Agriculture in a Changing Climate

Galen Nelson
Wonderful. Well, good afternoon, everyone. I would like to welcome my guests today, Dave Schmidt and Julie Fine, and everyone joining today at MassCEC and beyond. This is the sixth edition of this MassCEC Speaker Series, where we highlight experts, pioneers, and practitioners from a variety of existing and emerging climate tech sectors and disciplines, as well as subject matter experts who can provide insights into the broader economic, social, and technological dynamics shaping our industry. Today, we are talking about agriculture in Massachusetts and around the world in the face of a changing climate, how farmers are adapting, and how the innovation community is responding. Before I turn to Julie and Dave, I am going to set the table for our conversation today, as I do each month.

Galen Nelson
For those of you who are wondering why the Mass Clean Energy Center is interested in highlighting agriculture and ag tech, the agriculture industry contributes about 11% of emissions nationally and about the same percentage globally. Though far less here in Massachusetts, about 1%. The emissions relative to those associated with the energy sector, the buildings and the transportation sector, from agriculture are indeed quite modest. Nevertheless, we care deeply about the sector for a variety of reasons. We have an opportunity to demonstrate climate-friendly farming techniques and technologies that can be deployed and scaled elsewhere for far larger impacts on emissions. It is also important to remember that soil management best practices that optimize carbon sequestration can make a significant contribution to the state\'s greenhouse gas reduction targets. Strengthening and decarbonizing agriculture in Massachusetts helps protect farmland, an important cultural component of our landscape, and strengthens our regional food system. I was surprised to learn that Massachusetts farms provide about four to five percent of the food we consume here in the Commonwealth.

Galen Nelson
Finally, with MassCEC\'s expanded mandate under the recently passed climate bill here in Massachusetts, our efforts can now begin to reach beyond mitigation and into the realms of adaptation and resilience. We can begin to include agriculture among the many sectors we consider as we think about new materials, technologies, equipment, and modeling approaches necessary to adapt to our changing climate, including farms and farmers, to help them become more resilient to a variety of increased risks to agriculture posed by our changing climate. We may have an extended growing season, thanks to a warming climate, but we are also subject to a lot more severe weather, including extreme rainfall events. Many of you tuning in today may remember the heavy rains in the summer of 2023 that devastated farms across central Massachusetts, leading to massive crop failures.

Galen Nelson
A bit of housekeeping before we start. Again, for those listening in, feel free to drop questions in the Q&A. We will reserve some time at the end of the conversation with Dave and Julie to try and address as many of those questions as we can. With that, I am very happy to welcome my guests again, Dave Schmidt with the Department of Agricultural Resources, and Julie Fine with the American Farmland Trust. Thank you both so much, Dave and Julie, for joining me today. I am really happy to have this conversation with you. Dave, why do not we start with you? I think the history is kind of interesting here. I remember hearing this first from my dad, actually, and then reading about it. My understanding is that New England was at one point, many centuries ago, nearly covered with forest, and then the land converted to agricultural uses over time. Now much of that land has reverted to forests. Of course, we still have farming, but that cycle has occurred. Is that sound accurate to you? That is my sense of the history of the region and how the land use has changed.

David Schmidt
I think in that time period, I think that is right. There are interesting pieces of artwork that are kept by others about those scenes and changes over time as well. Interesting.

Galen Nelson
Great. I was wondering if you could share with us, just to level set the conversation, provide a snapshot for listeners of the farming landscape and industry in Massachusetts. I think a lot of people just are not aware, particularly people who live in urban areas and suburban areas. What is the scale of the agricultural industry in Massachusetts? How many farms are there? What are those farmers growing, and how much land does it occupy?

David Schmidt
There is an agricultural census that is put out. What I will try to do here is just give some high-level figures on what the scene is like in Massachusetts without comparison to elsewhere, but it is available, those finer details. At a high level, there are roughly 7,000 farms currently in Massachusetts. On a percentage basis, about 14% of those farms are hay farms, 13% vegetable, 12% horses, fruit, tree, nut, and berry, including cranberry, about 12%, and then greenhouses, farms that are greenhouses primarily, about 12%. Those are the top areas of or types of farms. I should say it is a very diverse mix in the state, which is not necessarily the case across the country. They are pretty clustered around that level of 14 to 12%. Again, 7,000 farms. In terms of the area, it is about a half million acres of land. I will say a little bit more about that later on. About 20% of that is hay, 16% in fruit, 10% dairy, 10% beef production, and then 10% vegetables. Getting back to your earlier comment about the percentage of food that comes from the state, you could sort of see it in that mix and understand the amount of area it is taking up, again a half million acres. Roughly, it is more like 460,000, I think, according to that last census. In terms of economic value, just to complete this snapshot, it is about \$600 million of agricultural product that is produced each year per annum. That is about 1% of the state GDP. To give a further sense of that, roughly 27% of that comes from the nursery sector, 22% from fruit and tree, 20% from veg, 10% from milk. Skipping down to the bottom, 6% from hay, which, again, was the largest amount of area that was taken up by hay. Perhaps it is not for sale. Perhaps it is for feed for dairy and cattle. If you want to start asking those questions and pulling it apart, the census is a great place to dive into those details and try to figure out what the volume is on this particular set of activity in this state. Some really interesting information in there.

