Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So but we're gonna start by hearing from some of our farm groups who have been thinking about this since last summer or last spring, whenever it was, I guess, May. And we'll want to take good notes, and then as we hear from other stakeholders, try and note if there are differences. I don't want to assume that there are any differences. But I imagine there might be some. And then ultimately, once we've heard once you've taken that input, the I think the goal is for us to draft a committee bill that works for that we think works for the for the state. So with that then, Caroline, welcome back.

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Yeah. Thank you so much, committee. Again, for the record, my name is Caroline German Gordon, and I'm the legislative director of World War One. Bear with me. I have a written testimony I'm gonna read out. If I happen to speak too fast, feel free to slow me down, and then I'd be happy to pass it on to Amber when I quote, and take any questions. So thank you for inviting me to speak to you today and for your effort to address the Vermont Supreme Court ruling on the municipal exemption of farming right away. Shortly after the ruling on May 30, Rule of Vermont began outreach to other agricultural organizations and worked with the Farm Bureau and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets to address this issue and reinstate the reading of the law as it had been commonly understood since 1987. Over the past six months, this group has grown to include a large and diverse group of the most significant agricultural food system stakeholders in Vermont, including Will Vermont, the Vermont Farm Bureau, AgriMarc Abbott, the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance, NOFA Vermont, the Vermont Association of Conservation Districts, the Connecticut Riverwater Farm Shed Alliance, Farm to Play, and the Land Access and Opportunity Board. Over this time, we have come to alignment on the legislative proposal we would like to present and discuss with you as a coalition. Today, I'm only here to speak, open rem remarks for Ruth Hardy and we'll share some of our perspectives on this, but we ask that you invite representatives from all of our coalition members soon to hear their perspectives as well. So we come to you with the united strong message that we need to clearly and plainly reinstate the municipal exemption as it was under understood since 1987 by clarifying only the language in title 24, leave the RIP rule as is in place, and that we also need to codify a right to grow food to prevent municipalities from interpreting the housing development agenda of Act 181 as a mandate to push farming and food production out of the hearts and plant growth areas of our communities, significantly altering the character of Vermont, which prides itself as a working lands community. The historic settlement pattern of Vermont has occurred in the places that farmers found most suitable for food production. They surely made their choice based on soil and water quality, so there's a direct conflict of public interest between planning for housing development and food security. As you might know, I'm a German American dual citizen. Through my bachelor's degree in environmental law from Germany, I learned about the central places principle. This principle was developed by Walter Christella, a German geographer in 1933. The Central Places Principle was enshrined in the German Building Code in 1965 as a mandatory statute that doesn't allow residential development outside of town centers. This principle was now adopted into Vermont's statute with the passage of Act one eighty one of 2024 as a goal for Vermont's development to maintain the historic settlement pattern of compact village centers and urban centers separated by rural countryside. As you find that on page 58 of that. In Germany, this is a mandate and only explicit statutory land uses of rural lands are allowed for development in the landscape surrounding towns and urban centers. Thereby, farmers have been privileged as the only people legitimately allowed to develop Germany's countryside with infrastructure aside from permissible enumerated utility infrastructure development projects for electricity, gas, telecommunications, heat, water, septic, or research projects. That's it. In consequence, Germany prides itself on how its mandatory law effectively maintains the landscape as about 86% of the country is not developed and about 51% of the territory is still used agriculturally today. In The US, the shift of development has left the harbor since the onset of colonization and hasn't been effectively regulated since. I recommend you invite Jamie Potter, the senior New England program manager at the American Farmland Trust in for testimony as American Farmland Trust has developed presentations on their research on farmland development that most recently found that 83% of development on farmland loss in Vermont occurs due to low density residential sprawl outside of village centers. There was a Farm to Plate conference presentation that I linked for you in the testimony. When I say that development hasn't been regulated effectively to date, what I mean is that neither Act of 50 nor the current use program nor conservation easements effectively prevent farmland loss because the programs are either voluntary or don't capture residential development. American Farmland Trust has significant data and projections on farmland loss to share with you. For example, we're well underway to lose an additional 61,800 acres of farmland by 2040. Simultaneously, New England Feeding New England is projecting that the Northeast Region will need to bring 401,000 underutilized acres of farmland and an additional 588,000 acres of cleared land into agricultural production just to supply 30% of its population's food consumption. With Vermont and Maine being