Table of Contents

1. Land Use: Farmland access, tenure, equity, ecological resilience
2. Public Interests in Land Use
3. Values: Rural Vermont’s Role
4. A History of Recent Land Use Laws

Vermont is losing agricultural land: 62% was lost between 1969 and 2017, and another 1.6% was lost between 2017 and 2022. According to The American Farmland Trust, the state is losing farmland 65% faster than projected with over 83% of this loss driven by low-density residential development (presentation here, recording here). Less than half of the agricultural land actively farmed is enrolled in the Use Value Appraisal Program (also called “Current Use”), about 500,000 acres (or 43%), and about 18% of farmland is permanently conserved with conservation easements. 

The land we do have is hard for farmers, farmworkers, and aspiring farmers to afford – the average cost is ~$4,400 per acre and only 43% of farms are profitable. Many farmers rely on an off farm job, a partner with an off farm job, or another source of financial support.  Because of the high cost of land, Vermonters who don’t inherit land or significant capital have a hard time accessing land, and those who have land but not much money struggle with property taxes or accessing necessary farm infrastructure. The challenges also fall along social identity lines, like race and gender. For example, in 2022 the proportion of White households in VT that owned their home was more than 3x the proportion of Black households.

Vermont and the New England Region need to produce a lot more of our own food. As proponents of food sovereignty, we recognize the environmental and cultural benefits of a locally and regionally controlled food system, as well as the need for resiliency in the face of disrupted global supply chains, and matters of national security. New England Feeding New England sets the goal of producing 30% of the food consumed in New England within the region by 2030. This goal is a key component of the legislatively mandated Vermont Agriculture & Food System Plan 2021–2030. The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets (VAAFM), has testified that Vermont would need to double the acreage in food production to meet this goal. Much progress has been made, but we’re still far from the mark: Vermont measured 12.9% local food consumption in 2018, up from 9.7% in 2014, and 5% in 2011 (see this report for details). 

In short, to produce 30% of our own food, Vermont needs to double the amount of land in production that is accessible and affordable for farmers, and no grant or farm viability program will be sufficient to make farming profitable enough to compete with other land uses to get us and our collective wellbeing there without land use policies that aim for just livelihoods for farmers and farmworkers to be able to produce from that land. 

How we use land shows what we value as a community and defines what futures will be possible. Many incentives and policies for land use are determined by the Governor of Vermont and Rural Vermont often questions if and how the Governor Scott administration is and is not centering the work of Donella and Daniel Meadows (among others) and their widely critically acclaimed “The Limits to Growth” in their vision for the growth of Vermont. People use land for many different activities, and value it for many different reasons, such as: 

1. Housing is scarce in Vermont - between 2021 and 2023 the share of renters who could afford a median-priced home in VT dropped from 32% to 6%. The VT Department of Housing and Community Development has set targets of 41,000 new residences by 2030, and 172,000 by 2050. The conservation of farmland and development of housing are often understood as conflicting goals, however, their relationship is more complex: the lack of affordable farmworker housing is a major impediment to farm staffing in VT, and many new farmers who buy land build a home before they start producing. An area of more direct conflict is that the land projected for housing development is identified through the “Act 250 critical resource area concept” as needing to be outside of river corridors, shallow bedrock, high elevation, and wetlands. This same land being identified as most suitable for housing, is perhaps also the most appropriate  for food production long-term as land within “critical resource areas” will be significantly impacted by climate change, projected to affect 39% of existing farms.

2. Conservation of forest and other natural ecosystems is also important – often, agricultural land is converted from forestland, and if it’s not kept open, it will return to forest with time. 27% of Vermont is permanently conserved, based on a report from 2024, with an additional 185,000 acres needed to meet the state’s existing goal of conserving 30% of its landmass goal by 2030.  Recreation, fishing, hunting, trapping, and tourism are also significant types of land use which are often framed in this general category of conservation as topics of “land access” without addressing specific issues of farmland access for farm(work)ers.  

3. Infrastructure for essential needs such as healthcare and education are often composed of improvements to existing infrastructure but do also compete with open land uses, especially in underserved and growing communities. 

4. Renewable energy and other industries are also often interested in the types of land that might otherwise be farmland. In the 2026 legislative session, Rural Vermont followed multiple bills trying to navigate the development of solar energy generation on agricultural land. Retail, manufacturing, AI data centers, and warehousing uses also require land.

5. Farming is in the public interest and agricultural land use policy development seeks to address shortfalls of free-market supply and demand.  

