[Music] [Applause] [Music] this public meeting is now called to order at 6 pm on Wednesday May 1st this meeting is being held as required by the provisions of the chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth an act relative to the protection of the wetlands is most recently amended notice of the time and place of this meeting was posted in the town's clerk town clerk's office also the town hall persons wishing to be heard will called in the following order um we are having a meeting remotely tonight uh via zoom and it's also being recorded for future viewing pleasure um we have one item on the agenda it's a discussion of Farmland of local importance designation Al alal here certified professional soil scientist American farmland and Trust review of matters presented votes may be taken Al the floor is yours okay thanks folks um I'm sorry to hear about the person who's stuck in Connecticut that sounds like the name of a horror film or something so stuck in Connecticut I also have to remember that I'm being recorded here so maybe I shouldn't be too lit anyway Ryan thank you um by way of introduction uh I I work for the usda's natural res s ources conservation service for about 40 years and if you're not are you familiar with nrcs folks anybody here I'm talking to a Conservation Commission not an agricultural commission so correct see the uh I see the stickers the bumper stickers oh okay well yeah aft you'll see American farm land trust no Farm no food you'll see a lot of that right um I I maybe I should just go ahead and and do a screen share here and um hopefully everybody will be able to see this let me know when you can see this thing pop up I can see it good okay so I work for this agency called the the usda's natural resources conservation service I I worked in soils I did uh soil mapping soil survey work and so some Conservation Commission folks might be familiar with that because it's it's kind of a the soil survey mapping can be a first cut as to identifying Wetlands those soils that are mapped as very poorly drained soils or poorly drained soils are often associated with or analogous to wellons uh but I I was one of the people who walked across the Landscapes and Drew these squiggly lines on aerial photographs delineating out the different soil types and I eventually uh AC seeded to being kicked up to where I was before my retirement I was the state soil scientist for the USDA nrcs in Massachusetts and I got involved in helping people understand soil's information and in in a lot of cases how it applies to uh assessing the uh suitability of land for agriculture for crop production and from that came this initiative um to work with towns to um recognize what we call Farm local importance soils and Ryan and all you folks thank you for taking the time during this meeting to let me talk to you about this I'll try to get through this pretty quickly um it's fortunate you don't have a lot on other stuff on your agenda no one no one's uh put in a notice of intent or whatever so I guess I caught you at a good evening so thank you very much so what this is about is is trying to recognize these additional lands that are suited for agriculture and I'll I'll I'll try to get into that so why why are we doing this I should I should add that when I retired from the usda's natural resources conservation servic the last things that I did was help to establish firland of local importance in the town of Hatfield and at that point the St conservationist who was my boss said we need to keep doing this and the reason for that is that uh the more important Farmland soils that are recognized the greater the chances of more eligibility for the nrcs's preservation program funding and I'll get it I'll explain that a little bit more so anyway without trying to make a short story long here uh the state conservation has said I'm going to get some soft money and we're going to Contin with this initiative and I'm going to find somebody to do it and I said well I guess it might as well be me so i' I've been involved with this for well this is going on four years now since I retired I worked for nrcs for 44 40 years and here I am still doing this I'm I'm not really getting to understand what the retirement part of semi-retirement is I guess but it it's it's been a pretty good thing so I guess I'll continue to do it for a while anyway this the usda's natural resources conservation service is funding this initiative it's giving the money to the American Farmland trust and I'm working as an independent contractor and I send my invoices to to aft so it's still all coming from federal funding and um so what the nrcs does predominantly is work with producers work with uh Farmers to help Implement conservation practice practices such as manure storage facilities uh managing roof runoff on on heavy use areas these kinds of things and but one of the one of the programs it has is this thing called the agricultural conservation easement program and under that is the agricultural land ement program so it's you might hear people talk about ASAP ale so I'll just refer to Ale the agricultural land easement and if you like beer I guess you can relate to that so uh what what this does is it provides 50% of the funding to a Farmland owner who has paid the market value of the land less