 Welcome, everyone, to today's webinar. Really appreciate you being here to explore visioning a resilient future, the role of farmland protection in reaching Maine's climate goals. This has been an incredible collaborative effort working alongside Maine Farmland Trust and American Farmland Trust. So I wanna thank them, thank you all for being here. I'm really excited to have the opportunity to moderate and facilitate this discussion alongside Senator Craig Hickman, Commissioner Amanda Beal, Chelsea Gazillo and Shelley McGuire to talk about farmland protection. And so really appreciate you all being here. Just a quick logistic item as this is a webinar. We're gonna use the Q&A function in the chat. So there will be opportunity to ask questions and we'll save them for later and we'll get to as many as we can and we'll try to consolidate them. So when you actually vote, you can actually click like and that will kind of elevate if you agree or wanna kind of highlight that question for us to ask. So we'll do our best. It's gonna be a great discussion and with that, we'll get going. I'm Matt Cannon. He, I live in Portland. I'm the state conservation energy director for Sierra Club, Maine. And as part of Sierra Club, our broader conservation vision is to safeguard and restore nature's invaluable gifts by securing permanent protection for at least 30% of lands and waters by 2030. This is also known as the 30 by 30 campaign if you've heard that. And so through Sierra Club, we believe achieving this ambitious goal to be essential to protecting the biodiversity of our world, minimize the climate change and preserving equitable access to nature for all communities for future generations. So this goal is aligned with the national 30 by 30 goal which you may have heard about in different forms. American Farmland Trust also works on that goal nationally but I just wanna highlight at the beginning those are national goals relating to the national 30 by 30 campaign. This, a lot of this discussion today around state goals is not the same thing. So I just don't wanna conflate the two. We're working on a national campaign that's similar but the state's goals as they relate to 2030 are not affiliated with that. And at Sierra Club, our main focus is actually larger than the 30 by 30. We're kind of looking what would 50 by 50 look like and beyond and how do we envision interacting with each other and the planet for generations to come most equitably. And we're particularly focused on how to engage frontline and BIPOC communities and co-creating our shared future together. So alongside our volunteer team, our national campaign and specifically my colleague, Nailat who I'm gonna shout out, we began listening and conducting a needs assessment with BIPOC communities. And the next phase of our work is public engagement around intersectionalities and how does this broader goal interact with land use and transportation and housing? And so that's what we're focused on as part of this broader public education effort. And so in addition to this webinar, we're excited to host a podcast series called Redefining Conservation, which is coming soon. So stay tuned. And so without further ado, that was just to give you some context. Today we're joined by American Farmland Trust, Maine Farmland Trust, Senator Craig Hickman and Commissioner Amanda Beale to provide a broad-based overview of how Maine's farmland can play a critical role in these efforts. So this includes perspectives on how the state can increase farmland access opportunities to keep Maine's farmland in agriculture. But also we'll critically focus on creating equitable opportunities for Maine's historically marginalized producers. And we'll also try to frame this conversation regionally, looking more closely at the broader New England goal of growing 30% of our food by 2030. So after this webinar, I hope you all will have a better understanding of farmland protection in Maine and the region and how we can start prioritizing it in policy, specifically as Maine looks to its next climate action plan that will be drafted in the coming months. So I'm going to introduce Shelley McGuire first, whose policy and research director at Maine Farmland Trust, she manages their federal state and municipal policy work and oversees the design completion and dissemination of its research work. She brings to her role as policy and research director, a deep commitment to using solid evidence and compelling storytelling to inspire lasting political change. Shelley, take it away. Thank you so much, Matt. So I'm really glad to be here today. Thank you to all the participants who were able to join and thank you to each of my co-presenters. I'm really looking forward to this important conversation. So as Matt said, I'm Shelley McGuire. I work for Maine Farmland Trust for MFT. I see a lot of familiar names in the participant list, but for those who might not be familiar with Maine Farmland Trust, we are a member-powered nonprofit organization that works to protect farmland, support farmers and advance the future of farming in the state. Our goal is to protect Maine farmland and to help farmers and communities throughout the state thrive. I'll be presenting today on why farmland protection matters in Maine and why local food matters and why both are critical as we prepare the state and its residents for the worst impacts of climate change. And as we make meaningful reductions at the same time in reducing our state's carbon footprint, I'll also share some thoughts on how we're doing overall in protecting Maine's agricultural resources and what's needed as we look to the future. So I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen here for me to get set up. All right. And hopefully you all are seeing a beautiful picture now. All right. So jumping right in, I wanna talk a little bit about Maine won't wait. So Maine's climate action plan, Maine won't wait, sets the goal of conserving 30% of Maine's land and waters by 2030. Protecting our working lands, including the state's farmland is really critical to achieving this goal. According to the final report of the land conservation task force, which was completed in 2019, Maine has conserved about 20% of its land for roughly 4.2 million acres. Working farmland makes up a small but critical portion of conserved land. American farmland trusts farms under threat report from around that same time period, just a few years ago, estimates that just over 54,000 acres of Maine's working farmland have been protected to date. Meaning that of Maine's total conserved land, only a super tiny fraction is working farmland. When I did the math out, I got 1.3%. So of all of our conserved land, only 1.3% is working farmland. At MFT, and I think the sentiment is shared by others on the call as well, we would argue that there's a real opportunity to expand working farmland protection and to accelerate progress towards Maine's climate goals. The demand for easements is huge and at far outpaces available resources. So why does protecting farmland matter? And specifically what is the link to climate? Protecting farmland in Maine is essential for ensuring that we have the land base to grow our agricultural economy, particularly as more farmers reach retirement age and development pressures increase across the state. There's a broad range of participants on this call. So I'll just like real quick do a quick explanation of what we need when we say farmland protection and how agricultural easements work. So an agricultural easement is a type of a conservation easement. It's a voluntary legal agreement that is gotten to it between a private party and another and it permanently protects the land by restricting it for either like open space, recreation, wildlife habitat, or in the case of an agricultural conservation easement for agricultural production. So an agricultural easement is written with farm use as the top priority and easement keeps the land in private ownership and available for agriculture by permanently restricting future development. So by permanently altering the deed to prevent, for example, subdivision or to limit construction in less for agricultural use to directly support the farm. Protecting Maine's farmland in this way really guarantees that it can be available for current and future agricultural use. Why this is important is because Maine's farmland is a precious and a limited resource. According to the last U.S. Department of Ag Census of Agriculture report between 2012 and 2017, Maine lost 10% of its farmland. That's over 1,145,000 acres of pasture land, cropland and woodland lost. And the loss of farmland is troubling because farms provide many critical ecological, economic and community benefits to our state. Protecting Maine's farmland is necessary to ensure that we have enough land to grow our agricultural future. And it's also really critical to making sure that those who want to contribute to feeding our communities are able to access the land that they need in order to do so. So that brings me to access. Farmland protection can also be a tool that improves access, but it's only one component of a broader set of strategies. One of the things that we're focusing on at MFT as an institution as we evolve is farmland access. And we want to ensure that a concerted effort is made to include members of the agricultural community who can't afford or don't want to own land or take part in the mortgage system or who have been discriminated against through either property