conservation project. I'm a vegetable grower so quality soil is number one priority for me and the snow farm has 10 acres of prime sandy loam it's truly some of the most beautiful soil I've ever seen since farming in Vermont and the best of the best for growing vegetables. The remaining soil on the land has statewide classification and there's plenty of extra room for us to grow and diversify over time. A good retail location was another priority for me as this was a cornerstone of my business plan and there's an old shop right on route seven that I've been renovating this winter, and it'll be my future farm stand. It's a great space there's plenty of room to house cold storage and wash pack, and hopefully a small commercial kitchen someday, so that I can produce value added products and extend my season and profitability. And then, beyond what the property means for me and all the great things it has for for my business. The parcel really has a larger importance for the Vermont community at large. It's a prominent piece in the mount by by low view shed, which is Vermont's most visited state park. Conservation will have a lasting impact on protecting that view shed and Charlotte's working landscape, and it'll continue to provide joy for our neighbors and fellow Vermonters and and visitors of the state for for years to come. I think that this project is a really great example of conservation working at its best it's serving john and Carol and their plans for their land it's serving me and young farmers and down the road for accessibility and it's serving the greater Vermont community. And I would encourage all of you to support the budget increase for VHCB, not just because of the great things it does for conservation work in the state. But also, because affordable housing is more important than ever for the ag community and farm workers, especially in light of coven 19 and what the direction of the mark the direction the market is headed. And farm labor housing is a big concern for me, especially as my business grows and expands which I fully expect that it will. And it's really important that protecting farms and conserving these places and maintaining affordable housing opportunities go hand in hand. And that's what I wanted to see today thank you so much for letting me share my story. Thank you so much Katie rose we really appreciate your time today. And our next guest is Stephanie Pope from your point acres Stephanie go right ahead. Hi, can everybody hear me okay. Yes. I was definitely open I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to visit with us all today. I'm a third generation dairy farmer on the shores of Lake Champlain and Madison County. Our farm was settled in 1968 and we are currently a medium farm operation, and we own and went about 2000 acres right around Brideport. In the early 2000s, my father sold the development rights on our home farm. My parents really believed in keeping the land in agriculture for generations to come and they believe in the mission of Vermont land trust. I remember my dad joking with us that he didn't want us to sell the farm and make a golf course. He would haunt us for the rest of his life so he took it out of our hands and sold the development rights. For years we have grown and we've purchased neighboring farms that and kept them in agriculture and recently in 2018. My brother and my husband and I joined my parents in a partnership, and we purchased 350 acres and conserve the land, and we would not have been able to do that without the help of Vermont land trust. We did keep it in agriculture and as Clara said, we have batched trails and community people come and enjoy the land and go hiking. In the other fire, definitely it would have been a lot different if Vermont land trust had not assisted us in purchasing that piece of property. I remember if it was 2019 or 2019 or 2020 now we applied and received a water quality grant through VHCB. We also purchased a manure injection system and it's a drag line and it will be used on thousands of acres. Clara already touched on the benefits of the drag line and injection system so I won't go into a great deal about that. But I will go into great detail about is this was a $250,000 purchase and that does not include the three tractors that we need to run it. And the custom applicators in our area, there's one custom applicator that has a system, but he can't service all the farmers that would like to use it. So without programs like the state program, the VHCB water quality grants, I don't think these pieces of equipment are attainable to purchase at, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially in today's economy. Also, they help us purchase it to through lending so they're a great partner as well. And then the most recent VHCB exposure we've had, we also partner with Rose through the farm viability program in 2020. In the beginning of 2020, everything looked good, the markets looked good in the first time in I think seven years, we were looking forward to 2020 and what it would bring to our family's business. And, you know, March and April hit and everything went out the window. I don't remember how we got partnered with Rose exactly, but she was, I want to say she was a life saver, a farm saver, not a life saver farm saver. I have never met Rose, but I feel like I am friends with Rose. We helped us and we have developed an extensive cash flow budget that we use in any decision, any big purchase, anything that we, you know, we need and I think that that was a turning point for, you know, the future of our farm and the farm viability. I cannot say enough good about these programs through VHCB and not just for the farming community, but for, you know, the whole state of Vermont and I think that they're really