Galen Nelson
I just did a quick Google search. I was not aware of this. About five million acres of land in Mass. You said half a million, so about 5% roughly. That is interesting. That is a bit more than I thought. Thank you for that, Dave. That is really helpful for us to basically understand the basics and get a sense of farming in Mass.

Galen Nelson
Julie, let us turn to you now and get at some of these climate impacts. I referenced the severe weather. I think a lot of people are aware of that. That has been fairly well covered, I think. Fortunately, there has been good news coverage of the impacts of extreme weather on farming and farmers in the state. I am wondering if you could weigh in on that a little bit and talk about the impacts of climate change on farming, particularly here in Massachusetts, but perhaps more broadly in the northeast. What are the threats that farmers are facing? I have certainly heard about pest migration, challenges with pollination. I wonder if you could just weigh in on that and educate our listeners about that.

Julie Fine
Overall, there are two major themes, water and heat, which I do not think will surprise anyone who lives here in Massachusetts. I think the cascade of consequences is really hidden. Obviously, we have too much water all at once, as you mentioned, flooding, and erosion. What that leads to is pretty massive nutrient loss. Farmers put fertilizer down, and it washes away, becomes unavailable, and they have to sort of re-up that investment, which can be a pretty major cost to farms. That has environmental consequences, obviously, damage to soil structure. There are all of the management consequences of too much water, the impossibility of getting in a field to harvest or to transplant the next round of things, difficulty keeping things weeded or sprayed. On the opposite end of things, we are also seeing droughts, early spring droughts or late fall droughts. Last year, we had a lot of farmers who could not get a cover crop established in the fall because it was just dry for months, and that is really unheard of around here. The consequences of not having a cover crop, there are a lot of people who rely on that for feed, for soil health management.

Julie Fine
This also leads to this large increased demand for irrigation. There are issues around water sources, and then major investments in irrigation infrastructure, which not every farm is planning for or can afford. We have all the extreme heat, which we have all lived through the last few days, which is dangerous to humans, dangerous for animals, damages crops, can really increase certain pest problems, although it does oddly decrease a few other pest problems. Certain crops are just becoming not viable in the seasons that we usually grow them. Lots of growers, vegetable growers, are giving up on broccoli and cauliflower and lettuce that we used to grow all summer long. The extreme heat will just kill those things. At the intersection of too much water and too much heat is humidity, which can be a major issue for pathogens and also for human health. I could go on and on, wind, pollination, wildfire smoke, and how all of those things interact to really threaten farm viability.

Galen Nelson
That is terrifying and distressing. This is a real challenge. Dave, we did not get into this, but the economic viability of farms, my very superficial understanding of farms, at least here in Massachusetts, and perhaps nationally, is that many really struggle financially. They have to figure out ways to maximize production on their land, to grow specialty crops to make up for other losses. It is a hard business. It can be a very beautiful business and an important part of family culture and community culture. But it is a really hard business. To have these multiple threats, that has got to hurt financially. Perhaps I am just stating the obvious, but I think it is important to underscore for folks that this is not an industry with a lot of economic resilience. There is very little margin, and these increasing threats from climate change can really probably cause some farms to shut down entirely, I assume.

Galen Nelson
Dave, how is the state responding? I remember hearing Governor Healey talking a lot about the fund that was put together to help provide relief to farmers impacted by the flooding. This is a softball question to you, Dave. What is MDAR doing to help farmers? Maybe you could highlight a program or two. I see a lot of renewables on farms. I like to buy my meat and produce and cheese at Chase Hill Farm in Warwick, Mass. I see a lot of solar at that farm. I know that MDAR has helped a lot of farmers look at mostly solar, but perhaps other renewables. I think some anaerobic digestion as well. If you could just talk a little bit about how MDAR helps farmers, perhaps one or two examples.

David Schmidt
Sure. To just take a step back to your comments about economic systems and impacts, they are entirely spot on. Not a small part of what has gone on in the last 25 years, and the prognosis for the next quarter century as well. To put some numbers around it again, going back to that census, about 20% of farmland was lost in a 25 year period from the standpoint of 2022. That is really significant. What to do there? There are development pressures. There is the aging workforce. I think it is just under 60 years old is the average farmer age. You think about transitions and what that looks like to the next generation or something else. It is all in that same ball. I think American Farmland Trust had a document out saying that looking forward, if nothing changes, another 20% will be lost in roughly that same timeframe. It is certainly another kind of snapshot, looking through the history books, but also trying to get into that crystal ball, what is in the future?