projected to carry the lion's share of that supply based on their advanced food systems. Act 181 did nothing to change this trajectory, and its legislative process was not concerned with agricultural land laws as the bill never passed an agricultural committee. Instead, its clear focus is the continued development of the state for housing and not to keep the working lands open. The Vermont League of City and Towns represents municipalities that are well underway to implement Act 181 at this time, and we urge the legislature to ask what signals it's sending to municipalities that work to implement its present land use agenda. Farms, food production, and agricultural land are under threat from a number of areas. In parallel with this new Vermont Supreme Court ruling, we are concerned that agriculture will inevitably be pushed out of town centers. We have we have heard from a service providers on the ground experience that some land trusts may not invest in conserved parcels of land that are marked for development and regional plans. Likewise, many farmers do not accumulate adequate savings and are in the position of selling their farms and farmland or parts of them into development to affect their ability to age and move on from farming. We are concerned there is no legal mechanism that stops developers from taking Vermont's most valuable assets, agricultural soils, as these are often also the most appropriate and easy soils for development. This could result in a Pacman approach towards ever expanding and eventually merging towns and ever diminishing agricultural land. Our coalition does not believe that this was the legislator's intention behind Act 181 at all, as this body just passed the right to farm law in 2025 that underscored in its findings that, quote, agricultural production is a major contributor to the state's economy, that agricultural lands constitute unique and irreplaceable resources of statewide importance, that the continuation of existing and the initiation of new agricultural activities preserve the landscape and environmental resources of the state, contribute to the increase of tourism, and further the economic welfare and self sufficiency of the people of the state, and that the encouragement, development, improvement, and preservation of agriculture will result in a general benefit to the health and welfare of the people of the state. I will also add that also the right to farm act one act 61 of last year is not a policy that functions to keep the working lands open, prevent farmland loss, or make farming more affordable as it solely protects farmers from nuisance losses when they are in good standing with the RIP rule. In consequence, are asked to reinstate the municipal exemption for farming and to qualify a right to grow food that can't be prohibited by municipal exemption. And I will add by private homeowner associations, we build critical to ensure food sovereignty and food security of our state. Food sovereignty is both an individual right to use subsistence and food cultivating practices, as well as the ability of communities to define their own food systems. Obviously, Vermont needs more housing, especially since the state is known nationwide as having four of the most safe counties, Lamoille, Orange, Franklin, Essex to live in the country in thirty years from now, given the projections of climate change risks related to extreme heat, wildfire, and sea level rise as Probublica reported in 2020, projecting the increased migration into the state for those reasons. The goal of all of us in Vermont should be to develop this place in a sustainable, resilient, and food secure way that the public interest in housing development and agricultural land and farmland loss need to be weighed and balanced in a much more careful and accountable way moving forward. Over 70% of Vermonters cultivate some of their own food today according to New England Food in New England. And I assure you that many people of my generation come here to engage in farming and the food system as well. The Vermont Supreme Court ruling now establishes the legal basis for town by town regulation variances, possibly creating a confusing and complex patchwork of regulatory frameworks across the state, which will be difficult to navigate and that existing and beginning farmers will have to face. Depending on where a farm is located, it could be subject to different levels of local regulations and oversight that others are not exposed to, creating unfair market conditions while we keep losing farms and farmland. We believe the Vermont Supreme Court's guidance points to the need for a clear and consistent regulatory framework across farming scales and municipalities. Legislative counsel shared that the ruling would now result in the applicability of the RIPs across scales and regardless of farming determination and that the court called the existing criteria that distinguish what is farming based on factors such as if someone is keeping 14 or 15 golds as leading to anomalous results. Our coalition agrees that we want to avoid a patchwork regulatory environment for farming in Vermont that is confusing for anyone growing food, is desiring to become a farmer, is beginning to farm as well as for existing farmers. Allowing municipalities to regulate farming would also be a continued source of contention and acrimony in our communities. I also want to talk about the schedule F and income threshold criteria for qualifying for RRP regulation from my personal experience as a beginning farmer. I started my sheep farm, Fools Farm L. C. In 2022 with the purchase of 20 weaned lambs. 