law, ownership systems or other forms of discrimination. And as Maine advances its conservation goals, I really call on decision makers to advance conservation in a way that is inclusive of all those wanting to take part in our food system, whether it be for commercial agriculture or whether it be for subsistence or community-based production, traditional foodways, medicines and more. So if you leave with nothing else today, then let it be sort of a belief in the validity of the statement here that farmland protection is climate action. As a natural resource-based industry, agriculture requires productive land, good soils, good water. We have a lot of these things in Maine. In turn, farmers and the land that they steward provide a variety of environmental and climate benefits in Maine. Maine farms often consist of a mixture of cultivated fields, pasture, woodlands and wetlands. And these lands act collectively as a natural filter for drinking water. They provide important aquifer recharge areas. They help to minimize flooding. They provide habitat for a variety of animals. As I'm listing out these like ecosystem services, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking about the climate change effects that we're already seeing in Maine, one of which is like sort of the periods of drought and then followed by periods of extreme rain and flooding. So think about the way that those ecosystem services and natural benefits from farms also help our broader communities and across our state. Ensuring that farmland states and farming is also a key natural climate solution. So undeveloped agricultural land and farmers use of healthy soils practices like cover cropping, reduced tillage, many practices that are used and popular across the breadth of Maine agriculture help to mitigate the impacts of climate change by sequestering carbon and limiting greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, a 2020 study from the University of Maine found that by increasing the use of climate smart agricultural practices, Maine farms have the potential to sequester enough carbon to offset all of the greenhouse gas emissions that they produce and more, which is very exciting. In recognition of these climate benefits, Maine won't wait. Our current climate action plan establishes the goal of increasing both the amount of Maine produced food that is consumed within the state as well as the total amount of farmland conserved statewide. As many of you probably know, the Maine Climate Council has recently kickstarted the process of developing the state's next climate action plan, the successor framework to Maine won't wait. As part of the next climate action plan, I call on decision makers to set ambitious targets for expanding farmland protection efforts in the state as well as to determine specific investments that are needed in order to make substantial increases to the amount of Maine produced food that is available for consumption locally. So this brings me to how are we doing so far? There's much more farmland in Maine that needs permanent protection so that it can stay as working farmlands. But I do want to emphasize that every agricultural easement matters and we are making progress. A quick story, because I just can't help myself and I believe in the power of storytelling, I want to share the story of how impactful agricultural easements can be. So this picture here is of an MFT staff member on the left, April Costa, and then Judy Loro, a landowner on the right. And this is from my hometown of Hamden. As many of you know, Hamden is just outside of Bangor. It's sort of a bedroom community of Bangor. It's faced a lot of development pressure over the last several decades as Bangor has grown. And it used to include a lot of farmland. The number of dairy farms on my bus route when I was going to school growing up are more than I can count. And now it's a lot of subdivisions. Judy Loro pictured here was very committed to protecting the Patterson farm in Hamden, her family's farm. After her husband passed away, she felt strongly before she sold the land that she fulfilled a longtime dream of her husband and keep the land in farming. Main farmland trust using private resources placed an easement on the farm and Judy was able to sell the farm to her neighbors, the Domina family, who would likely not have been able to access that property without the easement on it. They plan to start a farm on the property. They'll continue to lease part of the land for hay and then they're starting up their own farm business. And they'll be doing both an educational agriculture, sort of like an agritourism mixed with an educational component as well as establishing a market garden. And in the coming years, they aspire to be the first farmers from the city of Hamden that are actually providing food locally grown at the Hamden Farmers Market. So that's something that's just really inspiring to me as I think about why this work matters in towns across the state. That to say, much of the farmland conservation in Maine has been done through the support of private philanthropy like the Patterson Farm story. Farmland Protection efforts through the Land for Mains Future Program and the recently formed Working Farmland Access and Protection Program within the Bureau of Ag Agriculture which Commissioner Beal will talk about in more detail also formerly important pieces of the puzzle. Nearly 10,000 acres of farmland have been protected through the Land for Mains Future Program since its inception in 1987. And it's a really important source of public funding for Mains Forest, farmland and working waterfronts. But I wanna emphasize that in comparison to the rest of the Northeast United States, Maine is really lagging behind in terms of the number of farms protected by conservation easements. And then the acreage of farmland protected. Using GIS analysis, Maine Farmland Trust staff recently estimated that 3.6% of Maine's open farmland has been permanently protected to date. For the sake of comparison, as much as a native manor, I know how much manors hate being compared to other New England states. I will just say that Massachusetts has protected over 21% of its farmland, Connecticut 17% and Vermont 15%. So we are lagging behind and we really call for public investment in farmland protection that reflects our shared values and the value that a lot of manors have when it comes to our farmland. So why are we behind? The reason or one of the reasons that we're lagging behind is just the lack of public investment in farmland protection. As you can see from this chart, there are discrepancies between the state funding that has been spent in Maine. You'll see us at the bottom there in red, 12.5 million, and then the amount of state funding that's been spent in other states in the North Easter on the East Coast. It's clear to me when looking at this data that we need to rapidly expand our farmland protection efforts in the state, especially publicly funded farmland protection efforts. This will help to stave off development pressures and ensure that farmers can continue to access the land that they need for agricultural production. So we're so grateful for the work that is ongoing by the state, by all the organizations that are on this call. And I also call on decision makers to continue to explore solutions that will best work for Maine to think about how to generate robust public revenue for farmland protection and for access efforts that are targeted towards the communities that need access the most and to make sure that we do what we need to do as a state to ensure that we enhance our food security, our equity in access to Maine's natural resources and move towards climate action. So thank you so much, Matt and others. Hopefully I didn't go too far over time. And I'll have the back to you. Thank you. Great, thank you, Shelley. Really appreciate that, especially highlighting those local stories which are so important and even just seeing our investment compared to other states. That was pretty stark contrast. I have not seen that before. And just before I introduce our next speaker, I'd like to just remind folks we do have opportunity to ask questions through the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. You can ask as we move along and we'll do our best to consolidate after all the presentations and there'll be a little time at the end. So our next speaker is Commissioner Amanda Beale who served as commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry since 2019. DACF is charged with promoting and advancing Maine's agricultural resources, protecting and enhancing nearly 18 million acres of forest land, managing more than 700,000 acres of state parks and public lands and administering numerous science-based programs focused on resource management, land use planning and conservation. Commissioner Beale serves as a Maine Climate Council member and co-chairs the Council's Natural and Working Lands Working Group. She also currently serves on the Executive Committee of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture as President of the Northeast Association of State Departments of Agriculture. I think I got that right. Thank you so much, Commissioner Beale, for being here. Take it away. Yes, thank you. Yes, you did get that right. I'm on the Executive Committee for NASDA and I'm serving as the President of the Regional Subcommittee for an organization called NASDA. It's really wonderful to be here today. This is such an important topic and