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The Massachusetts Senate Committee on Ways and Means has released their environmental bond bill proposal (S.3050). Senators have introduced amendment and will debate the bond bill on April 15th. Bond bills are important as they authorize funding for capital grant programs like APR, FSIG, climate smart agriculture, and others, and are an opportunity to pass meaningful food system policy.
Senators may choose to show support for various amendments. Your senator needs to hear from you about the items that are most important to you, so please take this opportunity to review the amendments in this email, and contact your senator by 5pm on April 14th to let them know your priorities. You can use this template to reach out to your state senator.
The Collaborative has prioritized the following four amendments:
#43. Working Capital Loan Program, $10,000,000, Senator Comerford. This amendment will create a program, capitalized with $10 million, to support farmers with low-interest loans to aid in resilience, disaster recovery, market barriers and other needs. Right now, MDAR has no dedicated resources to support farmers when events like barn fires happen, and this program will fill that gap.
#188. MDAR Buy-Protect-Sell Capitalization, $10,000,000, Senator Lovely. This amendment will authorize $10 million of funding for MDAR’s new (as of November 2024), authority to buy, protect, and sell farmland to farmers at an affordable price. To make sure more farmland stays in agriculture MDAR needs resources to make those purchases, protect them, and then sell to farmers at affordable prices.
#199. PFAS Farmer Relief Fund and Land Application Ban, $50,000,000, Senator Comerford. This amendment bans sewage sludge from being land applied in Massachusetts, starting in 2030. Sewage sludge consistently has the highest levels of PFAS (also known as forever chemicals) contamination of any product of the wastewater treatment process. When applied on land (including farmland), the PFAS in that sludge can contaminate the soil, produce, livestock, wildlife, and people who work and eat from that land. The amendment also establishes the Agricultural PFAS Relief Fund and authorizes $50 million to help support farm businesses and protect them from PFAS contamination and the many implications of that contamination.
#251. Urban Agriculture Grant Program, $5,000,000, Senator Gomez. This amendment will authorize $5 million for the urban agriculture grant program. This will support urban food producers and help realize the goals of the Vacant Lots to Urban Agriculture bill, also sponsored by Senator Gomez and passed in the Senate’s FARM omnibus bill.
These four amendments represent a significant boost to agricultural capital grant programs and the growth of a sustainable, equitable, resilient food system. Together, these amendments are 2% of the $3.64 billion bond.
The Collaborative also supports the following amendments:
#12. Massachusetts Food Trust Program, $5,000,000, Senator Moore. This amendment will increase the amount authorized for the Massachusetts Food Trust Program from $5M to $10M. This program provides grants and loans for food retail operations in food deserts across the Commonwealth, and demand has outstripped available authorizations.
#16. DMF Funding, $10,000,000, Senator Tarr. This amendment will increase the amount authorized in the Division of Marine Fisheries line item from $5 million to $15 million. This will allow DMF to support more fishermen with grants.
#263. Stockbridge School of Agriculture Tuition Equity, Senator Edwards.
This amendment will add the University of Massachusetts Stockbridge School’s associate degree program to free community college as established by the Legislature. This program is the only two-year program not currently covered by free community college policy.
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