 Well, I'm delighted to be here. 35 years of work here at the Interveil. I've been visiting the Interveil for 35 years. A couple of times I came here and did a little gleaning, but it's just very exciting to me to see the progress that's been made in the benefits of the Interveil for our organic food movement for new Americans who are farming here, for the research that's done here for the tree saplings, what do you call it? Conservation nursery. Conservation nursery, but those saplings? The Redoes or Dogwoods. Hundreds of thousands of trees are being started here and then sent around Vermont to help us with climate change, help us with repair and repair. It's really an astonishing gift to Vermont. So I want to thank all who've been involved in the Interveil, all the partners here. We appreciate the opportunity to welcome you all to see it. We're here to talk about organic agriculture. In just one point that we have to remind ourselves of, it started here. That's a fair statement. We had Senator Lady, who was the chair then of the Agriculture Committee, and he introduced the first organic act, and that was in 1990. And since then, there's been a continuing, a growing appreciation of the importance of organic agriculture. What it does to keep the land in production, how it is so wonderful with prospective carbon reductions, how the practices of organic agriculture are less energy intensive, and much not reliant on pesticides and herbicides. And oh, by the way, pretty nutritious and tasty. And more and more folks have come to appreciate that there's a growing market. So the good work of the organic farming community, coupled with an increase in awareness appreciation and growing demand in the consumer, the consumers has resulted in just this enormous burgeoning of growth in organic. I'm on the Agriculture Committee now, and the chair of the Subcommittee on Rural Development. And a big priority for me in the Agriculture Committee is to continue the progress that Senator Leahy started on organic agriculture and make that stronger, better, and more part of our nutritious economy. By the way, nutrition is food and nutrition is health. Eating good things is really one of the best things we can do to preserve and maintain good health. So I'm here to announce that we are now having to use the opportunities for organic act. And that is about addressing the challenges that organic agriculture is experiencing right now. Among other things, the barriers to entry are tough. If you're a farmer doing work conventional and you want to go to organic, there are expenses associated with making that transition. We want to increase the funding that's available to young farmers, or any farmers for that matter, who'd like to make that transition to organic. Second, we want to increase the technical support, which has been absolutely critical. And Vermont has played a big role in this. When a farmer is spending her time, his time, with hands in the dirt, trying to figure out how to get the crops planted, how to get them to grow, they also need a business plan. And that's not their job. They've got to make it happen. But that technical assistance is really something that makes a make or break kind of difference for our young farmers who have so much on their mind. But getting that technical assistance, especially on a one-on-one basis, at the time they need it easily, that's really, really, really critical. The third thing that's so important, the markets. How do you get the product to market? And that's not something that just an individual farmer can do. It really takes some coordination and again some supplemental assistance that is part of what our act would do. So getting that money to help with the transition, getting the technical assistance in growing the market, these are the three core components of our legislation. We have a number of co-sponsors. I know that our Chair on the Agriculture Committee is very, very supportive, Senator Stabenow. And I'm just very excited about having the opportunity to work with you, the organic farmers in Vermont, and with my colleagues in the U.S. Senate to continue making this progress that started back in 1990 with that first act that was introduced in PAVS by Patrick Lincoln. So thank you. And I'll stop and now turn it over to Travis of the Interveil Center. Thank you Senator. Thanks Travis. Well, first of all, I want to thank Senator Welch for coming down to the Interveil Center. And also recall a time when the pandemic was just happening and he called me on my cell phone and just checked in. I found that to be a really hopeful sort of moment early on in the pandemic to know that there was somebody really thinking about how we're doing here as a community in Vermont. I also, I wanted to just share that we just had some minutes that we got to sort of tour around the Interveil Center and visit our conservation nursery and talk a little bit about conservation needs and the climate challenges that we face and water quality in Vermont. As well as some of the work we do with our partners at the Association of Africans Living in Vermont and how they really sort of grow a lot of foods for their families and themselves and enhance food security. And then talking about some of the commercial agricultural activities that we have down here in the Interveil. As well as a lot of the work that the Senator was referencing around business development supports that we can provide around the state of Vermont. And I think in relation to this act, I would say the two areas I would underscore from our experiences in Vermont is really on the consumer side, certainly there's a lot of interest in getting foods that are values-based or enhance soil or take care of the planet generally. And so organic certainly does that. And so any ways that we can really enhance the ability for farmers to transition, invest in that direction and then really grow that kind of food for our communities I think there's demand for that and I think it's really important. I think on the farm side, we do a lot of business planning with farms and so it is a lot of figuring out how financially sort of put that picture together to be successful. So any number of supports that can come in that help with transition costs very specifically. So I think