GROVETON, NH – Twenty-five natural resource professionals took advantage of the opportunity to meet and talk with Second District Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) on April 24 in the former paper mill town in the Granite State’s northernmost county.

Goodlander, 38, was first elected on Nov. 5, 2024 and sworn in on Jan. 3.

“I’m really here to listen and learn from you,” she told members of the Coos and Grafton county Farm Bureaus, who hosted the meeting along with the NH Timberland Owners Association.

The meeting’s logistics were handled by farmer Scott Mason, who recently finished a four-year term as executive director of the NH Fish & Game Department.

When Goodlander asked Farm Bureau members about what, if any, effects the tariffs have had on their businesses, Scott Forbes, speaking for his family’s dairy farm in Lancaster – the state’s largest – replied, “This little tariff ‘thing’ has cost us $253 a hundredweight (in the reduced price we get for our milk). For a farm of our size [which milks over 1,300 cows daily] that’s $100,000 a month – just like that! We’re behind, and we won’t be making it up.”

And that doesn’t factor in the U.S. tariffs’ 27% higher cost for the fertilizer Forbes Farm imports from Canada to raise the productivity of the 2,000 acres that’s planted to corn.

Labor is also an issue, Forbes explained, noting he pays from $17 to $30 an hour to the 35 workers he employs, some locals and some migrants. “There aren’t many farms in this country without migrant workers,” he said. “We need 100% legal year-round workers who will eventually go home, and not ones on seasonal H-2A visas that leave unfilled gaps during the year. All workers now must be able to operate today’s computerized equipment.”

New Hampshire Ag Commissioner Shawn Jasper, who was appointed in December 2017, was on hand. (Earlier in his career, Jasper served 12 two-year terms as a state representative, in which he overlapped with Goodlander’s mother, former Rep. Betty Tamposi.)

New Hampshire Farm Bureau Federation president Joyce Brady of Columbia, who with her husband Chris operates the Meat House facility plus a small vertically integrated family farm, pointed out it’s hard for them and other small farms to be able to book a time to get their animals slaughtered and inspected.

This March, the state’s 400-member House of Representatives addressed this issue by passing H.R. 18, urging the state’s four-member Congressional delegation – including Goodlander – to sponsor legislation asking USDA to adopt regulations that would allow for small-scale and very small slaughter plants to use the Federal Meat Inspection Acts Custom Exempt meat processing inspection criteria with a third-party inspector present at slaughter, so that processed beef, pork, lamb and goat meat could be sold as individual cuts directly from the farm producer to the end consumer. This would serve to reduce pressure on NH’s four USDA-approved slaughterhouses.

Forester Ted Tichy of West Milan thanked Goodlander for coming to the North Country to open up a dialogue with those earning their living from the land. “I’m truly pleased that one of our representatives in Washington could take the time to come up and listen to us,” he said. “This part of New Hampshire is our home; we’re small businesses. We struggle to compete with large corporations, and to wrestle with the weather, distance to markets, at times overwhelming regulations and, to be honest, the insignificance of our voices compared to the population centers.

“Everyone around the state wants to use our land to recreate for nothing, but no one wants to hear about how we struggle to pay our property taxes and our [health] insurance, just to keep our farms and forests. I hope we can continue to count on you,” Tichy said.

“My word is my bond; you can count on me,” Goodlander pledged. “I’ve always loved the North Country. I hope this is going to be the first of many conversations.”

Goodlander, an attorney who clerked for then-U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and later taught constitutional law at both UNH and Dartmouth College, pointed out that the U.S. Constitution calls for the separation of powers, giving Congress a well-defined role in our government.

Jason Stock, longtime executive director of the NH Timberland Owners Association, noted the big issue now for his 1,000 members: “I don’t want this to be a trade and tariff gripe session, but the impacts are severe and significant – mills are idling because of this market upheaval.”

Ross Caron, a procurement forester in Coos County employed by Cersosimo Lumber Co. of Brattleboro, VT, and a NHTOA board member, reported on the severe economic hardship the family-owned, vertically-integrated timber company is dealing with. The company, which specializes in both hardwoods and white pine, sold thousands of board feet of kiln-dried, sawn oak boards to a buyer in China but the recently created U.S.-China high tariffs and resulting trade war substantially raised their price. The sale was canceled.

Some of these oak boards remain on shipboard on the high seas without a destination, and the remainder – enough, he said, to fill about 1,000 tractor trailers – is stored in warehouses, awaiting a buyer. Since Cersosimo has paid all the expenses incurred in producing this high-end product, from buying the timber to harvesting, shipping, sawing and drying, it now faces a real cash flow problem, Caron explained.

NH Farm Bureau Standing Committee Chair (Livestock & Poultry) Henry Ahern, who raises a herd of 148 European red deer on his Bonnie Brae Farm in Plymouth, complained about the excessive cost of slaughtering and processing them. The last time he had a dozen deer prepared for sale, he shelled out $5,985 to the processing facility.

Other topics that resonated at the session, including completing Congressional action to make whole milk available once again in public school cafeterias and grappling with the issues that would need to be addressed to pass a range of “right to repair” bills.

Nicole Cardwell of the NH Food Alliance urged everyone to become familiar with the recently released “NH Food and Agriculture Strategic Plan – 2025.” Cardwell explained enthusiastically, “For the first time, the state has an actionable plan.”