David Schmidt
Some of the way that the state has responded, and in particular MDAR, digesting all these different systems and impacts, it picks up on those threads as well. It is looking at farmland protection. Not a small project. I think roughly maybe 80,000 acres of land are protected. It is a good chunk of land and protection. There is a strong partnership on the federal level with funding to do that as well. I think that is a pretty key program. When it comes to climate specifically, there is an umbrella program of Climate Smart Agricultural Practices. Within that, the idea is to focus on ways to build resiliency, but also to mitigate emissions from farms. The focus there will be on looking at the energy. In terms of programs for competitive grants for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, those are all within CSAP. Even still, some of the things we have been touching on, projects that address the under the heading of Environment on Farms, so improving water use, being stewards of resources, a whole array of climate smart ag practices, building this soil health and adding organic material into the soil to build resiliency for the storms that we have been talking about, the droughts that we have been talking about, in a basic way, helping to manage those extremes of heat and water, all under that heading of the Climate Smart Agricultural Program.

Galen Nelson
It sounds like from my observation, too, is that you have some clever marketing people at MDAR. I saw a program to help you reduce your carbon paw print. That was very cute. I think someone is having fun over there in your marketing division. That is a good way to get people more involved in thinking about the carbon emissions associated with agriculture and farms and farming and help farmers reduce those emissions. That is great, thanks Dave. That is a nice overview.

Galen Nelson
I do want to pivot a bit here and talk a little bit about the tech side of the equation here. Here at the Mass Clean Energy Center, we have funded a good number of ag tech startups over the last decade or so, about a dozen. A number of us recently visited Clean Crop in Holyoke, Mass., which is a very interesting ag tech company. We have seen a lot of plays, a lot of proposals related to soil health and seed and soil manipulation, to electrification of farm equipment, to microdosing of fertilizer and irrigation, to interesting innovative approaches to soil carbon sequestration, as well as some ocean based approaches, some kelp and seaweed farming innovation. We will probably not get into this much today. I would love to invite you both to maybe talk about some of the ag tech that you are seeing. Maybe what excites you the most, maybe one or two examples of either a particular company or just the type of technology. A lot of what I think we need, at least what I have heard from farming experts, is just more advanced farming techniques. There are certainly some technologies as well, or some protocols and approaches that can be beneficial and help farmers adapt to a changing climate. Maybe, Julie, we could start with you if you would love to just invite you to talk about your favorite ag tech approaches, if you will.

Julie Fine
In some ways, it feels like most of those technologies are kind of fundamental. They are addressing irrigation or crop protection, like growing in greenhouses or automated climate controls for those greenhouses, more efficient cooling methods. In some ways, talking about it as like technology feels like it does not look that fancy in the field, I guess, is sort of what I am saying. I think a great example is a real need and interest in solar irrigation pumps. Right now a lot of farmers use these diesel pumps which crank through a lot of diesel and pollute significantly. There are definitely cleaner ways to do that, but they are not as easy to set up as diesel pumps. It requires investment and planning to do that.

Julie Fine
I would say that methane digesters are a really important technology in Massachusetts. Our dairy industry is dwindling, and methane digesters are a way to both increase efficiency, keep nutrients on the farm, and keep methane out of our atmosphere, which is critical. There is a lot of really basic equipment that would increase conservation practices in Massachusetts, where it is something that farmers might not use every day. But if they had more affordable access to those things, they would adopt these conservation practices. One example is a no-till seed drill, which helps farmers get cover crops planted quickly and efficiently. Farms that own those seed drills cover crop at like a ten times rate compared to farms who do not. That is a pretty significant technology as far as I am concerned. Another thing I have heard dairy farmers talking about is baleage equipment. Baleage is when you are baling hay or corn to keep moisture out in case it is really raining, so you cannot dry things as well as you used to. That kind of equipment is actually really expensive, and dairy farmers in general do not have \$100,000 lying around, or they are already really leveraged. There are a lot of technologies that are really important and being used actively and successfully, and some investments are preventing that.