20 sheep are obviously more than 15, but lambs are not mature use. Raising a flock of sheep for meat production means that I had to raise those lambs for two years before they could be bred the first time. This is because if I would have bred the lambs the year they were born, the pregnancy could have stunted their growth and result in malpresentations or even birth defects during lambing the following year, ruining the outlook of a healthy and full grown breeding flock that will produce high quality market lambs. So, during 2022, 2023, and 2024, I was investing 15,000 to $20,000 a year to launch my small farming operation out of pocket, not harvesting income from lambs until the first slaughter in the 2024. In addition, while sheep tend to birth twins, use that lamb for the first time tend to birth more commonly single land, further reducing the outlook of income from sheep farming. Through filing Schedule F with the IRS, I could at least write off my investments during those years. Furthermore, as I started farming in our particular location, we noticed during those first years that we had excess groundwater right at the entry to our barn in our barnyard, right where we needed to store and pile the manure. Obviously, we knew this was totally against the RIP water quality rule. In order for the young business not to lose its good standing right from the start, we needed to be eligible for best management management practices funding with agency of agriculture. Because we were able to receive our farm determination by BAFM early, we were able to receive a BMP grant in 2024, one year after our initial application to redo our barnyard and to install a new manure pad so that we're now in compliance. You see the changes BFM is proposing could possibly limit their jurisdiction and lead to further anomalous results considering the goal of supporting beginning farmers like myself with being in good standing with the rules through my own work of excavating the soil from the barnyard about 80% myself with a borrowed tractor while also working three jobs, I was able to reduce the contractor's final invoice from $110,000 to $36,000 to fit into the $50,000 BMP reimbursement grant that I had to pre finance with a loan from the Vermont Community Loan Foundation. Maybe it's beyond the point, but I will also add that obviously I would be financially much better positioned to start a farm if I would not work in the nonprofit sector to improve our farm and food laws, as I could make double or twice the income as an agency staff, attorney, or judge who all apply the laws that all too often fail to support farms as needed. Despite my ability to start a farm, we yet have to make net income and further rely on diversification with further projecting investment in the hundreds of thousands of dollars before my wife and I can bring our business plan into full operation while working full time off farm. In summary, we don't see any reason based on the Vermont Supreme Court decision to open up the RIP statutorily as anyone who claims they are farming as a sole proprietor with the IRS consequently should be subject to the rules that apply for farmers. That is a matter of policy coherence and accountability and not a matter of agency capacity and the budget. Most importantly, it is a matter of setting a little incentive for people to start farming businesses and to access the competitive resources available for farming practices. Furthermore, the agency to date has not implemented other statutory changes to the RRPs since 2021, when act 41 redefined the definition of farming last. Just this winter, agency staff promised to reopen the RIPs following this legislative session to implement that mandate and update the RIPs so that anyone interested in composting food scraps can finally start writing their business plans around that. Long story short, there's no reason for the agency not to propose rule changes more equitably with a proper rule making process after this session. I recommend that the legislature should bar their proposed changes in this matter through legislation after this discourse is settled with this bill so that we don't have to rehash this then upon their sole discretion. For the day, I want to close my opening remarks on the issue from Robermann. Lastly, I want to note that we've been meeting with the agency of agriculture, food and market several times over the past six months. And while we found much alignment in our talking points, we've left disappointed in our inability to come forward with a shared legislative proposal. Out of respect for the agency's effort to mitigate differences between the stakeholders, we suggest you take a look at their proposal first so that you are able to see our proposal in that context. Please know that our coalition is well prepared to share with you our legislative language and that we are looking forward to sharing it after you have had a chance to see the language the AFM will be sharing tomorrow. It is our dear hope that all things considered, you will agree with us that we're actually not pushing for more, but that we're making a clear and cohesive proposal that restores the legal status of farming is in line with the issue the Supreme Court identified about that, and that follows the objective not to further lose farms in numbers, but to invite more food growing practitioners into this beautiful state. Again, our coalition includes the Farm Bureau, Agrimar Cabot, the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance, Noper Vermont, the Vermont Association of Conservation Districts, the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance, Farm to Plate, and the Land Access Opportunity Board. All of these stakeholders are looking forward to discussing this issue with you in detail. We also have been doing and will continue to do outreach and education in our communities about this issue and will support them coming before the legislature to share their experiences, ideas, and needs in the public hearing soon. Thank you so much.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. And I know we've got more testimony from the Farm Bureau, but do you want to answer questions or have a little bit of back and forth, or what's your preference?