helping keep Vermont's landscape, you know, as agriculture and there's a nice balance with VHCB. And I really encourage any support we can give them to pursue their, their works with all of us. Great. Thank you, Stephanie. And we have our final witness Barrett Grimm, and then hopefully we'll have some time for questions and answers. Go ahead, Barrett. Good evening. I am Barrett Grimm. I'm co-chair of the Huntington Conservation Commission, and I am here to tell the story of our proposed community forest. In 2018, the Vermont Urban and Community Forest Program selected Huntington as one of 10 communities to participate in an action-based recreation plan program. And one of the two of the biggest things we took out of that were that outdoor recreation and education are very important to the health and welfare of our community, and that we needed the place to do it in. We have a town forest that was gifted to the town in 1984, but it's landlocked and a couple of steep miles from the closest road, so it is accessible to very few. Working with some partners, including especially the landowner and the trust for public land and VHCB, we have been able to nearly acquire a parcel that is smack dab in the center of town. We have a parcel road from our main town complex, which includes town offices, fire station, town garage, and our recreation fields. And it is also adjacent to our school, which is an incredible boon for us because their outdoor classroom at the Brewster Pierce Memorial School was already a vibrant and pretty well known program. But they are, I had the opportunity to walk the property with the school principal and her excitement about being able to expand the program was palpable, transformative was the word she used. And during this COVID period, they have taken as much of the class outside as they can, including during snowstorms and things like that. So the kids are outside learning and being safe at the same time. And this property is also not only accessible in terms of parking and actually getting to it, but it has a whole variety of different low angle trails and upper elevation. And I have some stats for you. It's 245 acres in the center of Huntington, including 2.8 acres along the Huntington River that are being donated by a business that purchase part of the parcel and then donated back to 2.8 acres. And that is going to allow them to more than triple their business is their plan over the next few years. 67 acres of significant wetlands, 500 feet of direct frontage on the Huntington River, 20 acres of repairing in areas and four and a half miles of headwater streams. And this is all directly flowing into the Winooski River and the Champlain Basin so great protection for our clean waters coming from that. But it's also accessible to everyone in town. One of my fellow commission members. I won't give her age but she gets around by a couple of walking poles whenever she goes anywhere and she has been exploring the property. And we have three year olds and preschool who are out there using the property and everybody in between. We are also very pleased that we are the first municipality who has been able to take advantage of the state clean water revolving loan fund, which been a couple bumps, learning how to do this but now there is a good model for the next time somebody wishes to do that. And this is the third time I've testified this week. And the biggest takeaway for me from all of the stories that I've heard was that we talk about housing and conservation, but really VHCB is investing in people. And in our case, we're leveraging $72,000 to receive from VHCB for this project 14 to one. So the dollars that they put out there go much further than just that initial investment. And in our case, we were going to ask for more money from VHCB but working with them and they changed their priorities for 2020 to put more money into affordable housing, which is I would certainly agree with that prioritization. So they have shown themselves to be good stewards of the funds they received and if they are given flexibility, I think that's an appropriate thing. I think I'm done at this point. Barrett, thank you so much. And we really appreciate the presentations that all of you have given. I think the main messages that you would like us to support and we're going to be having that conversation we have to get our letter of recommendation into our appropriations committee by the end of business today. And so what I'm hearing is that you want support for the, what the, the governor has recommended, and that you would like flexibility. Is that what I'm hearing. Yes, yes. And, and so I'm wondering committee, if you have any questions, either committee. I'm looking for either waving hands or my committee uses the little yellow hands. Bobby, you are muted. I'll pipe in while everybody's getting geared up. Good. All the, the presenters were very good this morning. And, you know, from community forest, large farms to small farms. And, and of course, that's what we're, we're promoting the good of the whole. We, you know, we've been doing this for quite a while in the legislature and it's great to hear the cross sections of folks and projects that BHC be in the Vermont land trust is a big player and in all these projects in most cases. Getting back to Claire's presentation, the manure injector type system that they're using on their big farms. I see, I believe Claire that on some farms if the land is close together, you can use a drag line but in your case. You had to use the larger machinery to move that over the road is that why you went with the manure spreader injector on your farm. So that's right. So Stephanie talked about they've got a drag line system, which probably does have a lot more benefits over even what we're