Julie Fine
The other two things I just wanted to mention were climate battery greenhouses, which utilize the earth as a thermal storage system. You have air circulating through pipes buried underneath the greenhouse that either store excess heat during the day and draw that back into the air at night to warm the air. That is a carbon neutral technology that I think has not been adopted as widely as I would like to see. One of the systems, there is this at most greenhouse systems, which was a company that is a farmer engineer. I love to see that kind of thing where farmers are bringing their expertise to the engineering side of it. Another thing, it is not exactly a technology, but diversification, I think, is a really important thing to mention here. Crop diversification. That might be like making hard cider if you are growing apples, or diversifying markets, or agroforestry or solar. I think that utilizing existing technologies to diversify is also essential. I could go on and on here. I might just say two more things. One is that when you talk to farmers, the number one climate adaptation that farmers report is investing in soil health, which is a technology. Healthy soils are capable of supporting healthy ecosystems and protecting farms from these climate impacts and protecting the surrounding environment from consequences as well. Investing in organic matter as Dave was talking about, using mulch to protect the soil, reducing soil disturbance which means developing different tillage systems. I think that those strategies to invest in soil health are the number one thing that farmers are finding helpful in facing climate change.

Galen Nelson
That is really great. We are going to come back to some of those topics in a second. First, I want to invite you, Dave. Is there anything you want to add to that list? Any technologies or approaches or protocols?

David Schmidt
A lot of my favorites were covered already. Maybe I will think more about design principles and recognize who my audience is. With a little of those things, what I really like are those technologies that find waste streams and make great use out of them. Whether it is waste heat, or it is all the food scraps with the Mass food ban, you cannot throw food in the trash.

Galen Nelson
Organic waste ban. Thank you.

David Schmidt
Systems like digesters that pull those in, I just think they are exquisitely beautiful in what they are doing, taking waste and turning into something very useful. The other side, maybe one that is a little bit more conventionally in that space of technology and thinking about innovation. I think it was about a year ago, I was hearing some promising stuff about solar panels, making photovoltaic panels, and some really bombastic claims that if these were put on all of the existing nurseries across whatever it was, the country, such that now we are generating electricity with these little PN junctions, but also what passes through is perfectly fine for the plants. Some big statements here. Let us run with that assumption. Stuff is already built. We are simply taking the glazing away, putting on these new solar panels. There is enough power generated from that not just for that sector, but for a massive amount of power use for the country. That is again very bombastic. That kind of innovation, I think, is really interesting. We are not talking about really difficult solutions. Stuff that gets laid onto the existing built environment has, I think, a lot of promise. Things in that vein also kind of excite me. I think probably would get innovators and policymakers also pretty excited about. Here is a solution that is not super tough to add seventeen things into the grinder and come up with something that looks good to everybody.

Galen Nelson
Thanks, Dave. That is a good reminder. I remember hearing about this innovation myself, panels that allow a certain amount of the visible light to transmit or to pass through to allow plants to grow, as opposed to agrivoltaics, which we will get into a bit, which are essentially conventional solar panels that are just ground mounted, but at a higher height to allow perhaps more shade tolerant crops, and in some cases livestock, to pass beneath them. Thanks for that reminder.

Galen Nelson
I did want to dig into the innovation process, but also some cultural issues. Maybe I am just thinking about it in the moment that maybe we could have this quick conversation in the context of no-till. This represents my understanding of it. I think about the challenges with regard to building decarbonization often. It is not a technology challenge, but there is also a cultural challenge. How do you get building owners, whether they are very large building owners that have dedicated building managers, to change the way that they think about managing and maintaining and operating a building, down to the smallest homeowner? Yes, there is a technology challenge, but there is also a behavioral and cultural challenge. Is that part of what we are facing here? There is a need for more peer-to-peer exchange and a cultural shift where farmers, some of whom may be just old fashioned and resistant to new ways of doing things, but where no-till can provide real benefits. What are the challenges and opportunities to move an industry like that in a direction toward practices that are more appropriate and adaptive relative to climate change?

Julie Fine
It is a really good question. No-till is both a cultural and a technical shift. There is different equipment required. You cannot just use the same equipment you already own. It does require either shifting over your entire operation to that strategy, which is risky to do all at once, or investing in a whole new set of equipment. You need a no-till seed drill. You need a different type of fertilizer applicator. There is a lot, almost entirely different equipment. I think that shift can be really challenging for people. The idea of finding ways to loan equipment, to share equipment, could be something that would ease that transition. It also is a cultural thing. It is like trying anything new where you are like, is this going to work? When your margins are already really thin, I think that is really difficult. If there are ways that we can find to support farmers while they are making that shift, that is going to help. I think you are 100% right that farmer to farmer connection is one of the most effective ways to do that. For example, I work with a group of farmers. We have this program that is called Farmer Led Innovations in Reduced Tillage, which is not no-till. I am actually a big fan of just reducing tillage and not eliminating it entirely because it does not work for every crop to do no-till. This is just convening these peer cohorts, where people work together for two years. They meet in a group, and they talk about different strategies they have used and what has been successful and what has not been. That exchange, I think, is really not just a technical exchange, but it is also a lot of social support and inspiration. Listening to a lot of these farmers, they are like, once I started thinking about this, I was like, I can figure that out. I think that is one of the most important things we can do, to really take advantage of the fact that farmers are experts in their field. They are the ones who know the most about it. If we can get them talking and inspired and sharing their successes, that is critical.