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: I could, but I could also hear from Amber, and we could both field questions either however you would like.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay, does anybody have an immediate question that you want to ask before you forget? Okay, well then in that case, why don't we have Amber come up?

[Amber Perry (Administrator and Policy Director, Vermont Farm Bureau)]: I don't have five pages for you. I apologize. I'll keep it a little short. For the record, my name is Amber Perry, administrator and policy director at the Vermont Farm Bureau. Thank you, Chair Durfee and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak to you today on the regard on regarding the municipality regulation of agriculture. In the final days of last year's legislative session, we became aware of the issue and the last minute efforts to address it before adjournment. At that time, it was clear that the complexity of the matter warranted more thoughtful consideration than the remaining days of the session. As a result, this coalition came together in June. While the organizations involved represent a wide range of perspectives, we share a common understanding that the importance of this issue and worked collaboratively to identify areas of alignment. Our primary goal is to ensure that legislation passed establishes a clear and consistent regulatory framework. Many farms operate across municipality borders, and navigating different regulation from town to town can be confusing, burdensome, and time consuming. Consistency is critical for farmers to remain compliant while continuing to operate efficiently. At the same time, we recognize and support the right of individuals to grow food. If they so choose. Affirming and protecting that right across all types of development, rural, urban, is essential for fostering equability access to farms and to food for all Vermonters. We also believe the issue can be resolved without opening the required agricultural practices, the wraps. Farmers are familiar with these. They manage their operations in accordance with them. Revisiting or altering wraps at this time could introduce unnecessary confusion and potential hinder progress. Finally, please remember. Once agricultural land is lost to development, it is gone forever. We must be mindful of policies that protect and strengthen agriculture rather than create additional pathways that could threaten its long term viability. Vermont's landscape is an invaluable resource. It deserves thoughtful and balanced policy solutions. Thank you for your time. Do you wanna?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Let's see. Is yeah. Okay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Let's start with representative Nelson. Thank you. Of course, the wraps really apply only to animal agriculture. And so I tend to agree that and I too would not wanna open up the wraps for scrutiny too much. I think they're good working rules that we have to support clean water in the state of Alabama. Absolutely. Where where we need to work on is getting all forms of agriculture captured so that a dairy farm that needs to harvest feed on Sunday isn't told that they can't run their trucks on the road on Sunday, and they can't run their trucks on the road after 05:00 at night. And that somebody that has a as just as we did with the the rape of farm, though, someone who has a a farm stand and vegetable garden, they they need to be open when they have produce to sell, and they need to be able to operate. And and the person with the with the two, three, four acre strawberry pick your own and or pick up strawberries at their farm stand. People can go get their strawberries. Farmers need to be able to operate when we have to operate. And so that that's kinda where I come with it, and I I am glad to see that we have a vast collaboration coalition of all agricultural partners on this because it is not political, and it is without boundaries, and we need to work together to solve this issue.