the agricultural value in exchange for a promise to maintain the agricultural capacity of the land in a nutshell it's a Farmland preservation program the incentive to the land owner is that if he or she wants to keep the land preserved for agriculture they get monetary value of the land and as opposed to maybe face with a choice of seeing the land developed or selling it off for subdivisions or what have you so it provides the land owner a viable choice and land owner gets some capital and can do improvements on the land or whatever they decide to do with it but it's a it's a als's a partnership program you folks may have heard of APR the agricultural preservation restriction program that that's a state program the the state of Massachusetts Department of bag resources manages that program it's it's the predominant partner with nrcs for Farmland preservation um typically Mass Department of a resources will provide 50% of the funding and nrcs matches it but it doesn't have to be the Mass Department of agricultural resources land trusts can partner within our CS towns comp partner with nrcs so I I I guess I told you all that just to to to summarize this it's it's a um it's a program to help preserve Farmland so if if if the town of ausnut a kushit you know values that this is something you might want to you might want to support and if you don't value that you should just tell me right now um so this ale funding eligibility is based in part on soils and you might recognize the outline here and of this map um so the idea is that if you're spending taxpayer dollars you want to invest it in soils that are suit suitable for Crop Production so how do you know that well you go to a to this soil survey information so this is this is the these are the so survey maap delineations for the town of aush and um so as I said before I was one of the people who was involved with making these Maps I worked uh as I was the sole survey project leader for Franklin County Massachusetts and for middlex County mass and I got into sou eastern Mass a little bit too when uh we were doing the the sole survey of Plymouth County I did quality assurance on that so anyway um the soil survey consists of soil Maps there's all kinds of information about the soil property and there's interpretations for land use and that's where this whole idea of um using the soils information to determine what the suitability for crop production is and this is public information if you Google web soil survey this is the first thing that's going to pop up you can put in you can enter in your your home address if you'd like into the so survey uh web Soul survey and it'll it'll bring it up on an aerial image and you can outline your area of interest and you and you can produce a map and you can produce all kinds of reports and so forth It's really an inventory of the nation soil resources is what the so survey is and it's it's done Nationwide it's available throughout all of Massachusetts um so you can run this report and you can get the Farmland classification and it's colorcoded as you can see and the green is Prim farmland and the lighter blue is Farmland of Statewide importance and everything else gets lumped into not prime farmland and but there are areas that are good for Crop Production that the soul survey doesn't catch and that's this SP local importance is a workaround for that and um if if those are additional areas are recognized then in a nutshell the more the more important soils that are recognized the greater the chance is that a particular parcel of land will be eligible for the ale funding because there's a there's a criteria involved the parcel must consist of at least 50% important Farmland soils and it all counts the same the prime Farmland soils the Farmland Statewide importance and farmland of local importance all count the same toward the 50% this is this is why nrcs is funding this to try to recognize these additional lands that are suited for Crop Production this is an actual outline of a parcel in the town of Acushnet and you can see that most of most of it's red right there the soil is is classed as uh Farmland of or not prime Farmland then there's some some prime farmland here but a lot of it is is not yet you can see that this is this is we can see by looking at are real imagery that this is good for hay production it's being used for hay production so so this particular soil type where it's suited for Crop Production can be uh listed and recognized as Farmland of local importance so that's why this is why I've being asked to work with towns to do this so in this particular example if firland of local importance were to be recognize this particular parcel's important Farmland soils extent would increase from about 20% to about 56% and that would render this eligible for the soil's criteria part of the funding in this particular example so what is Farmland local importance this comes from the code Federal Regulations it's a federal program uh nrcs has to adhere to the code of federal regulations So within the code there's all these uh definitions of prime farmland farmland is Statewide importance and there's just a little blurb about Farmland local importance and uh to paraphrase it it's it's simply areas of additional lands that means in addition to those lands or those soils that