Galen Nelson
I think you just honed in on a good bumper sticker, Julie. Farmers, experts in their field. Sorry, that was awful.

Julie Fine
I liked it.

Galen Nelson
That is good, at least one person. Dave, you want to weigh in on that as well, on this notion of no-till, just technology adoption generally? It sounds like the state does have a program to help farms and farmers move toward more sustainable practices. I would just love to invite you to react to this thread as well.

David Schmidt
I think what I could really do is just amplify what Julie already touched on. Maybe to make a sound bite out of it, maybe there is a culture that we do not want to change, but need to just sort of understand better. I think that is a culture of being a savvy businessperson to some extent, recognizing that risk is real, and my margin is quite small. The thing that we are talking about right now is a little bit distant from, in my imagination, a connection to something practical, useful, and that will not disrupt in a negative way what I have got going on here to make sure that things pencil out. I think that informs policy. I think that the way that MDAR in general approaches the sector has that kind of learning and mindset of, it has got to be about removing barriers upfront and being smart about how that gets done.

Galen Nelson
That is great. Thanks, Dave. Let us talk a little bit about the feedback loops in our realm where we are funding a lot of emerging technologies and emerging markets. We often talk about the feedback loop between the private sector and innovators. In some sectors, that feedback loop is very rich and robust. There is this constant dialogue between the private sector entities, articulating and identifying their pain points, their challenges, their struggles, sharing that with innovators, and then innovators reacting. That is how you generate this incredible pipeline of new ideas and solutions. Something you said, Julie, made me think that maybe there is an opportunity for improvement here. The no-till approach is, yes, some of it is technique, but some of it involves equipment. I thought I heard you say that not only is that equipment expensive, but there may be an opportunity for some of it to be better, or for there to be more options. What might that look like? Should we be putting forth a challenge to innovators to come up with better, more cost effective, higher performing no-till equipment? Are there other areas where there are challenges that farmers have, either just straight up challenges related to their day to day businesses or business operation, or challenges that are specific to a changing climate, where maybe there is an opportunity to better articulate those challenges to relevant innovators and do something to improve the robustness and the excitement around that kind of a feedback loop?

Julie Fine
One of the things as Dave is describing the loss of farmland over the last 20 years, what has come with that is a loss of equipment dealerships. A lot of them have moved to New York and Pennsylvania. If you talk to farmers around here, and you say you should really try doing some no-till, they cannot find equipment within a four hour drive. That is a big investment in time and trialing things out. I would say that there is a real opportunity there. I collaborate a lot with Lincoln Fishman at Momentum Ag, who is doing trials around no-till and strip till. One of the main things that we come across is farmers who say, I bought this thing off the shelf, and what I really need is to tweak it in this way to make it work, or I need it to be three rows instead of two rows. That kind of collaboration is really hard to come by. The expertise of people who can modify equipment, there is not enough of it here. I definitely see a real lack of that feedback loop between farmers and that tech sector.

Julie Fine
There are a lot of other issues. I think that part of it, not to be too cynical, with such small margins, and just describing the percentage of our state GDP that agriculture constitutes, I think it is not the most lucrative market. One of my worries is that there is not that relationship because it is just not as fruitful for investors. My hope is that we can find ways to invest in farms because we see their value in terms of the environmental contributions, the ecosystem function that they provide to our society, and to our goal of producing 30% of our food regionally in the next, what is it, 15 years? 20 years?

Galen Nelson
2035.

Julie Fine
I would say that one of the things that I am excited about is that AFD has been hosting these, we call them No More Normal conversations with farmers, where we invite farmers to sit and talk amongst farmers, and we invite other people to come listen, but not talk too much. We invite everyone, folks from MDAR, from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, from fertilizer dealerships, to just come and listen to what climate impacts farmers are experiencing, and those farmers share their strategies for dealing with those problems amongst each other. I think that is one way that we are trying to increase the feedback loop between what farmers are experiencing. They are often socially isolated. They are working 80 hours a week on their farms. They are not running around having inspiring business meetings. I think that we can also find ways to listen to farmers and to figure out more what they need.

Galen Nelson
Thank you for mentioning that last piece, Julie. I had planned to mention that as well. What you hear a lot from folks like Richard Florida and others, you have got this bump factor in urban areas where you have innovators bumping into mentors and investors and serial entrepreneurs. In that environment, innovation is kind of an automatic byproduct. Farmers are isolated by definition. It is not surprising that the feedback loops and the ability to connect with entrepreneurs and innovators would be more challenging and fewer and far between.