I'm so grateful to be invited to speak with you all and share just some of what's going on at the state level. And as Shelley mentioned, we're operating now from a Maine Climate Action Plan called Maine Won't Wait that we are getting ready to start updating but I just wanna wind it back a little bit and say that I was really excited to come on board with the Governor Mills Administration, particularly as right at the beginning of her first term in office, she put forth the, she really set our state's efforts to build climate resilience as we work toward the goal of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and 80% by 2050 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2045 through a whole suite of strategies. And what that did in 2019 is that kicked off a really robust process with lots of engagement through the Maine Climate Council, through numerous working groups, through numerous subcommittees over months and months and months, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, more like thousands and thousands of hours went into this effort, really bringing a lot of folks with expertise in different areas together to make sure that we had a plan that could really meet this charge. And so I've been serving on the Climate Council since then and as was mentioned before, I've been co-chairing the Natural and Working Lands Group. It's been a great honor and I'm really excited about the progress we've made, but I'm even more excited about the progress that we will make in the coming years. So why this was exciting to me, as you can imagine, climate change impacts everything about our work and everything that our work at DACF touches as a state agency, agriculture, forestry, state parks, public lands and more. And I will never forget the early on in my tenure, I actually went to a park managers meeting and was talking about some of the things that were going to be important to us in the coming years and that I was excited to work on. And I spoke about climate change and one of our park managers raised his hand and said that it was really refreshing to hear me speaking about climate change as an urgent matter because on the ground as someone who really cares about the land resources and what they steward, it's really hard on morale to not have the right tools and resources to deal with the impacts. And that's really stuck with me all these years and it just motivates me to stay really deeply engaged in this work through my role as commissioner. So as was stated, the natural working lands group is a working group of the climate council. And so we were fortunate to have the opportunity to put forth I think some really meaningful recommendations for the first climate action plan. And since then actually I co-chaired a number of different task forces and advisory discussions as we have worked on how we implement the climate action plan and looking for opportunities to further explore the potential for carbon sequestration and storage in forests and our soils and just having a number of other deep dive conversations that really help us to figure out how to implement those goals. So there are two goals that are really important I think to the discussion today and Shelly touched on them but I'm just going to go into a little bit more depth. I'll touch on them now, I'll go into more depth in a little bit but the two goals are conserving 30% of our state's natural working lands. And I just wanted to touch back on what you said Matt. The reason we are not referring to it as 30 by 30 is that I think we came to that number a little bit by coincidence. And then when the initiatives, the 30 by 30 initiative both at the federal level and at the international level started really coming out to the light and we understood that what we had really been talking about probably a limitation of us being the natural and working lands working group did not include ocean or marine spaces. And so that 30% goal is really just a land-based goal. And so we're trying not to confuse folks by calling it that, even though I think in spirit we're all wanting to do really similar things here and maybe as the natural and working lands group reconvenes that's something we can go back and take a look at. But I also, the other goal to look at is the idea that we could be consuming or 30% of the food that we consume here in Maine could be grown here. And that really relates to climate resilience and climate impacts because everybody eats and historically we have imported a large percentage of our food in the last number of decades. And that is something that does not give us the ability to really control our carbon footprint, our emissions footprint. And by thinking about how we can grow more of the food that we consume in our state it gives us an opportunity to work on that and to really be promoting the types of practices that we think are going to be most climate friendly and just really have more of a hand in that. And it presents a number of other opportunities as well. That 30% goal does also track with the New England food vision goal if you're familiar with that. That was a report that came out. Oh, I'm gonna say almost 10 years ago which really dates me because I had the honor of working on that report as a team of writers and researchers back then and it doesn't seem like it's been that long, but anyway. But yeah, so I'll talk about a few other things that we've been doing along the way. As Shelly mentioned, we've really been looking at making some improvements to processes that guide farmland protection for our primary state-funded program Landformans Future. And that program supports conservation of natural and working lands as well. And Shelly's right, since 1987 that program has protected nearly 10,000 acres of farmland but that's not keeping pace with what we know is a result of the development pressure in the farmland that we've been losing. And I will just say as someone who's traveled all over the state of Maine there is development pressure for farmland everywhere. It's not just in and around the urban areas or suburban areas, we are even seeing development pressure and loss of farmland in some of our most rural communities. So this is something that we definitely need to take really seriously and keep working on. And I just will say too, as a shout out to Maine Farmland Trust, the work that that organization is doing is obviously very, very important as well as local land trusts and others who are trying to make sure that farms in their communities are there for community members of the future. So one of the things that we did in terms of improving the process around LMF's farmland protection activities is that we actually formalized, created a more formalized working farmland access and protection program. And so that is really a partnership between our Bureau of Agriculture and LMF and we have recruited a panel of experts who now do sort of the deep dive evaluation into farmland protection projects that are being proposed and then they make a recommendation to the LMF Board for funding. And that seems to be going well, it's still relatively new but it seems to be a good tweaking of that process. And in 2021, our governor actually included a general fund appropriation in her budget to allocate $40 million to the LMF program through the general fund. Historically, funding has come to LMF through bonding and but there was just such strong support for this idea and our legislature, thank you Senator Hickman. No, you've been such a strong supporter of this program, approved that allocation. And I also serve on our state's LMF board and can report that since that allocation was made about 28 and a half million of those funds have been committed or spent on conservation projects and of that about $1.6 million is for farmland protection projects. And so we still have a ways to go there as well but we're really excited to keep working on that front. So just jumping back to the 30% goals for conservation and consumption of main grown foods food in the state of Maine. So I just wanna paint this picture as we talk about protecting 30% of our natural working lands. So our state is largely forested, about 89% forested and there is absolutely a stated desire for all the reasons you can imagine to keep forests as forests. And this includes working for us where we do see the benefits of moving toward more wood based products and having those take the place of other materials that may have a higher emissions profile. So we're very fortunate to be rich in that natural resource in our state. It really does give us some options. Through the pandemic, we all saw the pressure on our recreational lands and really came out the other side understanding that we need to expand options for people to recreate and enjoy the outdoors while we're also providing important intact habitats to support plant and animal species health and biodiversity. And meanwhile, the pandemic only reinforced the need for that 30% food consumption goal as being a state at the end of the transportation line in a number of ways meant some very sobering market disruptions. And so we know now on the other side of that and some of us knew this beforehand and more of us know it now that really to build our own food resilience as a state which includes addressing processing bottlenecks. It also gives us the opportunity to support practices as I said earlier that are climate friendly and to mitigate our own carbon footprint when it comes to the food cycle. And we are also of