Healey and United Way launch Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund: transcript

Key points

• Flooding over the previous 11 days devastated farms in western and central Massachusetts just before harvest.
• The Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund is administered by United Way of Central Mass with the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.
• The money will go out as grants, not loans, for cleanup, payroll, infrastructure and loan payments.
• Officials will pursue federal and state aid but said much federal farm funding does not fit Massachusetts farms, so donations are needed now.

Chapters

1. 0:00Welcome and thanks to local, state and federal partners
2. 3:57Flood damage to farms and the call for direct aid
3. 6:39Lieutenant Governor on creating the Farm Resiliency Fund
4. 10:56United Way's Tim Garvin on how to help
5. 14:09Commissioner Randall on farmers and climate resilience
6. 17:00Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts
7. 20:07Questions: funding, grants and eligibility
8. 24:10Questions: federal disaster aid and long-term need

Full transcript

0:00All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. Lieutenant Governor Driscoll and I are delighted to be here today at Mountain View Farm to be able to make this announcement. We want to begin by thanking Liz Adler, Ben Perot, and everybody at Mountain View Farm. It's good to see people inside actually shopping, supporting our local farms. That's really what today is all about. But we want to thank them for for hosting us. We also want to thank Mayor Nicole LaChapelle from the community of East Hampton for her presence here today and great to see so many folks from East Hampton. I know we're also going to be joined by Mayor McCabe from Westfield. He's here. How are you Mayor? Nice to see you too. And we're delighted to be joined not only by our wonderful mayors, the partnership our administration has with local officials is really really important to us and we grateful to them for the work that you do day in and day out as we try to serve

1:03the needs of residents around the state and we could not do that without the tremendous partners that we have in our legislature and the people of this region should be incredibly proud and also feel blessed to have the the legislative leadership that they have It's reflected in Senator Joe Comerford, who's here, Senator John Vilas, who's here, Representative Natalie Blay, who is here, and also I know we have representatives from Rep. Carey's office. He wanted to be here, but was not able to. So that's just important for everybody to know because everything we do is in partnership with local, state, and federal. To that end, we're also delighted to have representatives from Senator Markey and Senator Warren's office here as well.

1:46I'm delighted to be joined by the Lieutenant Governor, who you'll hear from shortly, as well as our Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Rebecca Tepper, our Commissioner of Agricultural Resources, and one of Western Mass's own, also hailing from a proud farming family, Ashley Randall, our Director of Rural Affairs. Remember, our administration created this position, first time, never existed before. Rural Affairs, super important for our 181 rural communities across Massachusetts. An important economic engine, it's something we want to support.

2:19And our director we're proud to have with us is Ann Gobi. Woo! Woo! We are also delighted to be joined by representatives from our office and our Western Mass Office. This is also a commitment. We've doubled the commitment in Western Mass. We're delighted to be joined by our director, Kristen Aleko, and our deputy director, Lamar Cook. Thank you for being here today. And speaking of partnership, I just want to say how grateful I am to United Way, and specifically United Way of Central Mass, its CEO and President, Tim Garvin, as well as United Way leaders who have joined us from all around the state for this effort, including from Berkshire, Hampshire and Franklin counties and also we're delighted to be joined in partnership on this by the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts and we're here shortly we will hear shortly from its president and CEO Megan Burr

3:26and finally keeping us all in order and in on task where is he our fabulous District Attorney Dave Sullivan you know who understands the importance of food security and also supporting our local farmers. So folks I'm going to turn it over to the Lieutenant Governor but basically the upshot is this we've had severe weather it's not surprising given what we've seen across the country and across the world when it comes to...

3:57And with these serious weather events, and ever-changing weather events, come real consequences. And unfortunately, most unfortunately, those consequences were felt in very real ways over the last 11 days by folks in western Massachusetts and central Massachusetts. The flooding resulted in tremendous devastation. Devastation to farms, devastation to the crops, devastation to personnel and employees and payroll devastation to infrastructure and coming at a time on the cusp of harvest for many it really wipes out the ability to have a second season and to it really presents we know real questions about what's going to happen even next year given potential uh impact on on the fields and over the last several days Our team, including the Lieutenant Governor and myself, have had an opportunity to visit farms with others who are represented here, including our electeds, and to see the devastation firsthand, you know, we knew we had to do something.