Rural Vermont has been organizing, educating, and advocating around land use for many years. We’ve consistently pushed for policies that: 

1. Take into account the various essential needs of people living here, and holistically work to integrate them across sectors

2. Make farmland and housing accessible to farmers and farmworkers

3. Prevent farmland loss and conversion to development

4. Increase acreage in production

5. Treat farmland as critical infrastructure

6. Prioritize food sovereignty

Current state based methods of planning or changing land use patterns tend to isolate and focus on one form of land use, or one in competition for another, as opposed to approaching it holistically, considering and planning for a diversity of uses meeting the essential needs of people and place.  Engaging in and framing conversations and policy making about land use, human and ecological needs, the agency of farmers in decision making and land access, affordability, and equity and tenure means acknowledging many different realities, situations, and experiences, along with a complex local and national history. Farmers in Vermont tend to be historically land rich and cash poor, often relying heavily on existing programs like Current Use, which taxes land at the agricultural value rather than the development value, in order to stay on their land. It’s crucial that conversations about land use in Vermont, in particular rural land use, balance the needs of those who may own farms, farmland and housing already - many of whom have been part of Vermont’s agricultural landscape for generations - while also organizing with and advocating for landless farmers, farmworkers, Black and other farmers of Color, women farmers, immigrants, indigenous and other historically marginalized communities who have struggled to access land and housing.  Rural Vermont’s Anti-Racism Policy and other core organizing principles inform our engagement in these conversations. 

Rural Vermont has been acting as a policy watchdog in legislatively mandated processes around Act 181 of 2024 and Act 59 of 2023, and highlighted when processes have not been sufficiently equitable, or accountable to those most impacted. Farmers were not given opportunity to testify when these laws were in the making, and neither agricultural committee took jurisdiction over shaping their language. Some of our members engaged in advocacy because of their challenging experiences with Act 250 (before and after Act 181). As an organization, we’ve been tracking and influencing the legislative process to the best of our abilities, including:

• Since our founding in 1985, Rural Vermont repeatedly and successfully pushed back against legislative efforts to defund and gut the Current Use Program

• Working with a stakeholder group since 2019 to change the definition of farming in the Required Agricultural Practices Rule and Act 250 law in order to expand Act 250 exemptions for farms (resulting in Act 41 of 2021 and Act 170 of 2022);

• Submitting an “Amicus Brief” in 2023 regarding an unlawful Accessory On-Farm Business (AOFB) Act 250 permit enforcement action against a residential housing project on Fat Sheep Farm. An “Amicus Brief” is a document submitted to a court by a person or group who is not a party to a lawsuit but to provide unique information, expertise, or perspectives to help judges make an informed decision. We subsequently were denied to submit such a letter regarding AOFBs to the Vermont Superior Courts, because of a rule against these briefs in land use cases, despite our history of influencing the legislation that created “AOFBs”. The next year (2024), we successfully advocated for the 2024 inclusion of Section 44 in Act 181 so that amicus briefs in land use cases in Section 44 of Act 181 are now allowed.   

• With members, Advocacy in 2025 to contest last minute amendments increasing oversight over Accessory on Farm Businesses (AOFBs) established by Act 181 during the 2025 legislative session. This was resolved through Act 152, 2026; 

• Ongoing education about regional planning through our network. 

We currently don’t have enough agricultural land, housing, essential infrastructure, or renewable energy, but we believe in the possibility of there being enough for all. To move toward a land use process and policies which meet the needs of all people living in Vermont across these various needs - our common good as a community - farmers and other stakeholders directly affected must have a real voice in the conversation. For that voice to be effective, we need spaces where the agrarian community (farmers, aspiring farmers, farmworkers, and more) can come together to discuss, to articulate their needs, the barriers to those needs being met, and opportunities for overcoming those barriers and meeting those needs; and for these folks to be in conversation and collaboration with other community stakeholders in VT’s land use. We want our communities and the people most directly involved in meeting our essential needs to build the land governance systems of the future, with particular care and agency given to those most marginalized by the current systems.

Rural Vermont collaborates with other organizations working on land issues, including the Farm to Plate Equitable Access to Land and Capital Strategy Team, the Land Access and Opportunity Board, NOFA-VT, Farmer Watershed Alliance groups, and the Association of Conservation Districts, amongst others. We actively invite more discourses for locally-led policy development to protect farmland and to make farming more affordable. 

Recent land-use legislation has done enough to prioritize farm land. Over the past few years Rural Vermont has  has been tracking, educating about, and sharing how to get involved in the making of all the following laws:

• Act 152 of 2026 amended Act 181 to strike Tier 3 and the Road Rule; expanded Act 250 exemptions for Accessory On-Farm Businesses; and mandated a new public engagement process to address farmland loss and the ability to make a living farming. 

• Act 166 of 2026 reinstated the municipal exemption for farming

• Act 181 of 2024 created Act 250 reforms affecting Accessory On-Farm Businesses and  Regional Planning. 

• Act 121 of 2024 impacted development regulations for those living and working in river corridors. 

• Act 59 of 2023 set the 30x30 & 50x50 conservation goals, and the failed H.70 of 2025 would have counted land in the Current Use (UVA) program towards those goals. 

• Act 47 of 2023 changed rules for housing development and set housing targets.  

• Act 153 of 2020 (Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Act) set emission reduction requirements.