Testimony of GrowSmart Maine in support of LD 1450, An Act Regarding the Voluntary Municipal Farm Support Program
May 6, 2025
Senator Talbot-Ross Representative Pluecker, and Honorable Members of the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry,
My name is Nancy Smith, I live in Ellsworth, and I am the CEO of GrowSmart Maine. We are a statewide non-partisan non-profit organization helping communities navigate change in alignment with smart growth. We advocate for comprehensive policies and funding for smart growth practices and outcomes.
We support the proposed changes to the current Voluntary Municipal Farm Support program because it will broaden its use, to the benefit of farmers and their neighbors. When I lived in Monmouth, we became the second town to adopt the ordinance for this program, but still have not have farmers sign on.
While the bill language appears to be new, that is simply denoting its move to a more appropriate statute. There are two changes proposed:
- Reduce from twenty to ten years, the minimum length of a qualifying easement. This will make the program more appealing to farmers because it eases this requirement, while we can agree that ten years is still a significant commitment.
- Moves the decision-making for individual farm applications to municipal staff or elected officials, rather than a town-wide vote. This provides a professional level of review not currently a part of the program.
The purpose of this program is to provide financial support in recognition of the economic, environmental, social and fiscal values provided by farmers to their community, while also reducing the fiscal burden of new development in rural areas. While Maine is striving to create more housing, we must also be protecting farmland from sprawling development. I have attached an American Farmland Trust Fact Sheet that outlines the risks of such development. Providing property tax relief through this program is one more way we can ensure the financial viability of Maine’s farms.