Date:

The VESP was founded in 2016 and allocated additional support following the Bills below, which were approved by the Governor on June 17th, 2019.

Legislation:

The Vermont General Assembly passed two separate bills, that have both ended up relating to healthy soil management: S.160, “An act relating to agricultural development,” and H.525, “An act relating to miscellaneous agricultural subjects,” that supported the creation of the Vermont Environmental Stewardship Program (VESP)

Sponsors:

• Senator Robert Starr
• Senator Christopher A. Pearson
• Senator Anthony Pollina
• Senator Brian Collamore
• Senator Ruth Hardy

The House Committee on Agriculture and Forestry

• Rep. Carolyn W. Partridge
• Rep. Rodney Graham
• Rep. John L. Bartholomew
• Rep. Thomas Bock
• Rep. Charen Fegard
• Rep. Terry Norris
• Rep. John O’Brien
• Rep. Vicki Strong

Agencies Involved:

• Administered by the State of Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, and the Agency of Natural Resources
• Vermont Association of Conservation Districts
• Vermont NRCS
• University of Vermont Extension Service
• Vermont Soil Conservation & Payment for Ecosystem Services Working Group, which will include representatives from the VT Healthy Soils Coalition (of which Rural Vermont was a founding member) and the small diversified farming community

Rule Making Processes:

N/A

Description:

The Vermont Environmental Stewardship Program (VESP) is a voluntary program that encourages and supports local agricultural producers to achieve environmental and agricultural excellence. Farmers interested in measuring the “health per acre” of their land receive support from the University of Vermont Extension and Watershed Alliance.

A pilot program evaluating 10 farms from a diversity of farm types, sizes, and geographic locations across Vermont is currently underway to inform the final development of the VESP.  

Through Bill S.160, the Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets has agreed to convene a Soil Conservation Practice and Payment for Ecosystem Services Working Group to recommend financial incentives designed to encourage farmers in Vermont to implement agricultural practices that exceed the requirements of Regenerative Agriculture per 6 V.S.A. chapter 215 and that improve soil health, enhance crop resilience, increase carbon storage and stormwater storage capacity, and reduce agricultural runoff to waters.

Soil Health Definitions:

While soil health is not explicitly defined, the following definitions are included in the policy:

“Certified Vermont Environmental Steward” is an owner or operator of a farm who has achieved the thresholds for the Vermont Environmental Stewardship Program to be certified as a farm that improves soil health and contributes to improving water quality.

“Regenerative farming:” A series of cropland management practices that

1. contributes to generating or building soils and soil fertility and health;
2. increases water percolation, increases water retention, and increases the amount of clean water running off farms;
3. increases biodiversity and ecosystem health and resiliency; and
4. sequesters carbon in agricultural soils.

Stated Goals:

• To accelerate water-quality improvements through additional voluntary implementation efforts, and to honor farmers who have already embraced a high level of land stewardship.
• To improve soil quality regulation standards & incorporate a management reward system in recognition of the link between soil and water quality. 

Through S.160, the Soil Conservation and Payment for Ecosystem Services Working Group have agreed to:

(1) identify agricultural standards or practices that farmers can implement that improve soil health, enhance crop resilience, increase carbon storage and stormwater storage capacity, and reduce agricultural runoff to waters;

(2) recommend existing financial incentives available to farmers that could be modified or amended to incentivize implementation of the agricultural standards identified under subdivision (1) of this subsection or incentivize the reclamation or preservation of wetlands and floodplains;

(3) propose new financial incentives, including a source of revenue, for implementation of the agricultural standards identified under subdivision (1) of this subsection if existing financial incentives are inadequate or if the goal of implementation of the agricultural standards would be better served by a new financial incentive; and

(4) recommend legislative changes that may be required to implement any financial incentive recommended or proposed in the report.

Program Required Measurements:

• Using a combination of on-farm natural resource assessments and Cornell Soil Health tests, VESP applicants are evaluated by a team of conservation planners and technical service providers to ascertain current land-use practices.
• The resulting data is used to set customized environmental goals for each farm and to enact a long-range plan encompassing a full range of regenerative farming practices.
• VESP Pilot Program Standards 

Tools & Guidance:

• The VESP Pilot will be utilizing the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s (NRCS) new Resource Stewardship Evaluation Tool (RSET), which is an online platform that streamlines over a half‐dozen individual field assessment tools.
• The resulting data is used to set customized environmental goals for the farm, and to enact a long-range plan encompassing a full range of regenerative farming practices. More information about the VESP pilot program can be found here

Founding Source/s:

• The General Fund
• The Clean Water Fund (Generated from a from a 0.2% surcharge on the property transfer tax and a portion of funds from unclaimed beverage container deposits remitted to the State)

Funding Type/s:

The Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets will provide grants or contracts from existing agricultural water quality programs to provide noncapital financial incentives to Vermont farmers participating in the Vermont Environmental Stewardship Program to implement regenerative farming practices to achieve certification as a Certified Vermont Environmental Steward.

Practices Eligible for Funding:

• Nutrient management
• Sediment and erosion control
• General soil health
• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Carbon sequestration

• Work to expand upon existing agricultural infrastructure and agencies already present on the landscape
• Incorporate legislative goals into Housekeeping and Rural Development Bills 
• Create programs that reward farms which already implemented regenerative, soil-building practices. This helps build support for legislation and can be a model for continued implementation of healthy soil management
• Invite farmers to speak to legislators and bring legislators to farms. Rural Vermont invited farmers to the VT State House for a whole day of workshopping and testifying; these face to face relationships were critical in garnering support for the bill’s passage

Steps Forward, according to Rural VT

• Members of the Payment for Ecosystem Services working group, including members of the Soil Carbon Coalition, and Rural VT, an advisory organization, are eager to ensure that payments are made for more complex strategies than avoiding phosphorus runoff from dairy farms, the current focus of agro-environmental legislation in Vermont.
• The Working Group is still on the lookout for an assessment that moves beyond simply measuring soil health to measuring all indicators of health environmental and human health present on a farm.

House Committee:

Senate Committee:

The University of Vermont: Land-grant university

Vermont NRCS

The Vermont Healthy Soil Coalition

Rural Vermont

Vermont Organic Farming Association (NOFA VT)

Champlain Valley Farmers Coalition 

The Northeast Organic Farming Association of VT (NOFA VT) is working through an NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant to host “Field Days” to educate farmers throughout the Northeast region about healthy soil practices. They are collaborating with NOFA-MA, NOFA-CT, and NOFA-NH to do so.