have National or Statewide importance which means Prime farmland or Farmland Statewide importance but in addition to those soils these areas are important for the production of a crop a food feed fiber forage or and or oil SE crop but here's the here's the kicker nrcs can't recognize these additional areas on its own because the codal Federal Regulation states that the lands are to be identified by the local agency or agencies concern and that's why I'm talking to you folks right now because even I do all the work I identify the soil types but nrcs has to have a a local partner to sign off on it to make it official so what it essentially what it is is it's this list of these soil Ser soil types that are not classes important in Farmland soils but they have evidence of suitability for Crop Production at least in some places where they're mapped so if they're acknowledged officially then they can be considered for the agricultural land eement program funding pretty straightforward I think so why why are we doing this I guess I'm kind of repeating myself here but the bottom line is if these additional soils are recognized and there's more potential for for farm land preservation funding eligibility it also provides a choice to the Farmland owner and of course the idea behind these programs is to help maintain the nation's agricultural capacity into the future and if the town is interested in um the things like rural character or preserving open space this this is a this is a way to do this this is another example of an area in a cushion these this is um these are Cranberry Bogs but they're not recognized as important Farmland soils and that Farmland local importance could catch those areas um so how how is it done if if firstly if I have assurance that the town will sign off on the work then I'll review the soil mapping throughout the town I and I do all this remotely I look at the aerial imagery the you know the historic imagery going back to about 1985 and I I look for evidence of crop production on these soils that are not that are mapped as not important Farmland soils once in a while I can't tell if a if a if a field is is hate or maybe it's just brush hog for wildlife management purposes and sometimes I I have to ask you know for for local knowledge but that's pretty rare then I just list the soil types and it goes onto a document one or one or two page document this is an example from the town of Barry and you'll see that there's this Preamble that reflects what's stated in the code of federal regulations and it shows basically this is these are the soil types that I saw evidence of crop production that are not mapped as important Farmland soil and then there's qualifiers attached to each one and the reason there are these qualifiers is typically just look at for an example um typically where this particular soil type is mapped in throughout Barry it's it's extremely Stony it's got it's limited you know how well in a cushion it's it's not as bad as in other parts of the state but and we have got some pretty Stony soils and it it's pretty typical throughout a lot of the areas that that's the case but there are places where they're not so Stony and they can be used for agriculture but we want to be able to separate out those areas that are mapped that are good for agriculture that from those areas that are not so that's what these qualifiers do they also ensure that people aren't going to drain wetlands in order to recording in progress did everybody hear that echo or was it just me computer sorry that was cool sounds like someone if if someone mutes that'll probably make the difference so anyway um am I there still yeah yeah what's going on oh my goodness all right sorry everybody that's all right one the one that kind of happened to me one time where I actually had two versions of the zoom meeting at the same time I think and it was sort of looping on itself yeah it wouldn't let me on and then it just connected everything see now you're yeah um so getting back to to the the qualifying conditions again you know if it if a soil formed under naturally wet conditions but it was drained historically for agriculture it gets grandfathered in but we don't want to encourage people to drain wetlands in order to qualify for this so we we've got this qualifier we're historically drained Etc so that's what those are about and then there's a there's a signatory section here and and there's two folks that sign off on this and that's Dan Wright who's the state conservationist for nrcs in Massachusetts and in the case of Barry it was the chair of the Conservation Commission and um that's all that's that what nrcs is asking of the town is a signatory to sign off on this to make it official uh the designations are a copy is is loaded onto What's called the um the nrcs field office technical guide where it's it's there it's stored it's it's publicly available and nrcs will refer to it when a um an ACC cushion Farmland owner is interested in applying for federally funded Farmland preservation so that the ask is to identify a signatory and that can be the Conservation Commission chair the Adcom share pretty much anyone who who represents the town's values with regard to agriculture or conservation or open space uh or small business and because after all farming is a