Advocacy News, January 2024
January 15, 2024
This month, we have a couple of updates about the Farm Bill and the Connecticut Environmental Rights Amendment.
The Farm Bill
Yes, we are still working on a Farm Bill.
The Farm Bill includes policies affecting agriculture and so much more. Nutrition programs in the Farm Bill feed 41 million people in this country. Nature-based solutions to climate change must start with more sustainable farming and soil health practices on the 52% of American land that is used for agriculture.
The Farm Bill remains in limbo and funding for nutrition and conservation programs are in doubt. Budget cutting is in fashion, and these two parts of the Farm Bill are likely to get cut.
That’s why the seven NOFA state chapters and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardners Association are mobilizing our membership to demand full funding for nutrition and conservation programs in the next Farm Bill. We have launched a new petition for you to sign online and at the winter conferences to keep the pressure on for as long as it takes to get a new bill. You can sign that petition, here.
We are calling on Congress to pass a farm bill that maintains the $20 Billion Inflation Reduction Act funding for conservation programming. The four main conservation programs funded by the IRA support climate-smart organic practices such as cover cropping and conservation crop rotation, practices that build soil health and increase crop yields. The results amount to a triple win: farms reduce greenhouse gas emissions while removing carbon from the atmosphere, increasing yields and thus the bottom line. These voluntary programs have been vastly underfunded and thousands of farmers have applied and been rejected for lack of funding in the past.
We are also calling on Congress to sustain public investments in SNAP and other nutrition programs for low-income children and seniors. It is our belief that access to affordable, nutritious food is a human right. Supplemental funding of nutrition programs during COVID greatly reduced poverty and food insecurity, especially in households with children, the elderly, or those with disabilities.
Please sign the petition and call your Senators and Representatives.
Connecticut Environmental Rights Amendment
CT NOFA and our coalition of over 40 organizations are pressing forward with the CT Environmental Rights Amendment, talking with Senator Mae Flexer about bringing the amendment to the Government Administration and Elections Committee (where it would need to go anyway at some point, as a resolution to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot).
We have built up a base of grassroots support, with close to 800 people on our email list and over 500 people signing the petition to Sen. Flexer and her co-chair on GAE, Rep. Matt Blumenthal. I delivered the petition in person to Sen. Flexer at a meeting in her district, and I emailed the petition to Rep. Flexer in December.
Time to get educated and inspired for the next legislative session!
Get the recording of Training #1: To build up the knowledge and skills of our activists, we had an excellent training with Maya van Rossum, the national leader of the movement for Green Amendments (including the CT ERA). She explained the basics of Green Amendments and went through the important aspects of the CT Environmental Rights Amendment, and followed it up with an extensive Q&A session. Sign up here to get the link to the recording. And don’t forget that van Rossum will be the keynote speaker at our upcoming winter conference, which we hope you’ll attend.
Sign up for Training #2: January 24, 6:30 – 7:30 pm on Zoom. Now we will build on that basic knowledge with a training where we will learn from the experts about the most effective and compelling ways to share your story and advocate for your environmental rights. Because we will be sharing our own stories, this online training will not be recorded. Sign up here: bit.ly/CTTraining2
Also join us and our coalition at this march: March to Keep CT’s Climate Promise, Feb. 2, noon, starting at the Old State House, (meet at the plaza behind the Old State House), 800 Main St, Hartford, CT 06103. Activists from 20 organizations will be marching to advocate action on climate. Sign up here to march, and spread the word!
Recent Posts
Advocacy News: May 2026
The Good News: CT Senator Chris Murphy has introduced a bill (bipartisan and bicameral) to increase funding for Agricultural Management Assistance to $30 million and to expand the eligible uses for these funds to include “soil health improvements, composting, implementing organic farming, and food safety certification in addition to existing authorized uses such as water management structure and soil erosion control.” Let’s thank Senator Murphy for introducing this bill!
The Bad News: The Farm Bill passed the House of Representatives on April 30, despite 320 food, farm, and conservation organizations, including CT NOFA, voicing our opposition to a bill that does not fix SNAP, does not support new and beginning farmers, and does not adequately support conservation programs or organic agriculture. Now it goes to the Senate and we need to urge both of Connecticut’s Senators to reject this Farm Bill.
Our Vision for a Future of Resilient, Plentiful, Healthy and Locally-Grounded Farming and Food
In concluding its annual retreat, the Northeast Organic Farming Association Interstate Council (NOFA IC) reaffirms the values that have grounded our work for 55 years.
Our vision is that every person is able to live their life with healthy food, clean water and air, community, livelihood, dignity, and purpose within the means of our life-giving planet. We seek that vision on every level, from our households and farms to our communities, states, bioregions, nation, and world. For that vision to be fulfilled, every person, no matter their origin or circumstances, must have all their basic human needs met without degrading the air, water, soil, ecosystems, and climate which we have been given and on which we depend for our lives.