Galen Nelson
This is great. I really appreciate the reference to Momentum. I think, Dave, you were definitely the first person to flag them for me. That is a really exciting effort and organization. It is somewhat reminiscent, I think, of our Innovate Mass program where we connect innovators with demonstration site partners. This to me feels like the equivalent in the agricultural realm. I am really excited to connect more with Momentum going forward.

Galen Nelson
Let us pivot a little bit to policy. We obviously have a very new and, I suspect, suboptimal policy environment at the federal level now. How do you see farming policy changing at the federal level? How do you think it will impact Massachusetts farms? Are there one or two examples that come to mind? Are there some areas of more forward thinking or climate oriented farming policy that you think might actually gain bipartisan support? If you have any thoughts, if you do not, we will move on to the next question.

Julie Fine
There are no good answers here. I would say my general impression is that this administration knows it cannot abandon farmers, but support will be couched more in terms of viability and disaster response in comparison to sustainability or climate adaptation or mitigation. I think the federal government is going to leave it to the states to do more of that conservation work. I am really concerned. We have already seen cuts to the Conservation Innovation Grant funding through the USDA NRCS, which is something that my organization counts on to run all the programs that I have mentioned. Our Farmer Led Innovations program has been funded through Conservation Innovation Grants. There are not any out there for 2025-26. That is a real concern. There are also threats to Regional Conservation Partnership Programs and other things that are just really important in terms of building the capacity of farmers and those of us who support farmers. There is the Farm Bill, which I do not think is beyond the scope of my expertise. I think it is a really important chance to support farmers and food systems in responding to climate change and all of these other challenges. I think that there are some real concerns about how that is being negotiated now.

Galen Nelson
Anything you want to add to that, Dave?

David Schmidt
Briefly, federal policy specifically is not really my lane. I will just echo what I think I have seen in some local news cycles. Consistency is a key issue. We have seen some things that have changed, but only for a brief period of time. That stirred up a lot in the farming community in particular, with projects that were resting on funds for renewable energy projects. Even a window of four months of delay can be really, really tough. That really just funnels into a wish list. On the other side, another hope is to return focus to the snapshot of crisis of farmland disappearing. Hopefully, the funds for protecting farmland can be institutionalized. I think that is a foundational element to what we are talking about. Climate impacts will not have any, if there are not simply put farms, an impact on, which is a strange way to say that. That is where my mind goes thinking about the intersection of federal policy, federal funds, and state work, and things that are, I think, of paramount importance.

Galen Nelson
I did note, Julie, I also ran across that USDA program, and I thought that looked wonderful, actually. I had been unaware of it. It looked like a really exemplary program, one supporting innovation on farms. That is really unfortunate. It is also the type of program that Massachusetts awardees would have been eligible for matching funds from MassCEC in many cases, eligible under our Amplify Mass program, which provides matching funds for Massachusetts entities seeking federal support for climate related innovations. That is unfortunate.

Galen Nelson
We talked quite a bit about no-till. I certainly would invite you, Julie, if you want to add anything more about no-till. I did want to just touch on a couple of hot topics as we round out our time here. Agrivoltaics. I know that UMass Amherst has developed some real expertise around this. I have seen a few farms adopt, both livestock and vegetable farms in the state, which is kind of interesting. We would just love to invite either or both of you to weigh in on either of those topics, kind of quick hits. If you have anything to add or reactions to those topics.

Julie Fine
I have been collaborating with UMass on this five year research project funded by the US Department of Energy on agrivoltaics in Massachusetts. This is the practice of simultaneously using land for ag production and solar power production. It has been an idea for quite a while, and the practice of it is fairly new. We are just starting to see data from actual farming systems. It is really good for some crops. I have seen, we have seen a lot of successes in the grazing world, especially sheep, and that is really exciting. I think a lot of folks who are working on more annual production vegetables are still having to really experiment and figure out what crops really fit in that system. We are also seeing that solar arrays are not all the same, they are really different. There are arrays that have tracking systems where they are maximizing the amount of light that is captured by the panels, double sided panels which are absorbing a lot more light, which seem to be much more effective. Those tracking arrays are much better, too, because if there is a critical period of time where your crop needs maximum sun, or it has been cloudy for a week, and you cannot afford to have the panels interfering with any light penetration, you can actually tilt them up and make them vertical so that your crop gets maximum.

Galen Nelson
Interesting.

Julie Fine
The specific technologies of those arrays is evolving. I think American Farmland Trust has this Smart Solar program that is working really hard to sort of see what rises to the top in terms of those technologies.