course seeing an increase in activity with renewable energy development which is also important to meet our overarching goals but also comes with its own land use needs. So I'm personally really passionate and excited about meeting all of these goals but I think it's clear that we're going to have to talk more and more specifically about land use and some of the trade-offs we need to make as we navigate with a more holistic viewpoint. So to that end, I'm excited that we're going to be reconvening or starting to meet a bit more often. We have met over the past few years as the natural working lands working group but we'll be convening again regularly this fall and I think these are the kinds of things that we're going to have to dig into and have those deeper conversations about conservation and food consumption goals which I see as very compatible and this will just be a good venue for us to dig in a little deeper. And so we're just about to launch that work. It will be a public process. People can listen in, come to meetings. We will have opportunities for the public to give their input along the way and just really want to encourage that participation. That is what is going to ensure that we have really good, really relevant updated goals for me and coming out the other side. A couple of things, I think I'm aware of time and I might be going over here. So I think I'm going to skip a couple of things and I can just talk about it if they come up in the Q&A. I did want to just mention that we're also excited alongside our goals that have come out of the climate action process or climate action plan discussions. We're very excited about some of the work that's happening in conjunction throughout New England. The New England Feeding New England Project which is a project of the New England State Food System Planners Partnership recently released a document called a Regional Report to Food System Resilience. And it really digs into how New England as a region might actualize the New England food vision. And so that's exciting. And also they're undertaking a process by which they're trying to really establish a universal, well, with universal methodology, a baseline for each of the New England States as to how much food we are consuming that's produced within our states. There's been this number out there for a long time that's been sort of a catch-all, which is that we consume 10% of the food in our state, we import 90%. But I think that definitely could use a refresh and so very excited that they're taking that on. And then also ongoing and supporting efforts by other regional entities like Food Solutions New England, NISOG, AFT and others really are helping to keep the momentum going on this front. So I think the punchline is, I agree with Shelly completely, we really need to better understand how we can make more progress and faster progress on protecting our farmland. Our best farmland soils are a finite resource. Once they're gone, developed on, I mean, I think you can see the writing on the wall, but anyway, really excited to be here. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you, Commissioner. I really appreciate that. I look forward to the climate council process. Our next speaker is Senator Greg Hickman. Senator Hickman is serving his second term representing Senate District 14, which includes 12 municipalities in the Southern Canobite County. He's the first black lawmaker in Maine history to serve in both the house and the Senate. He is a Harvard graduate and a local business owner running a successful organic farm and a bed and breakfast with his husband. Senator Hickman fights for measures that promote food sovereignty, protect individual rights and civil liberties, combat poverty and hunger and support rural economic development. Senator Hickman's father was a World War II veteran in Tuskegee Airmen. Both of his parents were involved heavily in the civil rights movement, teaching him by example about the importance of public service and community. Currently Senator Hickman serves as the Senate Chair, the Government Oversight Committee and the Senate Chair of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee and also serves as a member of the Agriculture Conservation and Forestry Committee. Take it away, Senator Hickman. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. I literally just lost my screen, pardon me. I wanna say that as an organic farmer here in Central Maine, pardon my voice, I've been recovering or maybe not recovering, battling an upper respiratory infection that has no name but has absolutely sort of wreaked havoc in my ability to be as prepared as I would like to be for today's presentation. It's always good to hear from Commissioner Bill about the work of the Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry. And as an organic farmer here in Central Maine, I can say climate change is real. I've been farming for 15 seasons and this was a season like no other. Unpredictable in every way, strange, quirky between the wind and the rain and the pests and wildlife. We suffered on our small organic farm here on Anabesca Lake and went for about 80% crop loss and even for small scale farms such as mine, that is a tremendous loss of revenue. But more than that, it is a diminishing of the food that we feed our community with. And so I say that a little bit in sorrow, but I'm happy that we are having this discussion about farmland conservation. I wasn't sure what I was exactly going to do. What I am going to do is read a few quotes to bring the people to the conversation that are not always heard. And the quotes that I'm bringing to the conversation are from a very, a first ever report that was directed by the legislature for the permanent commission on the status of racial, indigenous and tribal populations working in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry to come up with a report called Land Access for Indigenous and African American Farmers in May. I think that in our, in the past few years we have certainly looked at a racial reckoning of some kind. We have our first secretary of agriculture who's an indigenous woman. We under President Obama and now under President Biden, we are trying to correct some historical wrongs for black farmers across the country. And this report was, there were a lot of people interviewed for this report. You can find it online actually under the committee materials from the 130th legislature of the Agriculture Conservation and Forestry Committee. It is about 26 pages long. I certainly cannot read the whole thing in my time. But really all I want to do is read some of the quotes that the people gave to the interviewers and then sort of close with a little bit of what we're trying to do in May through the work. One of the things about land access for indigenous and tribal populations and people of color is that it is a recognition, a promotion, a realization if you will of a right to food and of a right to food sovereignty. Some of you may know that Maine was the first state in the nation to do both to pass the Maine Food sovereignty act which is the right of peoples to define their own agricultural food systems as a more as a right of the people and then an individual right in our state constitution for a right to food. These are some of the quotes that have come from this report based on research and interviews. Wabanaki tribes hold roughly 1.0 per six cents of the land in Maine. Whereas real estate investment trusts and timber investment management organizations own roughly 30% of Maine's forested land. Wealthy family owners who are non-corporate entities own roughly the same amount of land as the real estate investment trusts and the timber investment management organizations. Quote, native identified farmers hold just 0.9% of total farmlands in the state of Maine according to a census from the, from NAS, which is the National Agricultural Statistics Service 2017. This is a quote from United States agricultural secretary, Tom Vilsack. The truth is the deck has been stacked against black farmers who for generations have been denied access to land and capital. From Adila Mohammed. The black community today in Maine comes from so many different places. There's no single cultural identity so to speak where we know how to relate to each other where we have formed mutual trust and bonds that are articulated in a way that everyone understands. From Mali on Boswyn. Natives have been forced off a few swaths of traditional land so that white farms could be established by destroying dependable native food sources like planting grounds and salmon runs through river damming, we were starved out of our territories. The National Association of Realtors Research Group states that only 30% of black and African-American manors own homes compared to 73% of white manors. From Olivia Moore. Farming and agriculture have been tools of colonization. Agriculture has been a tool of genocide and occupation of our lands in a very limited way of viewing our food systems. In 2012, the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission issued a letter stating thus, the acts have created structural inequities that have resulted in conditions that have risen to the level of human rights violations. From John Banks. Tribal folks need access to lands and resources to practice culture and traditions. It's what defines us as a tribal people, our relationship to the forest and the animals, our ancestors protected these lands and animals for thousands of