doing. We have tried doing some drag line. But as Stephanie mentioned, it's really challenging because the custom applicators get booked up with too many farms as it is. And in our case, because our land is so spread out, we just don't have clusters of land that would support a drag line system. So by purchasing a spreader with injectors, we still get the benefit of injecting, but we can bring it over more of our land than than just the stuff that's can take us because we don't have much can take us land. And the other thing you did mention a little bit about switching your small farm from milk dairy cows to meat pork and in other meat products. Are you are you experiencing any problems getting that those animals slaughtered and and produced and you know processed into me. Yeah, I know that's something you guys are all working on and we appreciate that. That's been one of the huge the biggest challenges honestly and starting that sort of business. Because we've got market for it and we've got the animals for it we can raise them is just getting in those one the correct slaughter dates that align with when your animals really should be processed and and when there's a market for them, but also just the volume. That's been pretty restricting. Yeah. And the last thing I believe you said that is that 25% of the land that you own, or 25% of the, the land that you use for farming is belongs to the farm but the rest has to be rented or least or if I got that backwards. You know, you've got that right. And the 25% is kind of a rough estimate, but it's pretty accurate. Yeah, so we, we don't own a large portion of our land we we rent a lot of it. Is that, is that land accessible to you to purchase or be it's very important to kind of get this ag land preserved. So for future generations and is that land that you rent for sale or is it an unaffordable or is it just that it's not for sale. Those are good questions. It's a combination so so a lot of it isn't necessarily for sale on some of it is and we can't afford to pay for it. And it's been like I mentioned through partnerships like the land trust and BHC be that's allowed us to purchase some stuff like that in the past. But you know looking at where we are today and how many years we've had of moderate to low prices. It's kind of in a spot where we got to, you know, stay where we are and reduce debt and figure out how to be more efficient and lower our costs and as much as we would love to reduce the risk of losing land by owning more. It just doesn't always make sense. We can lots of times rent land for less than the cost of ownership. And, you know, the sad part of that is we're finding that, you know, throughout the state. That's why BHC be in the Vermont land trust is so important to, you know, to try to put these deals together to support our ag producers and to own adequate amounts of land to be able to continue to farm, you know, in different generations. Are there other questions from Bobby, I see Don Stevens has his hand up. I don't see any hands from the committee but Don would like to say something short you're muted Don. Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to add one thing Carolyn to your list because you asked about funding flexibility. I also want to add priority, if possible, because I, I'm glad that everybody's being helped by BHCB, but it also listening to this testimony made me really a little bit sad and jealous, because when you're talking about everybody's talking about 200 acres land been gifted to them and even thousands of acres. Our entire nation has 65 acres and about a quarter of a mile into the woods that's not accessible and it's tribal forest land. That really, really displays the inequity of our entire nation having 65 acres, and everybody else is talking about hundreds if not thousands of acres. So I think prioritization of trying to help us would be very, very huge to prevent the inequities. I also wanted to mention, Senator Starr, that we also, I also have a citizen in the Northeast Kingdom, who won an agricultural grant startup, who's creating biochar in the state of Vermont, Green State biochar is done by Roger and Donna Pion. They're citizens of ours. Yeah, they're down in Barton, I believe. These are the kind of programs that could really help not only farmers keep the phosphorus in the soil but also help with the cleanup of Lake Champlain. So anything people can do to support those kind of things not only help minority people but also will help the state of Vermont in their goals. I just want to at least mention that our people are actively trying to help, you know, preserve the, the environment, and trying to find ways to be good stewards. But I just wanted to at least mention prioritization if that's a possibility to. Anyway, anyway, I'll leave it there. I wrote it down, Don. It's on the list. Thank you. And John O'Brien has his hand up. Go ahead, John. Thank you, Carolyn. Don, just what you were mentioning made me think of a question for Abby, Abby. Have you conserved any land with with an easement similar to agriculture but say just for tribal use. We gave up their their fair market value for say tribal use for 1000 acres for in perpetuity or 99 years or something like that. Is that something you've explored? Not that specifically in the case of the tribal forest that Chief Don mentioned earlier. Yes, there are some some elements in that easement. So a large portion of the land that is conserved with the Vermont Land Trust has generalized public access. And so that's that's the way we've approached it to date. And, and Don, you're going to need land. I would presume for your bison, you know, 26 bison. It's going to take quite a bit of land to, you know, grow hay on for the winter cold months as well as in the summer