The Annual Meeting of the General Membership of the Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association will be held on Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 11:30 p.m. in the Crystal Room of the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pennsylvania, during the Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention. All members are invited and encouraged to participate in the meeting.
The results of the mail balloting for the Board of Directors will be announced at the meeting. The members will also receive reports on membership, finances, and the other activities of the Association. The following additions to the Association’s policy resolutions are being proposed for adoption by the members at the Annual Meeting. The underlined text is to be added to the resolutions.
Federal Policy Resolutions
The Association is on record as
- Opposing any further regulations of fertilizer for ag use.
- Supporting the appointment of Farm Service Agency State Committee members from nominations provided by state agricultural organizations with the terms staggered between presidential terms rather on a political patronage basis.
- Supporting federal legislation allowing vehicles with farm plate registrations to travel throughout the 48 contiguous states with no distance limitations.
- Supporting the exemption from regulation of privately owned bodies of water, used exclusively for farm use
State Policy Resolutions
The Association is on record as
- Opposing the expansion of the closed dates of the Agricultural Deer Control Program (Red Tag).
- Supporting a requirement for certified nutrient management planners to receive direct notification of changes to Nutrient Management Program regulatory standards before they legally go into effect.
- Supporting requirements for federal agencies to coordinate with state agencies in the administration of data collection and reporting activities to ensure agricultural conservation practices are duly captured and credited in the Chesapeake Bay Model.
- Opposing requirements for the certification of persons authorized to apply commercial manufactured fertilizers and agricultural minerals for agricultural purposes.
- Supporting allowing parcels of less than 10 acres that are adjacent to preserved farmland be eligible for farmland preservation.
- Supporting the reduction of the minimum subdivision size for preserved farmland to 25 acres.
- Supporting a requirement that all expenses and legal fees incurred by an agricultural entity who brings a successful suit against a government entity for failure to comply with Right to Farm Law be reimbursed to the agricultural entity.
- Supporting a requirement that purchasers of real estate located next to active farms and Agricultural Security Areas be notified by the seller of protections for such farms.
- Supporting provisions that farmers be permitted to tow registration-exempt implements, trailers, and semitrailers with a personal (non-farm) truck.
- Supporting the exemption of farmers from IFTA and UCR regulations if they travel interstate less than 5,000 miles per year from the Pennsylvania borders.
- Supporting regulations that require PennDOT to return retention ponds built to slow water runoff along state roads to their originally engineered depths by removing sediment buildup.
- Supporting the exemption from stormwater management fees for preserved farms and farms with implemented conservation plans.
- Supporting requirements that solar projects be placed on marginal or non-prime farmland by providing economic and tax incentives to developers and landowners.
- Opposing utility scale solar projects being installed on productive Class 1 and Class 2 Pennsylvania farmland.
- Opposing state funding for solar projects producing electricity for the grid unless the panels are placed on existing structures.