years and we need to continue practicing that. Enslavement is incompatible with land ownership. From Maya Williams. There are only 1.7% of black people still in the state of Maine because there aren't enough black people who deem it safe. Not enough has been done. From Dr. Suzanne Greenlaw. A lot of native people say there is no separation between a human being and the landscape that we belong to. We are taught in our culture to see it, to witness it constantly. We see it as it is, a guide that holds instructions on how to live. From Dr. Anthony Sutton. Water quality standards insist on levels that allow for the consumption of 200 grams of fish per day or seven ounces. That's a lot of meals, but people can only eat one to two meals a month looking at the current rates of contamination of the species. They should focus on making the standards a reality. This is under the topic, this is from a, let's see, National Law Center. Quote, these farmers alleged that they were being denied USDA farm loans or forced to wait longer for loan approval than were many non-minority farmers. Many black farmers contended that they were facing foreclosure and financial ruin because the USDA denied them timing loans and debt restructuring. Those are the quotes that are contained in the report. The summary of findings is pretty extensive and then the recommendations, I'll just read the three recommendations that are combined that would apply to both black and African-American and Wabanaki people. They were simply additions of statutory definitions of agriculture and farming that are culturally relevant to black or African-American and Wabanaki peoples. These definitions will facilitate inclusion and relevancy and could be used as guidelines for departmental grant and funding requirements to ensure that grant recipients do not face structural barriers based on monetary experiential or land ownership basis. Two, increasing land access for black or African-American and Wabanaki people, including culturally significant spaces, increase access to preexisting farms, agricultural areas and critical coastal locations, historically the primary source of sustenance for tribal communities, specifically identified by content experts. And three, creation of black or African-American and Wabanaki specific grants and funding opportunities. This could be achieved at the state level through the Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry, which can be modeled off of current programs offered through the USDA. The creation of and funding allocation for set-asides for black, African-American and indigenous farming and food-based projects that will aid in purchasing land, equipment, general operation costs, et cetera. Like I said, I was going to be brief today. I wanna say that what I've been working on along with my colleagues in the department and the legislature for six terms, again is more increased consumption of food in May based upon resilient community-based food systems. Right now in front of the legislature two carryover pieces of legislation that I'll be working with the department to see if we can come to some consensus would be to not only protect farmland but also to ensure that we restore farmland to black people through a black restoration farmer act. And we don't have all the details of that worked out yet, but it could be a part perhaps of a land for man's future infrastructure, we shall see. Another piece of legislation carried over is an act to protect and respect the right to food, which is a mini omnibus bill, it's not very long, but woven throughout it, our places in statute where we currently have land access programs, land lease programs at the department, this department also the department inland fishing to wildlife for where we specifically put in language that basically says that the folks who are looking at these issues may consider giving priority to historically disinvested populations of people as we are discussing here today to make sure that we're lifting everyone up as we move main toward a more sustainable future where we are all fed and we can increase consumption of local foods. Ironically, just earlier today, I was on the New England feeding New England vision call which commissioner Bill spoke of 30 by 30, that is what that is called to see if New England can feed itself more sustainably in the near future, 20, 30 or seven years away. And so we're almost there and we have a lot of work to do to get there. Shelly asked me to finish with a poem about okra. Fortunately, I don't have a poem about okra to share and I'm not gonna read a story about collard greens that I have read a thousand times in the six years because it's too long. But I am in the middle of putting up collard greens galore and we're probably gonna celebrate collard greens here on this land, on this farm in the next few weeks because I can't get to them all. And maybe folks will come and take their own and take what they can and leave a donation or not. I don't waste food. But I was honored to be invited to write an essay about right to food and also to put a recipe in the main community cookbook volume two. And so I put a recipe in for braised collards and I was simply close with the narrative that introduces the recipe because there was a quote in the report that I just read about how we read nature. We read the leaves. We read food. It tells us how to live. And my parents who were both members of the greatest generation did exactly that with how they raised my sister and I. And so this is the narrative at the beginning of my recipe on braised collards. When black people traveled north and west during the great migration, we carried our recipes with us. In the culinary lexicon of folks in this diaspora, your recipe for collard greens, how you cook collards, defines whether or not you can cook at all. Collards are on the menu at church suppers, potlucks, barbecues, picnics and holiday feasts, no matter the season. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Easter, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, July 4th. Collards have their own special place in soul food traditions. Every year, for as long as I can remember, my father grew the greenest, sweetest collards in our backyard garden in Milwaukee. My mother who swore the greens could tell you everything you needed to know about how the world was doing. Would read the broad leaves as she meticulously washed them and then turn the collards into heaven on a plate. Now, collards grow like perennial weeds all over my 25-acre farm here in Winthrop. They overwinter, flower in late spring and self-propagate for harvesting through Christmas with climate change. I read the leaves in the fields. They tell me when to harvest each one of them, usually in the rain, for I let the rainwater wash them thereafter. I swear it makes them cook more tenderly. And I never remove the stems. Collards are higher in fiber, vitamin K, C and A, calcium, folate and rich in antioxidants. Collards are commonly served as a side dish with Southern fried chicken, fish or smoked spare ribs as the main. I love collards so much. I often eat the Madison main course, accompanied by a piece of warm cornbread, slices of fresh summer vegetables and spoons of green tomato chow chow on the side. So I'll end with that prayer for collard greens and food. And thank you so much for allowing me to participate in today's discussion. Thank you so much, Senator Hickman. And I definitely want to hear the poem on Oak Grout sometime we might need a round two. And I did put in the chat just for folks, the land access for indigenous and African-American farmers in Maine report. So please check that out. And I'd like to introduce our last speaker here and then we'll get into some Q and A. So feel free to keep putting questions in the Q and A function and we'll get to as many as we can. Chelsea Gazillo is American Farmland Trust New England Policy Manager and Director of their working lands, oh, and Director of the Working Lands Alliance in Connecticut. In these roles, she is responsible for conducting research, providing education to stakeholders, policy development and analysis and outreach. She also works in collaboration with other policy leaders and farmers in the region to develop and advance policies that will promote farmland protection and access. Further, the implementation of climate smart agricultural practices and ensure farmers have the resources they need to remain economically viable. In this work, she is committed to uplifting and centering voices of historically marginalized communities in the creation, development and advancement of resilient agricultural policies. Take it away, Chelsea. Thank you, Matt. Right, I'm gonna try to figure out how to share my screen here. Well, that was great. You are all wonderful presenters and I feel a little intimidated to bring us home, but I'm gonna do my best here. So, as Matt mentioned, my name is Chelsea Gazillo and I'm the New England Policy Manager for American Farmland Trust. For those of you who are not familiar with American Farmland Trust, we are a national organization that works from farmer's kitchen tables to the halls of Congress to advance farmland protection, promote sound farming practices and keep farmers on the land. As my fellow panelists have mentioned, Maine's farmland plays a vital role in the state's goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And for the state's farmland to be an essential component of these climate efforts, advancing