for grazing. That is correct. And we're also being given hay by another farmer who is not indigenous. But in a bigger realm, just to let you know, I've been in talks with Yellowstone. They want to diversify their bison herd because if the bison gets sick and Yellowstone, they all die. And they're in their purebred. So they look at moving bison around the state, around the country to help diversify and then give access for food security and also spirituality for tribes. So if we have land, we could move a bunch of bison also free of charge from from Yellowstone to Vermont in the tribal name to be able to use to roam and to feed the people and to also create a genetically And the National Bison Association would even help move them and keep them because they have a vested interest on that. So, but, but they're not for commercial per se use because most commercial bison are crossbred with cattle. So these are genetically pure bison but anyway, we could always talk about that another time but there are very there's a lot of opportunities for us we just don't have the way or the means to support it. Thanks Don, I would also, knowing several people who have actually raised bison I would also say under the Yellowstone is one thing but under these circumstances you're going to need some really good fencing. Yeah, we're aware that we're working with the USDA on trying to upgrade the farm that we're working with to upgrade the fencing. Like I said, we're, we have a lot of things in the fire but we do it on a volunteer basis because nobody has full time positions to work on it so we rely on a lot of partners to help us. So anyway, anything you can do to help those things would be a positive thing. And since we have you here and we might have quite an audience why don't you say your, your website again. Our website is www.AvanakiTribe.org. You will see all the land accesses that I've negotiated with the Green Mountain Forest, the colleges, different hydroelectric companies under partnerships. And if you go to the, the tab more and go to Avanaki help and Avanaki that's our 501c3 nonprofit, you'll see the Avanaki land link project which is food security and food, trying to grow all kinds of cross working with NOFA Vermont and three colleges and that's been hugely successful to help feed our people during this time. So anyway, we're, we have a lot of things but it's all through volunteer and all through no resources. We're doing pretty good for not having anything, but you know, it'd be nice to have some resources at some point. Thank you. Thanks Don. I don't see any other hands. I'm wondering if anyone has maybe one last question or comment. Brian's hand is up again, John go ahead. I mean anybody else has a question please go ahead but I had a question for Barrett and just if Barrett you could describe a bit more how how Huntington secured that clean water revolving fund grant because we when I think of all the representatives and senators here we probably represent 100 towns or more in Vermont and that it might be a great tip that that we could access a grant like that. Yeah, it's only recently become available, as you may know, and we knew about it from working with our partner, the trust Republic land, who pretty much handled the legwork on getting us into that to access those funds we did need to pass a bond, which we did at town meeting 2020. One of the last things we did before everything shut down. So it shows something the level of support we passed that bond 737 to 88. And as part of that, we agreed that we would pay back up to $80,000. Over five years, but because of those 67 acres of significant wetlands and all the other water features. We didn't, we won't have to pay back anything. So the program is, you apply for a certain amount of money. And a value is placed on the water features of the property, which reduces the amount that you would have to pay back. So they don't call it a grant but it's an instantly forgiven loan. So the water features of the property were more than we had suspected going in so we are greatly benefiting from not having to pay anything back because, as you undoubtedly know municipal budgets are pretty tight these days. Does that answer your question pretty well. Thank you. All right. We are just we are out of time it's 10 o'clock. I want to thank everybody for joining us and taking time out of your busy schedules to to come in and relate your stories to us. And we appreciate your time Bobby is there something you would like to add. Just another thank you from the senators that, you know, it's really great hearing these stories and and really hearing it from people that we've actually helped by funding VHCB and, and all the wonderful programs that they, they have and most all the VHCB was started many years ago in the in the ag committees, the firm viability program that they run was started in the ag committees and you know we we've been strong supporters for you folks and, and many other homeowners that have participated in, and you know we we constantly hear good stories about their work and, and I think there's a lot of respect for VHCB and in the legislature and certainly as a member, as well as a member of the appropriations committee. You know I'll be working hard on behalf of VHCB to make sure the funding is is stay stable and strong and, and hopefully by all working together will achieve that so thanks for being with us this morning, certainly appreciate your time. And I want to thank you as well you've all been such strong champions and supporters of this work so we really appreciate the time. Thank you all and I'm going to ask that the House members stay on this because we're going to be taking some testimony about our recommendations, but we are going to go off YouTube and reset that.