small business in our part of the world um anyone U who fits that description can serve as the signatory so that's the ask um as of today what this may be meaningless to you folks but uh I'll I'll I'll offer it anyway I've been doing this for a little more than three years and there are now 89 towns in Massachusetts that have recognized Farm of local importance and this is this is the map here and um you know the the the initial Focus was in Western Massachusetts because there just happens to be a lot more farmline there and it in Southeastern Massachusetts there's generally not a lot of potential for Farm label local importance I estimate that in a kushit there's maybe you know probably no more than 200 or 250 Acres that if re that that would be recognized as Farmland of local importance so it's it's not a lot it's I I only say this because it's not a huge it's not a Panacea when it comes to Farmland preservation but if it helps one farm land owner to have the choice then I pursue it so thus here I am pursuing it um I guess that's about it uh do do folks have any questions I uh should I can I stop should I stop sharing or should I leave this up for reference in case there's questions about it you can leave it up Al anybody on the commission with questions comments uh just is uh would would saw millon be considered a farm iing a sawmill yeah uh because you're turning trees into Lumber is that considered a it's not considered an agricultural endeavor under the definition of Farmland of local importance because it's got to be a um the the the soils have to be important for the production of a food feed forage fiber or oil seed crop that said if if a parcel a parcel can have up to 66% Woodland to it to be eligible if the the Woodland contribut to the economic viability of the farm so in a sense it could contribute to eligibility but in of itself uh a sawmill is not considered uh Farmland uh okay forestry was is that land under that um again only to the point where if the the Woodland is contributing the contributes to the agricultural uh viability or the economic viability of the parcel the land has to have at least 33% uh crop land essentially land in Farmland so can you put a house on Farmland uh if it's if you put an you can put a house on Farmland sure if it's not under an easement if you if you decide if the land owner decid decides to accept money for a preservation easement or conservation easement then no that the the the land owner is is making the decision to have that land preserved so they pretty much can't do anything but um bomb on it they they can't do anything to uh compromise the the agricultural value the agricultural potential so that's what they're agreeing to do they're being compensated for that by accepting the fair market value development value of the land and that's the the Farmland land owner makes that decision it's like I'm gonna I want this land to be preserved into perpetuity so this is the decision I'm making okay so Sor I missed a lot all good an alternative for solar farming for people with that I don't know I I I don't know how that figured I mean I I would think that I don't know I shouldn't speak to those details because I don't know them a lot of farmers are doing solar Farms just because a lot of a lot I see that a lot I see a lot of viable agricultural land going into solar arrays and I I haven't I haven't taken the next step to look to see if any of them are under a a conservation easement or an agricultural easement um I'm guessing not because if and I don't know I I need to learn more about this because um I don't know how permanent solar arrays are I I think some of them can just be are just in place by gravity right I mean they're on a they're on a big concrete block and they just sit there others are anchored into the ground with pulse and I you know I I don't know how reversible that is but if it would if it were to compromise the um the the agricultural potential I would think would not be allowed no I'm just saying it's a good alternative for Farmers because they're trying to do something with their land and if they had this available I think it' be a different option than putting a solar field yeah you there must be more land and solar is than hey because I see all the time man but yeah so if they if they end up making this decision they only get paid once or they get an annual payment they get they get a I believe it's a lump sum yeah so there's probably a one time deal is there anybody in the audience that has any questions comments for Al yeah I have a question this is heid Espanola from PK Drive hi um hi so the reason why I'm on this meeting is because of all the solar farms in a cushion it and so if I had acres and acres of land and I wanted to do this and I don't but this is just I'm just trying to understand it what so I understand that my incentive to do this would be a payout y um who pays out this money to me who pays me this an the usda's natural resources conservation service pays 50 pays 50% of it to the partner entity that okay I don't know if you heard ear on it's a partnership program where nrcs Partners okay it's usually Mass Department resources so the part pays half and nrcs pays the other half and then do they does the the owners of the land does the town of a cant give any incentive for the