farmland protection and access will be critical. We know that well-managed farmland has more potential to sequester greenhouse gas emissions than farmland converted to non-farm uses. As American Farmland Trust mentioned in our Farms Under Threat 2040 report, choosing an abundant future, farmland protection, compact development and smart growth are key climate change adaptation strategies. So I've been asked to present on how Maine compares to other New England states in terms of farmland protection and what federal programs are currently available to support these efforts. I wanna highlight some of the conservation sectors, farmland or farm bill recommendations to increase farmland protection efforts throughout the country and including Maine. All right, so I wanna start by thanking Shelly for grounding us and providing a broad overview as to how farmland protection and access are connected to climate action in Maine. I would also like to thank the commissioner and Senator Hickman for also grounding us in this, grounding us for this webinar. Maine's farmland base is essential to our region's economy and food security according to AFT's 2020 Farms Under Threat and New England perspective. Between 2001 to 2016, over 105,000 acres of agricultural land were lost or threatened by development pressures. And at the same time, since the region's purchase of agricultural conservation or PACE programs have invested nearly a half million dollars in farmland protection efforts. As other speakers have mentioned, Maine alone has invested 12.5 million since 1987. In comparison, Massachusetts has invested over 245 million and New Hampshire has invested over 20 million in state efforts to protect farmland. Many of the states, many of the region's PACE programs were established over 40 years ago. And if you ask Massachusetts and Connecticut, they're at war as to which one started first. I actually took a land use planning class with a professor at UMass and he claims that Massachusetts PACE program was the first, but I believe it is Connecticut, but I did get that question wrong on one of the exams he gave. So several New England states have, because of the several New England states have configured new ways to advance farmland protection efforts. Three New England states that Shelley mentioned earlier, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut have developed steady funding sources for farmland protection. These are a conveyance fee tax dedicated to funding farmland protection efforts. I'm gonna highlight one here. So Connecticut's Community Investment Act, passed in 2005, created a $50 fee placed on every real estate transaction that is subsequently split through a pre-calculated formula between affordable housing, open space preservation, historic preservation, sustainable funding for the dairy sector and farmland protection. This generates nearly 5 million annually in Connecticut's farmland protection efforts. Recognizing that partners have a role in accelerating and supporting New Hampshire's efforts to preserve farmland, the New Hampshire Department of Ag worked with New Hampshire Food System Alliance and other advocates during the 2023 legislative session to update the agency's agricultural land preservation or ALP program statute to allow land trusts, nonprofits and other entities to support the agency by conducting stewardship and monitoring of easements. Massachusetts recently acknowledged that while the state has protected a lot of farmland since the program, since the agricultural preservation restriction program inception, a strategic plan that intends to address the farmland needs and goals of the Commonwealth will be imperative to improving farmland protection and access efforts. The plan is yet to be released but should be out soon. Lastly, one tool that was developed and tested here in Maine known as BiProtect Cell, where an entity will buy land, work with partners to protect it and then sell it at a discounted rate to a farmer is being used by states like Rhode Island to increase the affordable farmland opportunities for farmers while simultaneously protecting farmland from development. Outside the region, states like Washington have set up a state bioprotect cell financing program called the Farm Protection and Affordability Investment Revolving Loan Program. So of course, a key component of farmland protection as many have mentioned is ensuring that the farmland we protect remains in agricultural production and continues contributing to our rural economies and regions food security efforts. New England has some of the most expensive farmland in the country. States are looking at how to pair farmland protection efforts with farmland access tools. A widely used tool is the option to purchase at agricultural value, also known as OPAP. OPAP puts an additional legal restriction on a farm property protected with an agricultural easement that says it must stay in agricultural production. When the land is sold, it must be sold to a qualified farmer to a family member. Maine Farmland Trust is currently using this tool and DACF holds one OPAP. Both Massachusetts and Vermont are also implementing the OPAP tool. Outside the region, Delaware's Young Farmer Loan Program offers a 30-year no-interest loan to help young farmers purchase farmland. One of the obstacles, one of the main obstacles to starting out in the business. The loan is for up to 70% of their praise value of the farm's development rights, not exceeding a half million dollars. Farms in the program are placed, are then placed into a permanent preservation easement. Lastly, and I'm really glad that Senator Hickman and Shelley mentioned this, looking at alternative opportunities for farmers will be critical, alternative land opportunities for farmers. Only some farmers wanna own farmland. State leasing programs like Massachusetts and Connecticut, alternative easement arrangements like cultural respect easements will be essential as states continue to increase farmland protection efforts. So states are looking at how to improve PACE programs to make them more accessible to historically marginalized producers and small farms. In addition to the report that Senator Hickman mentioned earlier, I wanna highlight two efforts that are happening in the region, one from Connecticut and one from Vermont. The Connecticut Department of Agriculture recently commissioned a diversity equity and inclusion report. The report includes recommendations as to how to increase land access opportunities for the state's historically marginalized producers. One of the recommendations is to create a down payment assistance program for BIPOC farmers to acquire land, including urban farmland. The report was also released in Spanish. The second example I wanna uplift here is the Vermont Land Access and Opportunity Act. The efforts to create the Land Access and Opportunity Board or LAOB were led by a coalition called Seeding Power, which is a multiracial coalition dedicated to increasing farm, home ownership and farmland access for Vermont's BIPOC community. All right, so now that I've gone over how states can work to improve PACE programs and increase farmland access opportunities, I wanna highlight how increasing funding for an improving state PACE programs can leverage more federal funding. This year is also a farm bill year, which means organizations like AFT, MFT and Sierra Club are all working on opportunities to improve some of the key federal programs I'll mention. The United States Department of Agriculture's Natural Conservation Services Agricultural Conservation Easement Program offers funding for farmland protection through the Agricultural Land Easement Program. This is known as ASAP-AIL. Improving and updating this critical program is currently on the table as part of the 2023 farm bill debates. Before I dive into what we would love to see improved with ASAP-AIL, I wanted to just give a quick 2023 farm bill update. So at the moment, both congressional chambers are working on draft language. In the Senate, staff have been developing language together and for most of the conservation programs, the AFT, MFT and others have been pushing. Language has been reviewed by USDA. It has been made clear by House Republicans that this farm bill will not have any new spending allocated within it. When the Inflation Reduction Act passed last summer, Congress allocated nearly 20 billion to key conservation programs, including the ASAP-AIL program. Congress is now concerned that USDA will not be able to spend that much money and there has been debate about holding this 20 billion into the farm bill. The ASAP-AIL program has been critical to protecting farmland, but there are opportunities to streamline and expedite it. Right now, the average closing time for an ag conservation easement is nearly two years. And for farmers that want to sell their land or we always say farmers are land rich and cash poor and oftentimes their retirement plans are tied up in land. And so this two years can seem like forever if you're trying to get out of the business or figure out how to pass on your farm to the next generation. Working with land trust partners across the country, AFT is advocating for the following changes to the ASAP-AIL program to help expedite this process. We'd like to see increasing funding for the program, creating more options for federal cost share, enhancing the entity certification process and benefits, reducing the administrative burden of the program on USDA and RCS, improving