5:05And so that's what today is about. We wanted to find a way to come together, provide direct aid to our farmers. We've got to take care of those who take care of so many. And we've got to also recognize that there are implications for our farmers that are big time that we're going to work to resolve, and also for our food banks. Food pantries and the important food security network and infrastructure that exists across the state. So we're going to try to work hard on all of these fronts.

5:35The lieutenant governor is here to tell you a little bit more about it. And I just want to say thank you to her for her leadership, her commitment. This has always been about listening to people. We started the morning in Lancaster meeting with farmers there, mostly immigrant farmers who are feeding communities and families. And we're finishing up here today with this announcement, which is about how can we as a team, as an administration, work in partnership to provide direct relief to people who are hit really, really hard.

6:06I also want to say we recognize that this is a now right now in what we're trying to do. But to the farmers, I want you to know we're in it for the long haul. So this is more than about just relief, which we're going to pursue, state, local, federal. but it's about recovery, it's about resilience, it's about sustainability. We have many multi-generations here represented in our farming community and we want to make sure that the next generation is able to continue on in something that has been such an important fabric of who we are as a community, who we are as a state.

6:39So to talk more about Team Massachusetts is our fabulous Lieutenant Governor, Kim Driscoll. Thank you to Governor for not only the introduction, but the partnerships you've provided to me, to our communities. We're so grateful to be able to work together to make sure our communities are strong. And a big part of why we're here today are about having not only strong communities, but the community partners. And farms and farm owners and growers and the families and traditions that have been part of the farming community are a big part of that.

7:12For the last week and a half, the Governor's been out, I've been out. We've had direct conversations with our growers, with our farm community about what their needs are. It is heartbreaking. Today is actually the first day. I think the sun's been shining at such a magnitude and we've seen people in fields that aren't moving water out of the way. And so it's with gratitude that we're here talking about the ways we can work together. and speaking with some of the farmers you know so real so consistent and not wanting help but just wanting folks to know what's happening but needing help talking about the only industry that buys things retail and sells them wholesale about farmers who've been doing this for generations families coming together to take on really fertile soil and you know just taking anything that's been thrown out of them our farmers are meteorologists checking the weather always knowing what's going on probably knowing it better than some our own meteorologists. They're scientists. We heard about photosynthesis and Phytophia and fighting, you know, fighting these potential contaminants that can really hurt what's going on. But mostly

8:13I think they're about public service because what they do, growing food, not just for their families but for all of us. It's the sustenance that provides for strong communities. And when they are doing well, we are doing well. And when our farmers are hurting and challenged, we are hurting and challenged. And that's what today is about. Coming together, community leaders, local private sector, philanthropy, community engagement, to form the Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund. Thank you. You know, as soon as folks heard about the devastation, they were calling Commissioner Randall, reaching out, wanting to make sure there are ways that they could help.

8:51And we wanted to put that action, that activity, that force multiplier to work. That's why we partnered up with a number of you who are here and others who have stepped up to make donations. And we're hoping that people in the community will see this as a real opportunity to give back in a way to the farming communities, the folks who are growing our food, that sustenance we rely on, and put Massachusetts in a position to make sure our farms can continue doing the work that they do. When we met on Monday, Monday, with the farming communities in Deerfield, what we heard from farmers is we just want to work. We just want to grow food.

9:23And the timing of this weather, the impacts it had on harvest is heartbreaking. Well, here's a way that we can come together to help. And it's our farmers today in western and central Mass, but it could be our cranberry growers down the south coast. Frankly, our fishermen, our folks who are fishing on the coast. These weather impacts are happening more and more, and we need to find ways to step up and help. This fund has been created so we can put farmers first, so we can keep it simple, and so there can be a sense of urgency. Farmers are talking about today, am I going to keep people employed? Am I going to be able to pay back my loans?

