On April 1, the Senate unanimously passed An Act Fostering Agricultural Resilience in Massachusetts! Many thanks to Senator Comerford for championing this bill for the past several sessions, you can listen to her speech on the floor here. Additional speeches in support were made by Senate Ways and Means Chair Rodrigues and Senate Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries Chair Fernandes (read his thoughts on the bill here!).
The final amended bill includes a number of Collaborative priorities; codifying HIP and FSIG in law, vacant lots to farms bill, next generation farmer fund, agritourism definition, development of an agricultural land registry, calling for MEMA to include the food system in emergency planning, and more.
Several amendments were adopted that added a ban on rollback taxes if PFAS is discovered on agricultural land, property tax relief for agricultural buildings, including DMF in MEMA’s food system planning efforts, creating a food tourism task force, and a study on agricultural schools.
Next, the bill still needs to be passed by the House, and any changes between the House and Senate proposals will have to be resolved by a conference committee before the bill is sent to the Governor for her signature, so please follow the steps in the above call to action to support this bill! Read the Editorial Board of the Boston Globe in support of the bill here.