By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff
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| The right-wing attackers practically accused DEM of promoting Soviet style collective farms. One called it "indentured servitude." |
EDITOR’S
NOTE: To see the great video footage Tim took of this hearing, including the
statements summarized below, click on the title of this article.
A program to buy local farmland is drawing both fear and hope
among Rhode Island’s farm community, and has grabbed the attention of
conservative activists, who call it a "government land grab."
The conservative political group Rhode
Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity claims the $3 million farmland
acquisition program is part of a larger government agenda to promote eminent
domain and advance the controversial RhodeMap RI state planning guide.
“RhodeMap RI,” Mike Stenhouse, CEO of the political group, said,
“a lot of us see that in this."
The program, he said, will divide
up-and-coming farmers, who typically run small farms and subscribe to the local
food movement, from established, conventional farmers like himself.
“It’s a breeding ground of us versus them,” Dame said during a
Sept. 7 workshop at University of Rhode Island Bay Campus. “I think it can hurt
the industry more than help it.”
Stenhouse released a statement after the workshop titled “Farmland
Acquisition in Rhode Island: Stealing the American Dream?” where he described
the program as “a government land-grab scheme” and a reminder of European-style
feudalism.
In the essay, Stenhouse writes, incorrectly, that an overwhelming
majority of the audience had serious doubts about the program. In fact, about
half of the audience included newer farmers interested in the seeing the
farmland program move forward. Stenhouse and several of the impassioned
opponents left before several of the supporters of the program spoke.
Bill Stamp Jr. and his son Bill Stamp III of Stamp Farms in Exeter and Cranston left in
frustration after making their statements. The elder said he has been fighting
the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) for decades, and
helped establish some of the state's existing farm protection programs during
his 40 years with the Rhode Island Farm Bureau.
“I hate to see now that the state is going to takeover and do
another project, which in time will fail,” he said. “All the things that don’t
work are done by government.”
Other multi-generational farmers suggested that newer farmers may
not appreciate the hard work and will want to sell their farmland. Other
program opponents suggested that new farmers look for land in states where
farmland is less expensive and taxes are lower.
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| It wasn't surprising that Rep. Justin Price (R-Richmond) is opposed. He is a leading contender for the state's dumbest legislator. Other things Price is against: vaccination, contrails, marriage equality, any state planning, and any state regulation. He does like armed right-wing militia groups who want to overturn the government. |
Politicians also jumped on the anti-government theme. Rep. Sherry
Roberts, R-Coventry, and Rep. Justin Price, R-Hopkinton, spoke against the
program. South Kingstown Town Council member Liz Gledhill said she worried that
the program would raise local property taxes.
“The purpose is to take property,” Roberts said, holding a copy of
RhodeMap RI plan. “It’s very concerning.”
Several critics also suggested that the state and
land trusts sell their protected land to create more farmland. Roberta
Mulholland Browning of Browning
Homestead Farm in South Kingstown said the proposed program would
turn farmers into indentured servants.
Several new farmers said they have learned the hardships of
farming while working for years on other farms, but they now want to be a part
of their own operation and support the local food movement. Pat McNiff or Pat’s
Pastured in East
Greenwich said farmers want to stay in Rhode Island but leasing land creates
uncertainty.
“This (program) is an opportunity for us to be part of a
community, raise families in the community, pay our taxes,” McNiff said.
Tess Brown-Lavoie, a farmer and organizer for the Young Farmer Network, an organization helping
first-generation farmers succeed, said there is a void in state agriculture
because many veteran farmers don't have successors.
“In Rhode Island there is such a vibrant local food economy. As
the young generation of farmers, we will make it an economic benefit to the
state if we are able to access land,” Brown-Lavoie said.
Some farmers, she said, are getting trained in Rhode Island then
finding land out of state. “And that's a loss for us, and I hope this program
works,” she said. “My community wants to work with the older generation of
farmers to try to figure out how all this land, that we love so much (can)
stay in agriculture."
Ken Payne, chair of Rhode
Island Food Policy Council and
the administrator of the Rhode
Island Agricultural Partnership, said new farmers began looking for
land in 2002, after decades of the state losing farmers and farmland.
“This (program) is one small piece of a very, very large puzzle
and we have to work on the pieces of the puzzle,” Payne said.
Ken Ayars, chief of the state Division of Agriculture and
moderator of the recent workshop, said the program, which was funded
through a 2014 voter referendum to protect open space and farmland, is still
being developed. He tried to dispel a connection between the program and
RhodeMap RI and eminent domain.
“I hope that we can reach common ground," he said. "We
have to recognize all facets of all age groups of all types of agriculture. And
there’s traditional ways of looking at things and nontraditional ways of
looking at things. We’re not meant to create division. We hope to create a way
forward. Whether this is the correct mechanism that’s for us to decide
collectively."
A third workshop is expected, followed by additional public
hearings. See a draft of the
program here.