9:55All the money that goes out in the spring for the seed, the supply, the labor that goes into toiling, and then not being able to sell that product. It really is heartbreaking, and that's what this Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund is about. We know we're working as a collective at the state level with legislators and amazing work on legislators. Every tour we've been on has had representatives and members of the Senate here with us alongside the commissioners and administration officials. This is an opportunity for us all to come together but this is also about what you can do. Those of us who may not live in Western Mass or Central Mass, ways that you can donate to this fund to help the things that we all rely on. We're all going to be going to our grocery store and picking up something that was grown. We want to be grown locally and the way we're going to ensure that is by making sure we're making any investments in a true team effort. Team Massachusetts coming together to support the Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund. We've got great partners helping us administer this in the United Way. I'd like to invite Tim Garvin up to talk a little bit about how this fund will work, where you can go to contribute to it, and how you can make a difference, not just in the communities that were impacted, but frankly communities across

10:56Massachusetts. So it's really odd to wake up in the morning and see a headline that's so devastating to this region and yet be excited about that because it brings this story to our entire state and in fact our entire region. I love America, but I especially love the Commonwealth. And this effort, I wish the entire state could see all of you, elected officials from our federal, from our state, from our local, our mayors, our commissioners.

11:31I wish the entire state could see what I'm seeing right now because they would know the value and the importance of partnership. This is everybody coming together saying we want to offer help and we want to offer hope. We want to make this as simple as possible and we are going to work on that. We're going to create a regional advisory committee so that we can take care of this region. If and when it happens in other regions, we will do the same thing in Central Mass, on the shore, down on the south coast, so that we are staying local and helping where the need is greatest. Really what we want to have happen is we want everybody to say I can do something because what's happened today for our farmers affects all of us. I think of four groups.

12:14It's our farmers, their families, their employees, their livelihood. It's the crops that we eat. And we aren't talking about feed crops, some feed crops. But we're talking about when you finish here, go in and see Ben's store. You might not be a CSA member, become a CSA member today and buy the store out. Buy the store out. It's the stuff I will be eating tonight at my dinner table that you will be eating. It's what nourishes us. The third, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, I am so thrilled that you mentioned this is also part of our food security work.

12:48So many of our families and our children, so many of our veterans and our seniors, and I see my good friend Andrew Morehouse is here. They are nourished. Their food security is guaranteed because of our local farms. And finally, it's the economy. It's the economy of the entire state, but especially this region. What happened today, the numbers, the early numbers, Commissioner Randall, if I have this correctly, 75 farms, 2,000 acres, $15 million initially estimates of damage. That affects every single one of us.

13:19So what can we do? Support this fund. Say yes. Say yes and then broadcast it to your entire network. Use your social media. Take your cell phone out as soon as you're finished. make a $50, $100, $500 donation in front of this farm stand and say, I feel great. I just gave to the Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund and I'm asking all of you to join us. I want to end with this. I want to end with a thank you. Not just to everybody who's here, and not just to everybody who's going to donate. I want to thank our farmers. During the last three and a half years of COVID, we all were able to quarantine. We were able to stay home. We were able to work remotely because we had good, proper, nutritious, tasty food that was grown here. And I'm not sure we've said thank you enough to our farmers.

14:09Today, it's our chance to stand with and for our farmers and to say we thank you and we are here to support you as you have supported us. We thank all of you. Governor, who do I turn it over to? Commissioner. Commissioner Reeder, come on. Sincere thank you to Ben and Liz for hosting us today. I know it's been an incredibly heartbreaking week for many of our farmers across this region as well as in Central Mass.