ASAP-AIL's bi-protect self-provision so that the program can be an even greater tool for providing land access opportunities for new and beginning and bi-proc producers, strengthening the Farmland Protection Act and ensuring it covers new federal investments in renewable energy. The second area I wanna highlight in the Farm Bill is land access and farm viability. Since the last Farm Bill and in the last couple of years, significant new programs have been set up to address these. Courtesy of the American Rescue Land Act or ARPA, the first ever USDA land access program at FSA was established. This program offers down payment funds and technical assistance to increase land access opportunities. We have the Regional Food Business Center, centers being set up by USDA agricultural market services or AMS, including one that will be run by Miasta that covering from Pennsylvania to Connecticut, which will help to provide farm and food entrepreneurs with the business technical assistance of capital. They need to run successful operations. The Farm Bill is a chance to codify these programs so that all of the work in standing them up is not lost at the end of their one-time funding. In addition, AFT and many other advocates support the creation of an office of small farms at USDA. We've seen numerous instances where USDA programs have just not worked well for small farms because of their size, including in Maine. We wanna thank Congressman Pingree for cosponsoring the Office of Small Farms Establishment Act, which creates an office in USDA's farm production and conservation business center to specifically support agency staff in better serving small farms. To close this out, all of the provisions I mentioned are connected to supporting efforts to increase farmland protection in Maine and throughout the region. Our nation's farmers, ranchers and foresters are essential allies in reaching the 30 by 30 goals for biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation. The lands they manage are crucial for a wildlife habitat, habitat, carbon sequestration, food security, clean water and rural prosperity. I'm happy to put any of the links I mentioned in the chat. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me or my colleague, Liza Patterson, our new New England Policy Associate. Try to, well, thank you, Matt. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Great, thank you so much, Chelsea. A lot of information, this was amazing. Probably gonna need a lot more time to dive into specifics, but hopefully that's what the working group through the Climate Council can kind of serve as for folks who wanna follow along. But we'll do our best in the last 15 minutes to get questions that I see some of you have. So maybe just to start with the commissioner, and then these questions are open to all of our panelists, so feel free. But there was a first question on LMF and the statistics. I don't know if you can see that for actual budget allocations, and then maybe we can get into some PFAS stuff after that. Yeah, thanks for asking this question. It looks like a clarification of the $1.6 million that I mentioned. That is 1.6 million that has been committed so far to farmland protection projects. That is not the maximum amount that will be hopefully committed to farmland protection programs. But we release requests for proposals periodically, and we evaluate what we get. But we're also hoping that the improvements to the working farmland and protection program will make it so that more projects will come forth. And I think that's very likely to happen. In the meantime, I did just take a quick look back, and I think originally the LMF board had allocated something like $4 million to farmland protection projects. That was just initially, and so if we start pushing up against that amount, the LMF board can have more conversation about that. Great, thank you for that. And then maybe do you wanna start us off on talking about PFAS? I know that's obviously a huge concern over the last few years in particular. How does PFAS plan to purchasing of lands and the LMF program in particular? Yeah, so for those who are not familiar with PFAS and the discovery that we've been making over the past few years around impacts to farmland, this is something that I say, what is it now? Like four years and X number of months ago before I took this position, I had never heard of PFAS. So it's been a really quick learning process and we're now working with a number of farms that have been identified through various means, mostly through our Department of Environmental Protection going back through records of permits to spread biosolids on agricultural lands and testing those lands systematically for any traces or for impacts of PFAS. And so at this point in time, I would say, DEP has made it through their first two tiers of testing and those were the lands that were expected to be most likely impacted. And as they are continuing to move forward, I think that my assumption and I'm only going to say this is my assumption is that there will be less likely, it'll be less likely that they'll be finding significantly more farms as they move through the remainder of these levels of tiers of testing. And so I feel like we've got generally a pretty good handle on the amount of PFAS contamination in the state, not completely, not 100%, but I think we have a sense of how widespread it will be. The vast majority of farms in this state will not be impacted by PFAS. And I think that's really important for people to understand where there are farms that are impacted, we are identifying those farms and we are putting a lot of resources and time behind helping those farmers. And also just to say that impact can really happen on a spectrum and just because a farm shows that it's been impacted by PFAS, it doesn't mean the entire farm is impacted, it doesn't mean that they can't find a way forward and we're very invested in helping them with that as well. So all of that is to say that this is something we're working on really diligently. Farms that are impacted to the degree where farmers cannot foresee going forward and operating a viable farm business on that land. We're actually just in the process of rulemaking for a $60 million PFAS fund that the legislature and the governor authorized. And we are going to be standing up some programs that will have a lot of different mechanisms for helping these farmers. And one of those mechanisms is a buyback program where we will be able to buy their farm or portions of their farm from them so that they are not saddled with the burden of that land. Those lands would not end up in the LMF program. They would be held by the State, by the Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry. And as time goes forward and as more research is underway which is something that the PFAS fund can also pay for, we are hopeful that we will learn more about how to mitigate the impact and mitigate the pollution. As I said before, our best farmland soils are a finite resource and we are very committed to trying to make sure that we protect those soils and also help our farmers who have been impacted by this really tragic situation. Great, yeah, Charlotte, do you wanna add anything? Thank you Commissioner Bale for that comprehensive response and thanks Matt. I just wanted to add that for main farmland trust and the agricultural easements that we do throughout the state, if a property is showing up on that map of permitted sludge spreading sites, which to be clear doesn't necessarily mean that sludge spreading took place there and they're necessarily as contamination, but something that we do as a land trust is screen those properties for PFAS before we make that land forever available for agriculture. So that relates to your question, thankful about sort of screening for PFAS and how that's being done and also to the commissioners that answer. And then the other thing that I wanted to just sort of highlight and put a plug in for is the fact that at this point, there's no scientific method for removing PFAS from the soil. So in terms of remediation, that research is really in its infancy. And so I think I just wanna put a plug in for how important it is for the $60 million fund for other research funding mechanisms and efforts to really commit in a long-term way to figuring out how we remove PFAS from the soil. That will be important in Maine moving and it will also be important in many other countries around, I mean, in many other states around the country because we know that the situation of PFAS contamination is not unique to Maine. It's just that Maine is up the forefront of developing policy responses and solutions to this contamination problem. So I was glad that you asked that thankful because the remediation research is really needs to be ongoing. And the more that we invest in it now, the more we can move towards cleaning our soil and not losing any of Maine's agricultural land. And my uncle used to have a phrase is that the solution presents itself before the problem. And the research has not yet confirmed this, but I do believe that there are a number of crops that will take up all sorts of contaminants from the soil, not the least of which is hemp. So I can't say that that's gonna be the solution, but I do know that we probably have a solution out there that we just haven't found yet. Could I just add that this has been, clearly a really difficult and challenging topic for us at the Department of Agriculture. And I just wanna say