Farmland to be turned over into this so nobody could put a solar farm on it I have no idea I I don't I I I understand this this I grew up in this town and the the way it's turning is really scary and I think some of these land owners who owns so many acres it's tough for them if they can't do anything with it they're sort of almost forced to sell yeah um to these solar farms and to me solar Farms I don't care if you want them on your roof but once you take down all these trees it's gone forever it's totally gone and then 20 years when the the panels are no longer good it's hazardous waste and the other thing is are these solar companies that's doing all this work going to be around in 20 years I I just think the town maybe too should also help these land owners make an in give them an incentive to not to sell because they need the money or they can't pay the taxes I don't know I'm just there's just too many solar solar farms in town way too many and that's my concern that's why I sit on a lot of these meetings I have them coming right behind me well I you know I can't speak for the town and what sort of incentives the town has I mean I I do know about chapter 61a which is um it's a tax break for farms and there's there's a similar tax break for forestry as well so the maybe the land owner could be with the NRC or what what calling this I'm sorry I didn't get I'm sorry it's nrcs natural resources conservation NCS okay um maybe I don't know I'm all forward if Farm owners want to do this anything to stop solar Farms yeah well it's you know again that's that's all I'm that's all I'm I'm I'm you know I have for the for the meetings thank you thank you doesn't sound like this is really going to compete with the solo though cuz solo keeps continuously paying and this is just one sum and then so if you f it there's no help be that you would have to go through nrca to to continue farming it to have helped farming um I'm not sure I understand the question I mean it's so if you make it deem it Farmland right or it's I think the question you're asking if if you if the landowner decide oh oh we de decide that these F of local important soils exist is that what you mean maybe I'm the one misunderstood but I'm so if you do you I think I think what he's trying what you're trying to say Eric is Eric right yeah um if I'm the farm owner I'm GNA get a one-time payout but if you put a solar farm you you're always getting money yes yeah pretty much so there's more of an incentive for the farmer to sell out to a solar farm versus I would say I would say unless unless the uh object is to preserve the land and keep it in the family and keep a the historic value of the Farmland um this is the viable option you know um that that would be my take on it I know I've talked to some farmers in town that you know they're they're a third or fourth generation family member working on the farm and uh this this would help them out um that's the way I looked at this you know so now the way you said it so what I'm getting so now you sell it to what this agency or whatever they pay you now you can still Farm it right oh yeah I mean that's the that's the whole point of it is so do that that it stays in agriculture so do you so would you have to apply for other assistance because we all know farming isn't very profitable there's a lot of expensives there's a lot of maintenance is on up to so what I'm getting at is would the nrcs this doesn't void anything that no absolutely not it it it the the the doesn't change anything except that the land it could preserve for agriculture it can it can still the farm land owner is still eligible for all USDA program benefits and and and can appeal and can uh ask for technical assistance from nrcs as well and there's Al there's all kinds of programs under the state's Mass Department of act resources too that uh farmers can can uh get assistance from can they down the road sell it can they sell it down the road if they decide to sell it they can sell it but the the Pres ation the ACT preservation stays with it it's it's written into the de forever forever they couldn't buy that out either no I I I've never heard of that ever happening it's it's the the current Farm landowner makes that decision that's it stays you forever essentially unless you know there's a right Congress that changes things and I don't see that happening so then even down the road if like we were talking generation and generation if a generation decided that they didn't want to try to maintain and keep up with their Farm they don't have an out anymore they just kind of stuck with yep that's the decision the family has to test away it's so this is probably really good for someone who has probably no family type of thing because they just got a lot of money and yeah it's it's certainly not for everybody I can tell you that uh well I've been told there are about a thousand Parcels across the state that have been uh preserved under the under the state's agricultural preservation restriction program that's the APR program and about a third of those were funded with USDA and RCS funding so some people people do take advantage of this some people make the choice to see their land preserved and others don't it's up to the land owner really so if the land owner decided to sell it the the new owner