doubling the sort of size of that investment going towards farms for those transition costs as well as the support services throughout the transition and maybe throughout the life of that farm. I think having access to business development, soil enhancement, organic transition training generally, because it's really important. And I'll just say that the evidence that we see is that people from around the country are really interested whether at nonprofits or educational institutions in building that kind of one-on-one service. So we get a lot of calls certainly from around the country to invest in that. So I would just underscore a couple of those elements but really open some time up for Grace who's got really more of the technical side sort of coming from our great friends at Milpa, Vermont. Thank you very much. I wrote some words here. Forgive me, reading them from my phone. But I really just want to say as the representative of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, thank you from our farmer members who are close to 800 and our members who are 1,100. This is a really impactful and important program that we are watching and so excited to see being introduced. Thank you. And for continuing the legacy that Senator Leahy had started really investing in organic and seeing the value of organic for our city and our country's future. So we feel like this is an act that the bill is making clear that organic is the future. And it makes it more possible for farmers to access the opportunities that organic farming provides and provide more support for those who are already committed and doing this work that tends our land and our communities so well. Surveys that we've done from young, beginning and aspiring farmers overwhelmingly show that they are using organic practices and that they want to be doing better and more and that there are significant barriers that have stood in the way of them certifying and increasing even better agricultural practices. And this bill will help to put certification within reach by increasing cost share reimbursements by providing opportunities for mentorship and technical assistance and opening up markets that are really going to long term support these farmers. This bill is good for people and additionally transitioning more acres to organic production will make our agricultural system much more ecologically resilient to the impacts of a changing climate. It will protect more pollinators, it will clean water as Travis was mentioning and it will really increase biodiversity and resilience in general on farms. Organic practices we know clean water, they heal soil and they build resilience in this world that really desperately needs that. So working to transition the current agricultural system to an organic one which this bill does is not only better for farmers, it not only means the land is better tended but it also means that our food supply is more secure. As it's more earth connected, it's more likely to keep producing food through the climate shocks that we are seeing and will continue to experience. It will keep our people fed no matter what challenges come. So this bill to me says that ecological and economic success do not have to be at odds and in fact that how we farm is really how we care for each other and our planet. An investment in farming is an investment in a thriving future for everyone. So from all of the organic farmers of Vermont and of our world, we just extend our deepest gratitude and excitement to this bill. Move forward. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. You're doing the hard work. Any questions? I guess I'll ask in terms of getting this bill through, I mean ultimately if this bill is passed, how do you measure the success of the kinds of things that the legislation is calling for for areas like the intervail and other rural parts of the state? Well, two things. One, I think we've got a really good shot at getting this through. You know, there's a Farm Bill this year and the Farm Bill tends to be the most bipartisan legislation in Congress and we've got a good committee that I think wants to help all of agriculture. So the organic component of agriculture is a significant contributing to the overall agricultural economy. So I have some optimism. I'll temper that with what's going on with the debt ceiling because if we collapse on the debt ceiling then it's bad all around for everybody. We'll get through that fairly soon. So I have some optimism about this again. When I started in the Agriculture Committee when I was in the House of Representatives and we passed the Farm Bill it was very hard. There's a lot of competing interest. But there is also a reinforced community where most of the members of the Ag Committee come from areas where farming is really important and it's a different kind of farming say in Vermont than it is in Idaho. But the appreciation of the work that our farmers does is bipartisan and that creates a lot of willingness to work together. So I'm hoping that there's nothing. How do you measure it with any other program? You've got to kick the tires after the program is done and you do an inspection, do an accounting, see where we were, where we are now and try to identify what's working and what isn't. But that's an approach that should apply to this bill and accountability. And I guess to follow up just based on what you saw throughout the walking tour, your conversations with some of the folks down there what were some of your takeaways about the work that is being done right here in New York State? Well, you know, it's tremendous. I've been coming in the interview for 35 years and sometimes it's to be on the tour to see the work that's being done. A lot of times it's been to go jogging or to go skiing in the winter and to see this community resource and the people of the community of all the citizens mostly folks who don't actively farm but who fully appreciate the importance of farming and the importance of keeping this wonderful resource, the inner veil, available to the public and environmentally protected. It's really exciting to me to see it and the work is continuing. Now hopefully it never stops. Well, thank you. This was great. So appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Really good. Yeah, it is.