Dr. Ingrid Holm (Farm)

Colleagues, I rise to affirm my strong support for Amendment 9. Our comprehensive debate has made abundantly clear that Long-term Ecological Stewardship is an indispensable pillar of the AGATA Time Priorities Charter. As someone who designs and manages on-farm resource cycles daily, I emphasize that this commitment must be explicit, operational, and binding. It is the cornerstone of safeguarding our soil health, managing invasive species and feral animal populations, and ensuring our farm’s vitality across decades—tasks that require long-term, sustained attention beyond seasonal or annual cycles. Embedding this stewardship as a core pillar complements our hard-won integrative priorities of Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, Education, and Accessibility. Together, these pillars form a holistic framework that recognizes the inextricable links between ecological health, labor equity, cooperative governance, and neighbor well-being. Without this explicit ecological commitment, our regenerative ambitions risk being compromised by overlooked, persistent environmental threats or deferred structural burdens. Therefore, I will vote yea to advance this vital amendment and urge all stakeholders to recognize its foundational importance for AGATA's shared mission here in Coward.

Colleagues, having extensively affirmed accessibility alongside resilience, redundancy, regeneration, community, education, and long-term ecological stewardship, I now rise to propose a vital expansion that addresses an urgent, yet historically under-acknowledged pillar: Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management. Our work here at AGATA rests on the integrity of closed-loop systems transforming every waste stream into fertility with accountability to the land, community health, and labor equity. This pillar comprehensively codifies the essential ecological labor—from manure handling and compost engineering to runoff control and pathogen mitigation—without which resilience and regeneration falter. Our neighbors experience the tangible consequences of neglecting these cycles in noise, odors, and downstream pollution, and our farmers and workers bear the burdens of labor-intensive waste recovery absent formal recognition or sufficient resource allocation. Embedding Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management explicitly elevates these vital processes to co-equal status with other foundations, ensuring that environmental compliance, teaching opportunities, and practical implementation remain central, not peripheral, to our time legislation. This amendment complements all existing pillars, harmonizing ecological stewardship with social justice and community well-being. I urge the Senate to adopt this amendment to safeguard AGATA’s regenerative future and honor our intertwined commitments to soil vitality, human health, and inclusive community.

Colleagues, I rise in strong support of Amendment 7. As we have seen through extensive and detailed debate, Accessibility is not merely an add-on principle but a foundational pillar woven deeply with resilience, redundancy, and regeneration. My work managing compost and waste streams on our fields has consistently shown that when we design systems without accessibility in mind, we risk excluding vital community members from participating in and contributing to our regenerative cycles. This amendment ensures that all our temporal rhythms, from labor scheduling to educational programming, are not only inclusive but model equitable participation across abilities and modalities. Our neighbors — long underserved and often marginalized — deserve nothing less. Accessibility enhances both community resilience and ecological stewardship by enabling fuller, diverse participation in every layer of farm life and cultural labor here at AGATA. I urge my fellow senators to embrace this amendment and vote yea.

Colleagues, I rise once again in strong support of Amendment 6. This amendment fortifies our shared commitment to Long-term Ecological Stewardship by explicitly embedding decade-scale invasive species and feral animal management as foundational pillars of the AGATA Time Priorities Charter. From my specialized work designing on-farm composting systems and managing waste runoff, I can attest that ecological resilience cannot be achieved without clear, sustained commitments to managing these persistent challenges. The health of our soils, water, livestock, and community tables depends on this long-term infrastructure of care and regeneration. I urge all to join me in affirming this indispensable pillar as we safeguard the ecological integrity and regenerative promise of our 70-acre farm and cultural collaborative here in Coward, South Carolina.

Colleagues, I rise again in strong support of Amendment 5, which explicitly embeds Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a core pillar in the AGATA Time Priorities Charter. From the farm’s standpoint, this amendment is not merely symbolic; it codifies our pressing need to maintain sustained, decade-long management of invasives, feral hog populations, and watershed health. Such long-term stewardship is inseparable from our core missions of resilience and regeneration. I appreciate Senator Costa’s expertise and tireless advocacy for this point, which echoes my earlier insistence on integrating full-cycle waste and nutrient management alongside accessibility and education. Our farm systems’ stability and regenerative success hinge on this explicit, binding commitment. I urge all senators to vote yea to uphold the ecological foundation without which our agricultural and cultural lab cannot truly thrive.