The Agriculture Subcommittee advanced three bills — HB 65 (Apple Board repeal), HB 292 (agricultural district designee participation), and HB 512 (Virginia Farm and Forest Prosperity Plan) — all without opposition, while passing by HB 112 and HB 322 for future consideration. The hearing's centerpiece was HB 512, which drew the broadest industry support and the only substantive questioning from members.
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Delegate Glass argued it was unclear why the committee was legislating a report and questioned whether conversations with the incoming administration could accomplish the same result without legislation. Delegate Pope Adams countered that the bill inserts accountability back to the legislature and noted representatives from the administration were present in support. Deputy Secretary Benroe further responded that despite the secretariat existing for about 20 years, it has never had an official codified charge to work with industry and stakeholders.
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“It is seeking to commit hiri kiri in the same way that we scrambled the egg board last year. And maybe an apple a day, but it will be a cheaper apple as they seek to stop taxing themselves. This is supported by the Farm Bureau. It is uncontroversial. It is the apple growers themselves that want to stop taxing themselves.”
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Sign in to subscribeGood afternoon. Welcome. Delegate Rodney Willett, your chair for this subcommittee. We are convening the Agriculture subcommittee from the Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee. It's great to have everyone with us in person and online and we will have call the roll. Okay, great. Well, welcome. And I think, I think most of you, maybe all of you, were with us this morning for an excellent kickoff with the full committee. Appreciate the chair getting us started and laying ground rules, ground rules and groundwork that we've got to do. Talking to staff, really important note. We're going to meet today, obviously, and then we will probably only have two more meetings. So we will get on with our business. We do have a few bills today. We'll have obviously more coming. But just to make that note that we had a little flexibility today, but we will lose that flexibility shortly. Why don't we do a quick round of introductions. We've got a couple new members, but I want to make sure everybody knows who's who. So why don't we start with Delegate Fowler and we'll just work our way around. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I'm Delegate…
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