Galen Nelson
To be clear, when you talk about which crops make sense, there is a shade tolerance issue. For the farmer, there is an upside financially. They are reducing their energy costs. Maybe there is a little bit of a trade off. Maybe there is an impact on crop yields. Maybe for some crops there is an increase in crop yields. That is why I find them interesting.

Julie Fine
Yeah.

Galen Nelson
Dave, anything to add?

David Schmidt
It is a great example of innovation. You are going to put what on what and expect it to work. Let us see. As Julie is laying out the evolution of that, do not necessarily concretize your idea about what it is or should be. Follow the information. What are the results? How does it look? Another interesting case example in respect to what it offers the farm. We talked a lot about economic viability. It could potentially answer a piece of that puzzle for certain farms as well. It is an interesting case study for sure. I think it is still very much the situation of sample sizes of one for pros and cons. It is really tough. I think things will emerge. Blueberry bushes 50% yield, leafy greens does great during a drought season because we have this extra shading. I think those need to filter through. The feedback loops that we are talking about continue to inform what the basic infrastructure looks like, what operating underneath it looks like, and letting some of that dust settle. I will leave it there.

Julie Fine
One last thought. It does offer a type of crop insurance. You are still getting your solar crop if your other crops fail. I think there is this really false idea among the general public that crop insurance protects all farmers. It is not true. It is very specific. It works really well for commodity crops. It works well for certain other crops. Most farmers in the state are not able to take advantage of crop insurance. That idea of using agrivoltaics as a way to have a steady income stream is really appealing to a lot of people.

Galen Nelson
That is certainly my sense of how many farmers in the Midwest view wind power. It is an additional revenue stream or an insurance against those weaker, more difficult years. That is interesting.

Galen Nelson
I do want to pivot to the questions. I want to touch on one other issue, which I think is two related issues. One very topical is the recent win by Mamdani in the New York City mayoral primary. I think very interesting that a candidate won who, one of the major emphases, one of his major campaign platform planks, was running on this notion of public grocery stores, which is something that I think first emerged in Latin America. This also somewhat relates to this regional goal that the New England states have to produce a lot more food regionally. I believe the goal is 30% of our food production by, I believe it is 2030 or 2035.

Julie Fine
I hope it is 2035.

Galen Nelson
It is 2035. This seems like a very ambitious goal. I invite you both to weigh in on maybe an observation about the Mamdani win in New York. I think that is an interesting signal that someone who ran on a very progressive food policy issue won the New York City mayoral primary. On this idea of a regional food production target, how are we going to get there? What kind of policy frameworks do we need? What kind of supports do farmers need? It seems like a really big challenge.

Julie Fine
Big question. This is also not my area of expertise. I might just say that issues of food security and farm security are intertwined, obviously. I think that where we can achieve both of those goals simultaneously is really important. Farmers often feel, we see a lot of issues around food scarcity. We also hear a lot from farmers saying that they have a sort of fickle population. If strawberries are cheaper from California, people buy them from California. They want strawberries all year round, and then when their strawberries are in, they do not get them because they are kind of tired because they ate them from California all winter. Farmers have a lot of examples of how they wish the community was more committed to them in terms of purchasing. I do not have any answers. I would say that there was this environmental bond filed by Governor Healey\'s office this week called the Mass Leads Act. It is a huge environmental investment. I think it is like \$2.9 billion that covers infrastructure investing in local economies, including local food and local seafood, and helping communities prepare for climate change. All those things are wrapped into this one environmental bond bill. That is something that I am hopeful about.

Galen Nelson
Great thanks, Julie. Dave, you want to jump in on that topic at all, the regional objective?

David Schmidt
I lost zoom, but it came right back. I suppose if there is a joke, I was unfortunate that Julie was taking the first pass at that one to try to give me some more time. That is what it was doing, give me a little more time. Then when zoom shut down, it is like, wow, the universe is giving me even more time to try to distill thought. I do not have anything distilled, or maybe even that articulate. Just going back to what you were originally posing, maybe it is not that surprising about voters voting in that way, or something quite so fundamental as food. When you strip it all away, it is pretty basic. It is very much in need. I started to spend a little bit in my mind just thinking about the way that you opened the call to thinking about tree coverage, about going back 22,000 years ago to 14,000 years ago, there was a mile of ice over this area. There were not trees. In fact, it was scraped down to bedrock. The Cape looks like it does for a particular reason. Walden Pond is there for a particular reason. Drumlin Farm is a drumlin for a particular reason. With the arc of our conversation today, I think if we are going to be innovative, we need to focus on those fundamentals, things that are not nice to have, but are clear wants that everyone can get behind, and then really uniform efforts to boost social capital, to be able to communicate clearly to other people and not instantly jump to criticism, but also to be very frank about things that are not going to work and why, and be able to have meaningful dialogue with people to understand what is fundamental, why it is fundamental, what problems are, and what solutions can be. Not really that useful to point toward anything specific, but that is where my mind went.