14:40Who are our farmers here today? Please raise your hand. Massachusetts farmers, we had the February 4th freeze, the May 18th frost. and now the trifecta with the flood last week. And I know that it's harder than ever to be a farmer and your backs are up against the wall, but I can say that I feel so honored and so optimistic because we have Governor Healy, Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, Secretary Tepper and an administration that is really committed to our farming community. And today is a show of that commitment. Tim and the United Way of Central Mass, I can't thank him enough for being willing to to run with this crazy idea we had earlier this week and how quickly it all came together with all of the community partners coming together, our legislators. It truly is a partnership and it's

15:41about community. All of us are consumers here and we depend upon our farmers and the local food system and when the local food system becomes as vulnerable as it does due to climate change this is our opportunity to step up and come together and be more resilient going forward and the Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund is meant exactly to do that to help farmers now in their time of need but thinking long term how we can be prepared for more events like this and hopefully not as often but we know that the climate is changing And this is one way to help our farming community in their time of need.

16:22I will just end by saying that it has been incredibly heartbreaking to meet with all the farmers and see the impacts. But today is about hope and moving forward. And I think there's a lot of hope and good things to come from this. And thank you to all the members of the community, the administration, for their support of our local farmers. Thank you. I introduce Megan Burke, who is the CEO of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. It's so great to see everyone turning out in our community for such an important cause.

17:00I really do want to express my gratitude for all of our partners statewide, especially the leadership of the governor and everyone here locally. You've seen something happening in Western Mass, and you've come forward to help us move this forward and bring everybody on board from across the state. As has already been mentioned, the farming community is a vital part of the western mass economy. It's made up of family farms that have stewarded the rich soil of the Connecticut River Valley, in some cases for over a hundred years, and by our indigenous communities for many generations.

17:35In recent years, that community has flourished. And diversified, connecting farmers to the food processing industry, introducing urban farming and cooperatives, and welcoming new arrivals who bring energy and expertise from our homeland, from their homelands. Collectively, these efforts that are happening in Western Mass are putting food on our plates here and throughout the Commonwealth. And that's why this really is an issue that impacts everybody throughout the state of Massachusetts.

18:06As the Community Foundation serving Western Massachusetts, we're committed to supporting the Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund. We seek to ensure that this coordinated effort provides immediate relief that works for farmers. We want this to work for farmers. And we also want to make sure that it addresses the long-term food security and climate change challenges that many have mentioned, but that particularly impact vulnerable residents, whether it's food security issues or climate change.

18:40We're also firmly dedicated to assisting donors, generous residents of Western Mass, neighbors helping neighbors for their efforts to support the well-being of our local farming community, those who want to protect the essence of our agricultural heritage and who have already shared with us their desire to ensure the prosperity of our local food systems. As a hub for philanthropy locally, Believe me when I tell you, we have gotten emails, phone calls already saying, how can we help? People know this is serious and they are stepping up. And I'm so pleased that we'll be able to work with Tim Garvin and the United Way to channel those efforts in a coordinated effort that works for everybody. We want one-stop shop where farmers can access the support they need quickly.

19:32And I will also say as part of the Community Foundation Network of Massachusetts, through the Community Foundation of Western Mass, we will be able to leverage philanthropic support from throughout the Massachusetts Commonwealth and work with Tim regionally here in Western Mass to make sure local knowledge of who most needs the support is at the forefront of making those decisions about where that support goes. So thanks everybody for coming, I'll keep it short, I'm sure we're on a tight schedule, Happy to talk to folks later if there are questions.

20:07Thanks, Megan. And thanks to all we heard from. Happy to take questions on topic. Is this fund seeded with the amount of dollars? And where exactly do that? I can't get you the exact amounts right now. Know that we have had commitments. And that's great. And, you know, my message, you'll let me know what I can commit to, probably. It's almost $100,000 so far. Private philanthropy, we talked to the Attorney General's office, they're committing some funds.

20:40You know, with the Big E, they've committed to match the first 10 grand that's been put in. And, you know, I want to be really clear with folks. We are here today in East Hampton. We are here in Western Massachusetts. This has had a disproportionate adverse impact on farmers in Western Massachusetts and Central Massachusetts. But to be clear with the people of Massachusetts, this is an issue that all 351 cities and towns own. We have to see that in this experience, so much else is implicated and disrupted, particularly around food security, but also around economic development.

