Protect CT Farmers Forum

I was at the Capitol on Tuesday with some of my fellow Republicans in both the House and Senate to hear directly from Connecticut’s farmers about their concerns over the outrageous PA 490 valuations, which have caused quite an outcry across the state over the past week.

While I appreciate the governor’s short-term fix of putting a moratorium on the new increases, we cannot keep kicking the can down the road – our farmers deserve better and state government must do better.

I stand with many in the agricultural community in calling for a task force that includes farmers from across Connecticut to be part of the process. Along with the legislature, this task force should be charged with taking a hard look at how UConn’s agricultural department collected its survey information, examine the validity of the data and methodology used, which needs to focus on how this will help with the accuracy and fairness of these valuations in the future. Particularly disturbing testimony I heard yesterday, relating to the survey, was how there were over 2,000 questions that needed to be answered by the farmers. This is outrageous and should not be such a heavy burden placed on some of our hardest working people who are responsible for feeding our state.

With agriculture being such an important part of our district and state, I will stand firmly for what is in the best interest of Connecticut’s farming community. I will pass along more updates as they become available.