Galen Nelson
I think you are bringing us home in a really good way, Dave, with some real talk about how we need to move forward with informed dialogue, with integrity on this topic. I do have a couple of questions. I am actually going to pose one from one of our team members here, my colleague Jim. I think it is a great question. It relates to this notion of do farmers understand their own GHG breakdown on their farms? Are there programs or assistance that are available to farmers to help them understand what are the different components of emissions on farms, and therefore what should they address first? Are there resources to address those? Is that something that is commonly understood within the farming community? Does the state do anything to help farmers understand that? What is the low hanging fruit? Sorry again for apologies for the farming related metaphors. How do we help farmers figure out what to address first?

David Schmidt
My quick answer would be, I think as many farmers would know those numbers and seek out tools as would anybody for their own household or apartment. Some people do. I will probably add eleven metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent for our household. A lot of that is air travel. I am probably an edge case. Maybe more useful, I think there was or is a federal program called COMET for trying to calculate some of the emissions based on one\'s operation. I think a lot of work has been done for dairy in particular. Another sort of general comment. When I think about this space, there is some nascent scratching of the surface. There is also the type of farmer that will call and make sure that they get through to express fledgling ideas about what carbon sequestration could look like. Here are my numbers. Here is why it is important. Where is the state policy? There are certainly folks out there in the community that are eager, interested, knowledgeable, or just have an appetite. In terms of policy and innovation, when I think about this space, I would want there to be a clear connection before there was any state policy committing farmers to move in an involuntary space to run that kind of a calculation, with a clear picture of how barriers were going to be removed to do that, but also how that would nest inside a set of solutions and benefits that come back to the farm. I will leave it there for now.

Galen Nelson
Thanks for that. That is helpful.

Julie Fine
There is a Massachusetts Farm Energy Program which has several different types of energy audits. Some are available through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and some are just through MDAR. They cost different amounts and have a different focus on utilities or renewable energy. I would say that a lot of those audits are actually hard to get access to for farmers. There are opportunities there to improve things. Farmers are paying for a lot of the carbon based energy they are using. I would say that they are noticing and paying attention.

Galen Nelson
That is a very good segue. I am going to try and fit in very quickly two quick final questions. A lot of diesel. Are we going to see electric John Deere tractors anytime? Are we seeing electrification of farming equipment? Do they face the same challenges that we see with other large medium and heavy duty electric vehicles?

Julie Fine
I think there are some similar technology challenges there. The horsepower required to drive a general working tractor is just too demanding. Right now, we are seeing maybe two different electric cultivating tractors around in New England. There is a new one that actually in Vermont yesterday and today the farmers were trying that out built by Tilmore. Those are generally just the smaller cultivating tractors. Horsepower is hard to electrify.

Galen Nelson
The duty cycle, I suspect, is challenging, too. A lot of them are running many, many hours.

Julie Fine
That is great.

Galen Nelson
There is one additional question here which I think is very interesting. We probably do not really have time for it, but I am going to pose it anyway. The pandemic had all of these impacts on our economy, our culture, the way we work. I am wondering if you could just quickly both of you weigh in on how the pandemic impacted farmers. I think there was an increase in buy local, supporting local businesses. One would think there would be an upside there. Did you see anything else, both short term and perhaps longer lasting impacts of the pandemic on farming?

David Schmidt
I will defer to Julie. My career in farming is a little short lived. It was actually after the pandemic that it kicked in. Anecdotally, without mentioning names, some of the larger operations that had cold storage were critical anchors for communities and beyond when supply chains were disrupted. CSA shares went through the roof for a lot of different operators. At that time, some of the networks I were involved with, people were making cautious flip statements of the pandemic was the best thing to ever happen for the bottom line because of people being driven to find local food in an interesting set of circumstances. I think there was also a lot of learning that emerged from that that focused on the key issues of farm viability. I will leave it there.

Julie Fine
Farmers who had a direct relationship with their customers were the ones who really benefited. CSAs, people who owned farm stores. I definitely heard from wholesale farms, they did not experience the same boost. One of the interesting things that I have heard anecdotally is farmers sharing that they developed closer relationships with customers during that time. Subsequently, when floods have hit, or frost has damaged their fruit crop, the community has stepped up in a really different way. I have started to see those community relationships as a form of climate resilience because they are people who care about keeping your farm afloat in those really critical times.

Galen Nelson
That is wonderful. We are going to have to close it out here. I think that was a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed talking to both of you, Julie and Dave. This is really great. I want to thank everyone who tuned in today. It has been really fun. Thank you so much for your time and sharing your insights.

David Schmidt
Great!

Galen Nelson
Alright! Take care all. See you next time.