Rafael "Rafa" Domínguez (Farm)

Colleagues, building on our deeply considered and nearly unanimous commitment to embedding Accessibility and Long-term Ecological Stewardship as core pillars in the AGATA Time Priorities Charter, I must now propose a critical addition: full-cycle waste and nutrient management must be enshrined explicitly as a foundational, coequal pillar alongside the existing ones. From the farm’s frontlines, I see how daily stewardship of waste streams—composting, nutrient cycling, and refuse management—is essential to both ecological resilience and neighborly respect. Neglecting these cycles risks undermining our regenerative practices, polluting our land and waters, and straining community relations. Moreover, embedding full-cycle waste and nutrient management as a core pillar aligns with the persistent calls from both farm and ecology senators, ensuring that ecological labor, closed-loop systems, and cooperative governance of these cycles are not overlooked but formally integrated into our time legislation. This addition guarantees that AGATA’s temporal priorities operationalize the critical, ongoing labor that sustains soil fertility, mitigates greenhouse gas emissions, and protects the well-being of our neighbors and workers. It also complements and strengthens our commitments to Accessibility, Education, and Long-term Ecological Stewardship by rooting these ideals in the practical realities of farming and communal care. I urge the Senate to adopt this amendment as essential for the integrity and longevity of AGATA’s mission.

Colleagues, building upon the vital consensus reached around the charter’s current pillars—Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, Education, Accessibility, and Long-term Ecological Stewardship—I must insist on the explicit addition of Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management as a foundational and non-negotiable pillar within our Time Priorities Charter. From the farm’s pulse, this is not a theoretical abstraction but a daily imperative. The labor of managing waste streams, returning nutrients to soil cycles, and sustaining closed-loop systems underpins all our regenerative efforts. Failure to enshrine this labor risks undermining soil health, ecology, worker safety, and community well-being. This amendment codifies the ecological and operational labor crucial to AGATA’s long-term viability and community trust. It explicitly integrates the complex interdependencies that sustain our 70-acre farm and reverberate through our cooperative governance and educational programs. I urge the Senate to adopt this amendment as a binding core principle that complements and completes our collective commitment to just, accessible, and resilient stewardship.

Colleagues, from the practical reality of our daily farm work, I rise to propose a critical amendment to fully realize the charter’s integrity. While the existing pillars—Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, Education, Accessibility, and Long-term Ecological Stewardship—set a strong foundation, there remains a glaring and urgent omission: full-cycle waste and nutrient management. This management is not just an ecological concern but a fundamental labor and stewardship pillar essential to the soil health, crop productivity, and the overall viability of our regenerative farm. Without explicitly embedding this pillar, we risk undermining the closed-loop systems that sustain our 70-acre site and the health of our workers and neighbors.

I have seen firsthand how carefully planned planting calendars and CSA operations demand not just growing crops resiliently but responsibly managing all inputs and outputs—organic waste, composting, nutrient cycling—to maintain ecological balance and prevent harmful run-offs that degrade both our land and community trust.

This amendment aligns tightly with AGATA's core priorities, reinforcing ecological stewardship while recognizing the labor equity and community embeddedness critical to our mission. It strengthens accessibility by ensuring all programming transparently connects participants to the full cycle of agricultural care, deepening education through practice, and solidifying governance by codifying sound ecological management.

Given the near-unanimous supportive voices from senators representing the farm, ecology, and community, this amendment brings that vital work into formal priority. I urge the Senate to adopt this addition to safeguard the future of AGATA’s fields, our workers, and neighbors.

Colleagues, from the farm’s frontline—planting, tending, and harvesting these 70 acres daily—I rise to propose a critical amendment to the AGATA Time Priorities Charter. While we have justly embedded the core pillars of resilience, redundancy, regeneration, community, education, accessibility, and long-term ecological stewardship, there remains an urgent omission: full-cycle waste and nutrient management must be explicitly enshrined as a foundational pillar alongside the others.

Our regenerative work depends fundamentally on closed-loop ecological labor. Nutrients removed in harvests and organic waste produced onsite must be conscientiously managed to maintain soil health, water quality, and ecosystem function. Ignoring full-cycle waste management risks undermining not only the soil and farm resilience we’ve so painstakingly built but also the health and well-being of our neighbors and workers.

This pillar complements and deepens long-term ecological stewardship by codifying essential practical know-how and labor realities. It supports community health, cooperative governance transparency, and extends accessibility to all stakeholders by making sustainable waste and nutrient systems an explicit priority.

I have reviewed and integrated the language updates following Amendment 3 and 4’s passage to ensure seamless inclusion. Adopting this amendment arms our collective time legislation with the grounded ecological principles vital to maintaining AGATA’s vitality and honoring the labor that sustains us.

Let us not defer the ecological realities that come with full-cycle stewardship. This is not merely a technical detail—it is the backbone of our farm’s long-term resilience and community interdependence. I ask this Senate to adopt this amendment to secure and affirm the central place of full-cycle waste and nutrient management in our AGATA Time Priorities Charter.

Colleagues, as the farm senator deeply engaged with the everyday realities of planting, harvesting, and stewarding soil health here at AGATA, I rise now to propose an essential amendment. While we have rightly enshrined resilience, redundancy, regeneration, community, education, accessibility, and long-term ecological stewardship as cornerstones of our Time Priorities Charter, a critical pillar remains conspicuously absent: full-cycle waste and nutrient management.

This amendment explicitly integrates full-cycle waste and nutrient management as a foundational pillar of the Charter. This is not a peripheral concern; it is the very backbone of sustainable, regenerative farm stewardship. Our ability to close nutrient loops, to recycle organic matter responsibly, and to manage waste streams effectively underpins soil vitality, water quality, plant health, livestock welfare, and community well-being.

Countless senators, including Dr. Ingrid Holm, Dr. Liying Chen, and others, have raised the urgent necessity to acknowledge the ecological labor involved in these processes. Neglecting this pillar risks exhausting our soils, impairing water systems, undervaluing labor essential to ecological cycles, and degrading our cooperative’s long-term viability.

Pairing this with the existing pillars ensures we embed practical, on-the-ground, day-to-day stewardship into our temporal framework—not only addressing immediate resilience but securing intergenerational regeneration.

In sum, this amendment complements and strengthens the Charter by cementing full-cycle waste and nutrient management as an indispensable core priority. It honors the realities of farm labor, safeguards ecosystem health, sustains neighbor relations, and aligns with our mission as a regenerative farm and vibrant community lab in Coward. I urge your support.