would know that like they don't own it is that well they they certainly the new owner owns it but right it in that cannot compromise the agricultural capacity capity of the land okay you could in essence pass it on when you pass away you could in essence pass that landal on long to a daughter or a son it's just going to stay in that status yes they can't be okay and a lot of a lot of times a landowner will will not put the entire parcel into preservation they'll reserve a couple of house lots for family members or what have you that that's up to the land to split however they want yeah because they couldn't put any buildings up or nothing after the fact correct so they could would they be able to put a bond like if they wanted to do an yeah there's there's a lot my my understanding is that that there's um there's allowances for for that sort of thing that you know contributes to the agricultural Endeavor of the of the of the operation but you couldn't put a house no you couldn't put in a house or drive-in theater or you know a Walmart or whatever that's that that's the entire point is the landowner of the program is to is is the landowner has makes that choice it's like okay you know I the landowner values the land is agriculture and op open space more than more than other things and makes that decision and so if a land owner does do that does the town does anybody on the committee know if the town if their taxes go down my understanding is I don't I I don't expect the Conservation Commission to be able to answer that question uh unless well maybe somebody has some know that's all if it's Farmland if it's deemed Farmland they're already get in a tax break yeah they're probably getting a lower tax rate under chap 61a which is yeah you get a it's a much larger tax break like my my understanding is that uh certainly the the designation recognition of these additional lands that are important for agriculture doesn't change any tax rate and putting the land into uh an agricultural preservation does not change the tax rate it doesn't the the landowner doesn't get a break for doing it that's as far as I understand know I mean an individual town could certainly do that if it so choose if it so chose but I uh and if you put if you deem the land farm yeah you you would get um tax breaks but you have you have to sh that's why I was asking about being able to farm it and it's not just preservation the soil because the only way to get the tax break is you have to show a certain amount of money money coming in through that piece Apostle yeah that's my understanding under chapter 61a yeah making a it's not very much I and I I Hazard to guess how much it is it's only you know it's not you don't have to show that you're making a lot no no it's 250 bucks I believe in out town okay so as long as you show like you could sell $250 worth of head right and then it and as long as it's deemed fand you can um get a significant tax break or you can even do eggs or whatever the case may be yeah so I guess it does I guess we could rephrase our past statement so at the end it does kind of pay pay throughout like solo does because now you're getting significant tax breaks yeah yeah but a lot of farmers choose to allow solar arrays on Hayfield I see it all I see it all the time so there must be it's easy no maintenance yeah you know you know you lease you lease the solo company you land they take care of everything they do everything you check so it's it's it's obviously people are smart enough to run the numbers to see it is to their benefit and they make that decision you know the hope with this program is that people decide to um receive a monetary value for a promise to keep the land in agriculture yep Bob uh Bob spoon you have any questions comments for Al while no we're all set okay um well Allan told me he has another meeting to uh to attend um I I spoke with the with the chairman of the Agricultural commission um spoke with the chairman of the select board they were they were both all for this um I I like it I'm all for it um well with that being said I'll I I guess I'll do a formal vote I'll entertain a motion to accept the designation of farmland of local importance yeah so moved uh so moved Brian second is is a second from Heidi okay H roll call vote idy P here Douglas Thomas I filler I Christian duza I Eric dear's OB Stein Ryan rendes that's an i for me um Al I'll gladly uh gladly sign that for you okay great I will I'll do the conduct the review of the soils and the luse in the town and I'll have that document to you I'll email it to you in a within a month sounds good to me thank you very much I really appreciate your time and your support and thanks for the service to your town it's it's people forget how much of a commitment it is to to serve on a on a local border commission so thank you thanks all right be well folks you as well bye now thank you bye all right um well I guess the only thing we got we have a regularly scheduled meeting uh so that that would be our next meeting that's uh Wednesday May 8th and at um 600 p.m. at the police station um I'll entertain a motion to adjourn second so move yeah second all those in favor all right roll call vote chrisa I Douglas Thomas I that was great and Ryan rendes is an i all right guys thank you [Music] [Applause] a [Music]