21:16And we do not need our farmers who provide so much and are such an important cog in our infrastructure to go away, to disappear as a result of the severe financial distress that they're under. So my message to the people of Massachusetts, including those in the east, please go to this fund. United Way, Central Mass, the Farm Fund, Easy Way, push of a button to contribute. These farmers need the money now. We cannot wait for federal funding, which we will pursue.

21:47We will pursue state funding. But right now, everybody in Massachusetts has a chance to step up. To be part of the team and support men and women who for generations, some of them, have been out there working hard, getting after it, to deliver for families across this state. So, easy way to contribute, United Way, Central Mass, Farm Fund. I ask people to go online today. I also ask for people's support in spreading the message around the region, across this state, across this state.

22:17And let's show what Massachusetts is really made of. What would distribution look like, and is there any criteria that farms have to meet to be eligible for these funds? Well, you know, we're interested in getting this money out as quickly as possible, and we'd like as much money coming in to the fund so that more can be going out. We will make sure that it is carefully allocated. We know, for example, there are over 75 farms affected. They have a range of losses, but, you know, they go from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands.

22:48say nothing of loans that are coming due right now and so the impact is great we want to make sure that that we have an equitable distribution and I know that these men and women will put it to great use right away. Not loans, grants. I mean, I think the one thing we understand, there's a place for loans. And if we can help you and look to help refinance some of the loans that you have now, we're all going to work to do that and we'll explore that. But I want to be clear, this is money out the door. These are grants because that's what farmers, people, we need the money in the fund now because this was, in talking, this was the most direct and quickest way to get relief to people who need it.

23:38to deal with infrastructure, to deal with cleanup, to make payroll, to source food from other places because they're going to lose their customers if they don't find ways to make good on some of that, to pay loans. And so direct relief, money out the door, it'll be carefully watched with United Way. I know our Mass. Department of Agricultural Resources will continue involvement here and we'll all work together as a team to make sure this is done as quickly, as effectively as possible and with the help of the people of Massachusetts as generously as possible.

24:10Speaking of loans, could the USDA secretarial, USDA disaster declaration, is that on the way? Look, I can't predict that. I will tell you that all of us are working hard collectively, trust me, to pursue every single last dollar that we can from the federal government, whether it's from the USDA, the Small Business Association, whatever the avenues are. I also want to be really clear about Massachusetts. Our farms are special, you know, our farms are not big ag. And so some of the funding that Congress has written, you know, to provide relief is not available to our farms. That's important for people to know. So if people think, you know, that there's going to be a whole bunch of money coming from the federal government this way, I'm not holding my breath. None of us are.

24:53And I want to be really clear about that. While we will pursue disaster relief, you know, as we've done, because we're not even talking today about things that we visited and talked about last week, the effects and the impact on dams and bridges and culverts and all that. we need we need federal dollars for that but when it comes to our farms the reason we set this up is because we need people to pitch in now while we pursue all of all of those other federal means and I want to thank our congressional delegation as well in particular of course Congressman Jim McGovern who has made food security such a such a such a cause of his I know people are working hard to pursue federal funding but you know we can't wait for federal funding this fund is going to operate in perpetuity to act as a safety net for farms in the state moving forward well i think as you heard this this is a problem that's not going away i mean we have blue sky for the first time uh we had fires you know i mean the severe weather i mean talk to these guys talk to the

25:54farmers i mean this is there's this is a way of life now and we've got to find a way to build sustainable agriculture and farms, resilient. Uh, farms, uh, a resilient, uh, food infrastructure, and this impacted this region, but we've seen other regions impacted, uh, with the potential to have other regions impacted with weather as we go forward. So, you know, I think there's a need for this, and I think this unfortunate experience gives us an opportunity as a state to step up and say, whoa, like this is a thing. We've got to find a way to account for this, to address this going forward for the health and well-being of our state.

26:34Thank you. Let's make sure folks know the websites. UnitedWayCM.org slash Farm Fund. UnitedWayCM.org slash Farm Fund. Thank you.

Source and licence

Recording: File:Governor Healey and United Way Announce New Relief Effort for Farms Impacted by Flooding.webm by MassGovernor (2023-08-02), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 3.0.

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.