Editor’s note: This commentary is by Peter Burmeister, an organic livestock and poultry farmer and processor and a psychotherapist in Berlin. This is a transcript of his remarks at the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets public hearing on the proposed Required Agricultural Practices at Vermont Law School on June 23.
[I]t is simply an outrage that these hearings have been scheduled during the busiest season for farming. This hearing schedule demonstrates complete insensitivity to or ignorance of the needs of farmers who, in order to attend and comment, must take off the most productive hours of our workday, while the weather dictates that we should be working outdoors.
I will have to leave the hearing today well before the scheduled time for conclusion in order to meet my commitment to the Waterbury Farmers Market, a major component of my farm income. Traveling to this location this morning in order to attend a pre-meeting with my Rural Vermont colleagues, as well as the hearing itself, has taken me away from outdoor work and has impacted my ability to farm. I’m here because I consider this matter to be of the utmost importance, but it is extremely inconvenient, to say the least.
Rural Vermont strongly advocated asking the Legislature to delay implementation of the “required agricultural practices” until the end of the year, in order to give the farming community an adequate amount of time, after harvest season, to prepare and deliver our input to the agency. It is a grave disappointment to us all that the agency did not agree to argue for this short extension of the comment period. As a result, the input that many of us would have liked to prepare is incomplete.
It should be the duty of the agency and the secretary to advocate for farmers. In this instance that advocacy falls far short of what we require and many of us feel that our needs have been ignored.
During the recent legislative session, Sen. Campion introduced bill S.159, an innovative, even revolutionary, proposal that would have implemented certification for regenerative agriculture. Unlike the required agricultural practices, regenerative practices and carbon farming would have an enormous positive effect on water quality in Vermont, along with several other very major influences on the environment such as carbon sequestration. Sadly, the agency reacted to the proposed legislation with indifference and the bill was tabled without further discussion.
Instead of enacting minimally effective regulations with their attendant enforcement measures, it would have been far more effective to have incentivized farmers to initiate regenerative practices, including seasonal grazing as an alternative to confinement barns.
The proposed required agricultural practices will not and cannot make a significant impact on the problem of pollution of our waterways. They fail to address harmful practices such as the continual monoculture of silage corn adjacent to our rivers and lakes without crop rotation, undersowing or cover cropping. The required agricultural practices fail to encourage composting as an alternative to the spreading of raw manure. They do not even mention the vital role of humus in protecting the soil from erosion.
The proposal to require buffer zones between productive fields and waterways will have unintended consequences. In my area our streams are struggling with invasive species such as Japanese knotweed and phragmites. Implementation of buffer zones will provide a haven for these and other plants that are alien to Vermont. It would make more sense to incentivize farmers to graze their animals along the stream banks until the invasives have been destroyed, thereby allowing native vegetation to regrow. The minor impact of an occasional ruminant defecating in the water is miniscule compared to the current widespread practice of spraying liquid manure, emanating from confinement barns on the same fields year after year.
Instead of enacting minimally effective regulations with their attendant enforcement measures, it would have been far more effective to have incentivized farmers to initiate regenerative practices, including seasonal grazing as an alternative to confinement barns.
In speaking with farmers about the new regulations, I have, without exception, received nothing but totally negative feedback. For some, facing financial pressures and impending old age, they are the final straw leading to the abandonment of farming as a way of life. For others, they represent a serious impediment to the growth of the farming sector in Vermont. The number of farms in the state is increasing, but these regulations will have a serious chilling effect on the entrepreneurial spirit that has brought about that unprecedented development.
One farmer I spoke to said: “the regulations will only be enforced if some flatlander complains.” That may or may not be true, but it expresses the widespread feeling that the regulations are foreign to “the Vermont Way.”
It is the role of the agency to represent the interests of the agricultural community in Vermont. Therefore, in conclusion, I implore the agency to reconsider the urgent timetable for implementation of the required agricultural practices in order to engage in serious dialogue around the concept of regenerative agriculture as a long-term, impactful solution to the issue of agricultural runoff pollution. The current iteration of the required agricultural practices, with the attendant penalties for non-compliance, will prove unworkable and futile, while antagonizing the farming community and has already begun to create an “us versus them” mentality that will be more harmful than helpful.
(I would highly recommend as “required reading” for anyone involved in writing, rewriting and evaluating the required agricultural practices, “Cows Save the Planet” by Judith Schwartz.)
