In 2019 the Payment for Ecosystem Services and Soil Health Working Group was created through legislation (Section 3, Act 83 2019) upon initiative from farmers representing three watershed alliances: the Champlain Valley Farmer Coalition, Franklin-Grand Isle Farmer’s Watershed Alliance, and the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance. The timeline for the working group process was extended twice (Act 129, 2020, and Act 47, 2021). Rural Vermont noticed shortfalls in the early stages of the working group process in meeting their legislative charges and went to partner with the White River Conservation District to conduct legal research at the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems (VLS) to take a close look at the mandate for the group.
“The legislation establishing the working group directed it to identify agricultural standards or practices that farmers can implement to improve and enhance soil health, crop resilience, carbon storage and stormwater storage capacity, and reduce agricultural runoff; recommend existing financial incentives available to farmers to implement these standards or practices; propose new financial incentives if necessary; and recommend legislative changes as necessary to implement any new or modified financial incentives. By not comprehensively assessing existing standards, practices, and financial incentives, the working group did not fully meet these charges.”
-CAFS report p. 1
Rural Vermont opposes tendencies to develop a PES program that would pave the ground for a carbon sequestration credit trade program based on soil health – with high administrative costs and burdens that don’t pay off for small farmers (based on prices for acres achieved elsewhere in similar programs). While related top-down tendencies could not be solidified, Rural Vermont stressed the PES WG to focus on the needs of those on the ground and submitted a sign-on letter requesting the group to base program development on broader farmer input. Just recently, UVM presented the results from engaging 175+ farmers in a survey and gathered firsthand testimonials about farmers’ worry that another program won’t pay off while also adding many new (bureaucratic) burdens on them. In that survey, most farmers (62%) prefer that the application for new incentives should be combined with the paperwork of existing programs as much as possible to save time.
Rural Vermont also supports approaches that reward existing practitioners as well as those in transition and to include measures that enhance biodiversity – two emphasis that are not already specific objectives of the legislation. We are hopeful that the 2023-2024 biennium will be the milestone to realize the early vision of the Payment For Ecosystem Services Working Group, that aims for a paradigm shift to:
“[…] catalyze a paradigm shift in how farmers are acknowledged and empowered to perform their essential roles of environmental stewardship as well as providing food and fiber. We envision a future where farmers are recognized as land stewards, where they are compensated from numerous and diverse income streams for their provision of a range of ecosystem services, and where the public invests in the rebuilding and restoration of our state’s natural capital.”
-PES WG report from January 15, 2020, p. 6
Update June 2022
The PES WG agreed 2022 to objectives (check them out here) that leave mayor landmarks in program development up to a (yet to be legislated) pilot phase, namely: to consider how to frame best the program to support conservation values, and how actually to reward stewardship and avoid treating payments as simply transactional. The program elements do outline that field tests should verify soil health and other measured outcomes; that payments would be tiered based on outcomes; and that the program will support farming practices that promote and protect biodiversity while keeping farmland in production.
Summary of Advocacy Efforts
Rural Vermont and allies successfully advocated for a representative of the diversified agriculture sector (Maddie Kempner, NOFA-VT, and later Becky Maden, Singing Cedars Homestead/ UVM Extension) and a representative of the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition (Cat Buxton) to be part of the group.
Rural Vermont provided public comment on various occasions to promote that program development should continue to be farmer led by conduction a participatory process with farmers (see sign-on letter below)
Legal Research in collaboration with the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems, submitted as A Report Addressing Key tasks and Findings of the Vermont Payment for Ecosystem Services and Soil Health Working Group, Including Recommendations for the Working Group’s Actions in 2021, February 2021
Together with farmers like Stephen Leslie (Cedar Mountain Farm, Cobb Hill Cheese), Guy Choiniere (Choiniere Family Farm), and Paul Doton (Doton Farm) the so-called “small farmer group” has formed to meet in between working group meetings to discuss and strategize how to engage with the process to ensure decision making is farmer-led. Aside from Rural Vermont, also service providers like Jennifer Byrne (White River NRCD) and Joe Buford (Soil Conservationist, NRCS Colchester VT) and research specialists like Alissa White and Juan Alvez (both UVM), who also serve on the PES working group, and others have joined and contributed to the group. The small farmer group engages with the PES progress and:
in consensus building through facilitating an additional space for discussion, information sharing, and collaboration;
Members of the group developed the CSP+ proposal together that suggests to advance the existing federal program CSP (Conservation Stewardship Program) with additional funding to secure base payments of 10K for each farmer enrolled as well as a tiered structure of per acre payments based on stewardship levels that may include recognized practices and/or outcomes;
Young farmers like Nour El-Naboulsi (The People’s Farm), and Christopher Bonasia engaged in program development in becoming research assistants, soliciting a farmer survey and review of existing performance based PES programs with UVM.