Bethany Hodge

To the members of the House Finance Committee: I'm submitting testimony to enthusiastically support HB 246. I'm a first generation dairy farmer from Hinsdale and serve as both Cheshire County Farm Bureau President and 1st Vice President for NH Farm Bureau. I have also served on the grant committee that helps to review Climate Resiliency Grants in my county. I've gotten to see first hand the types of projects that farmers in our county are doing to help their farms face weather challenges and to make their farm businesses more successful. The farms participating are involved in all aspects of food production in our county and are both our smallest and largest farms. But what I think is even more important to note is that our county received 30 applications in 2024 for projects. The grants could only fund 5 of those projects. This underscores the need for this type of infrastructure funding. To date, the funding has been a public-private partnership with private funding supplying the bulk of the grant money and public institutions and staff time used for mainly implementation and administration. The funding that this bill is seeking is small but will help to leverage the private money so that more projects are funded to help NH farms survive and thrive and keep our incredibly beautiful landscape open and in agricultural production. I hope the members of the committee will consider supporting this bill. Thank you for your time! Respectfully submitted, Bethany Hodge,.Co-owner Echo Farm Puddings Hinsdale,.NH beth@echofarmpuddings.com