how much we've appreciated working with a number of entities in Maine, our response to PFAS, we do have some resources in the department, but we couldn't do everything we've been doing without the partnership of Maine Farmland Trust, of MOFCA, of Cooperative Extension and numerous others who have really stepped forward and helped us to work through this situation. So I think it's a real, it shines a light on the strength that we have when we work together. And I'm just really grateful for that here in Maine. Yeah, thank you all. And maybe, because we're on PFAS, one more quick question I'd see about kind of percentage and testing on lands. Do you see that question, commissioner? Is that possible to answer? What percentage of farms with a history of spreading did not test with the state? I don't have that information, but my gut sense is it would be a very small number. What we do have are also farmers that have not waited for the tier testing process to get to them. And they've been concerned about their own families and their own health and the health of their community. And they have actually elected to get private testing and then have come forth and asked for help from the Department of Agriculture and some of the other organizations that I've mentioned. So that would be my best answer at this point. Okay, great. I know we only have a few minutes left here. So I think we can get to a land use related question and then we'll make sure there's a couple of minutes at the end for all of our panelists just to give their final one minute thoughts. So let's try to get to this one. I think this is probably for everyone, but maybe if you wanna start, commissioner, I mean, you mentioned land use earlier and kind of the general charge. That's kind of some of the work I and Sierra Club are interested in is that intersection of farmland and planning and transit. I think this kind of gets to the land use question in the chat about sub-developments and preventing sprawl. So I don't know if you wanna start and then if folks have general reactions to how might we work through preventing sprawl and specifically around subdivisions and land use planning. Big question, but any part of the cut if you'd like to take? Yeah, I'm not landing quickly on the question in the Q and A on. Okay, it was specifically about right now, we have a lot of one and two acre residential lots and a lot of that is increasing the amount of sprawl and maybe preventing farmland protection. So there was a bill mentioned LD 1787 that would allow towns to reset zoning require a vote of municipal officials. Feel free to talk about that bill in particular and or kind of generally how we can approach land use planning and zoning to prevent sprawl and protect more farmland. Yeah, thanks for the question. That particular piece of legislation, I do not have catalog in my brain right now just to give you some context, the last legislative session, we had a record number of bills pertaining to our department and so it's a little bit of a blur. But what I can say is that, and this goes back to my time when I was at main farmland trust and so I think this will probably resonate with Shelley and with Chelsea. But part of the puzzle here is that, as I said, there's development pressure everywhere throughout the state and in different, it comes in different forms. And so we need to recognize that and we need to be looking at how we can best support farms to be viable. And that is, we wanna protect farmland, yes, but farmland becomes vulnerable when a farmer is not able to make a living because there are market forces at play or there are other challenges that come their way unexpectedly and those are all the kinds of things that I know Shelley can speak to really intimately from the work that MFT does on the ground in Maine. And that's also the kind of thing that we've been looking at where we want to understand what farms need. We've done some surveys about what farms need to be more resilient and viable. We did a heritage industry survey that was really the genesis behind us taking $20 million of ARPA funding and creating an agricultural investment or infrastructure investment program in our state where we gave out 64 grants to farmers and food processors really trying to get at some of the bottlenecks that were holding farms back not being able to get processing for meat or other products. So that's something and it's something we're gonna continue to work on. We actually have some funding that will be coming to us from the USDA through their resilient food systems initiative program and we're gonna be able to make some more of those investments and really help farmers to work through what their infrastructure needs are so that they can be vibrant vital businesses that we need them to be in our state. So that's just one piece of the puzzle but I'm sure Shelley could add a lot more to that. I think that's a really important piece of the puzzle I agree one of the things that I'll add and maybe just close with because I know we're running short on we wanna close this Matt but it's just to say that there's so much important work going on across the state that relates to farmland protection. So we talked about some strategies in this webinar but there's much more that could be covered. So definitely need for further conversation and exploration, including continuing to look at sort of those access links. I did want to mention that we will be following up with participants after this webinar to share some links and we can share a link to some of Grossmart's wonderful resources on smart group as something that really relates to the question that was asked. We also for MFT, we have Cultivating Main Agricultural Future a Policy and Planning Guide for Main Towns that is a publication that we will be sharing the second edition of next month. We've been partnering on that with the Department of that Conservation and Forestry and it goes through a full range of strategies that towns can take to support farmers and protect farmland. So keep an eye out for that. And I also just wanted to put a plug in there's a lot more to say, but we will, we promise to share out a bunch of links to relevant resources. And just thank you all for participating and joining this important discussion. Thank you, Shelley. And thanks for the segue, just to kind of wrap up. So yeah, Colin, Senator Hickman for your response and then any other kind of final thoughts, actions you want folks to be aware of. I just wanted to respond directly to Carl Wilma's question. 1787 is the bill's been carried over and it probably can't predict won't go anywhere because the growth management law is being completely reworked in the housing commission. The joint select committee on housing, I chaired two commissions and the growth management laws are very important to our land use across the state and the Bureau of Information and Technology which is under the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry has a wonderful director who's working on these issues in a very robust way. And the last thing that I wanted to say is that as we talk about farmland protection, the Wabanaki people and even indigenous African-American people who are descendants of a lot of African tribes, when we looked at land as communal, we have publicly owned lands, we have state owned lands, we have municipally owned lands and one of the features of the legislation I referred to earlier that I have carried over is to envision looking at making sure that we are producing food for our communities in common spaces. And so we really do need to look at how all of our lands that we own as a people that will not necessarily be development pressure on can also be used to grow food, to keep Maine a sustainably food producing state. Those are my last thoughts, thank you. Great, thank you. If there's time, I don't know if Chelsea you wanna go and then we'll head with Commissioner Biel just to quick wrap up final thoughts. Yeah, thank you all for joining us for this webinar today and thank you to Commissioner Biel and Senator Hickman for agreeing to be speakers, panelists with Shelley and Pat and I. This has really been very informative for me and I've appreciated the conversation deeply and I guess I would just leave with that it's apparent we have to continue to work in fierce cooperation, stealing the term from a Connecticut farmer that just won the Leopold Conservation Award, Terry Jones, Jones Family Farm to advance farm land protection, not only in Maine but in the region and I look forward to doing that with you all in the future in the near future, hopefully. Great, thanks Chelsea and Commissioner Biel, any final thoughts? I would just say thank you so much for making this space for this conversation to happen. Matt, thank you for your great facilitation and everybody on this call, panelists and folks that are tuning in alike who are interested in this topic and again, I would just invite you to stay tuned with the Natural Working Lands Working Group. You can find our information for the Maine Climate Council on the website for GOPIF, the Governor's Office of Innovation Policy in the Future. They will post our meeting times and dates and any materials and if you have any trouble finding that, please reach out to me and I'll be happy to connect you. Great, thank you so much again to all of our panelists, especially Senator Hickman and Commissioner Biel. Thank you all for being here. We'll follow up and stay tuned. Have a great rest of your day.