Kaitlin Deyo

Current use is a critical tool in New Hampshire that has kept hundreds of thousands of acres of land in active farming, forestry, and conservation. This helps landowners, farmers, and foresters afford to keep their land instead of selling it for development. This helps land trusts further their mission to conserve open space in New Hampshire. The limits in this bill would hit farmers and foresters especially hard. Many farms and woodlots are made up of multiple parcels, or necessitate more land that the new cap would allow. This bill would penalize our farmers, bringing food to NH families. It would harm foresters and woodlot owners, harming the timber industry in NH. And it would seriously harm NH land trusts, that often hold large swaths of land and would then be subject to significant taxes as result of this bill, therefore impacting their mission and ability to conserve land in NH. Acreage limits and town-wide caps would push land out of current use. Higher taxes don't protect land, it would force people to sell it. Farmers need flexibility to respond to weather, pests, market, and other changing conditions. This bill takes away their flexibility. This goal is not a benefit to the citizens of NH. It moves us in the wrong direction and would specifically target and harm farmers, land trusts, and the timber industry. As a result, we would see a significant uptick in development across NH and categorically change the beautiful landscape of forests and farms across NH. Please reject this bill. This is moving us in the wrong direction.