Vermont will begin accepting applications on October 26 for its Agriculture and Timber Disaster Assistance Program, Governor Phil Scott announced at a press conference with the farmers and foresters the programme is built to repay.
The state-administered programme, funded through a federal block grant under the American Relief Act of 2025, will reimburse eligible agricultural producers, timber landowners and contracted loggers for qualifying weather-related losses from 2023 and 2024. In its first phase, eligible applicants can receive 95 percent of eligible losses up to a maximum payment of $75,000, according to the governor's office.
Speakers included farm manager Katie Mazza of Paul Mazza's Farm, Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts, Forests Commissioner Danielle Fitzko and Chief Recovery Officer Douglas Farnham, a line-up that reflects how Vermont's disaster recovery runs: farm, forest and emergency management in one programme, because in Vermont they are one landscape.
The 2023 and 2024 floods rewrote the state's relationship with weather. This programme is part of the long tail of that reckoning, converting federal relief authority into cheques against documented losses two seasons later.
The full announcement, from the Office of Governor Scott via Town Meeting TV, is embedded above. Application details are at governor.vermont.gov.
Applications open October 26 at governor.vermont.gov, the governor's office said. Producers and landowners with 2023 or 2024 weather losses should assemble documentation now, the agencies advised, because first-phase payments are capped and eligibility turns on records, and the full announcement above carries the details in the officials' own words.
Video: Town Meeting TV, recording the Governor of Vermont's official press conference. Embedded from YouTube; State News Journal does not host or alter the footage.