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: One point you're raising is also what the Supreme Court criticized in in their literal analysis of the reference in title 24 to the REPs. The way it's written in title 12 24 currently gives the impression that the REPs are the only rule that farmers have to comply with. Yeah. They're not. There's so many more other regulations, whether they're about food safety or whatnot. There's I would only wanna start if the IRPs are not the comprehensive rule for agriculture.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Go ahead, representative Lucy. Me just mostly

[Rep. Lucy (identity uncertain)]: for you, Carolyn, and I as always, I thank you for your most thoughtful commentary. But and I tend to agree with you on most salty issues that you brought, but not all of them. So I'm gonna focus on my concern particularly supportive of the tier one a and b, inclusion, protection of agricultural rights, that heritage of Vermont villages. And I, in my global experience I have been to Germany several times the last few years, I observed that there's forestry farming, wheat, animals, orchards outside of every village center, and it's lovely, and it works. But I'm now thinking of act one eighty one, road new road rule. I know that there are climate emigres that are moving and come want to come to Vermont, and that will likely increase. But immediately, I'm concerned with our sort of static population who is aging, which you have alluded to. But there are a lot of young families, farm families, would like to continue or take over, and the rule, road rule may open up for housing. It's not what I would refer to in rural communities as housing development. It allows for, you know, children or grandchildren of a farm family to be able to live, send kids to the local small schools, be part of the community. So I feel, you know, we have a extreme need for housing, and particularly in rural areas where a lot of Vermonters don't wanna live in a downtown center model. So I wanna do all we can do to protect Essex County, Orleans County, Franklin, and many other sort of traditional farm or forestry communities that that population isn't impeded with automatic triggering of act two fifty because the driveway that is circumnavigating a primag field or a active pasture or crop field, and where a lawyer, engineer's time, and review of other special, you know, hydrologists and geologists that are we need to hire to go through that automatically triggered process. So I just want to comment that those are considerations that I think we also need to protect farmers from in their best interest.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And we also have hand up, Vermeer. Let's see. I did want to just drill down a little bit here. Tease apart something that you said. Just regarding the wraps. So if I understand correctly, your position will be, or is, that we shouldn't be we shouldn't be reopening the wraps. And and we we had some initial testimony last week from legislative council, the reps, and then from the agency. And so we know now what we're starting to understand that there are there's some statutory language that surrounds their apps, and then there are the rules themselves. Is your concern with both that changing the rules is the issue, or changing statute and opening that up would be the issue,

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: or both.

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: You want to take that?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You can. Think

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Stephen Collieri already talked outside of the box before sharing the language that their goal will be, and that's what they mitigated with league of city and towns and frankly before they were able to hear our recommendations too is that they think there is some sort of compromise to be found there and like ramping up the income threshold from 2,000 to $5,000 and then getting rid with the Schedule F qualifying criteria altogether. I think just presenting my personal example, wanted to show why that would not make sense. And I can also say on behalf of our coalition that this is also a point of unison where we think we all see that having those criteria in the RIPs currently is really important to bring beginning farmers into the preview of the rule because all too often, any financial incentive for farming is linked to the compliance with those rules. So if we exclude any beginning farmer from needing to comply with the rule, effectively, we would bar them from accessing the competitive resources out there. I think I

[Amber Perry (Administrator and Policy Director, Vermont Farm Bureau)]: would just add that, again, this is based on language that we might have seen prior this summer. We're not even sure if it's the same language that they're going to present tomorrow.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The concern is that the $2,000 income threshold might be changed. Okay, or at least that's one concern, and you wouldn't want that to happen. And I honestly am forgetting whether that's in statute or whether that's in the rule. That's in the rule, okay.

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Same with the Schedule F, yeah. Right now you don't have to make gross income of $2,000 is enough like in my case where I wasn't able to sell my first lamb until 2024, But before then, because I was already practicing farming, I was able to file schedule f, and then even before the sheep were mature, qualify for the rules and apply for the funding. So those criteria all make sense.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So in your own example, the way things are currently written, you were able to qualify even though you didn't have, am I capturing your point, Caroline, even though you didn't have income coming in?

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Right, I was selling wool and to my pride, sell my own wool for six times the national average for $6 a pound, not 50¢ a pound, but even from the 30 sheep we have, that's like $900 like it's not $2,000

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: John, does that square with your? That's very good.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: John O'Brien wants to sell you.

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: I know his words.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm taking Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So we just in thinking about this and trying to wrap our heads around the larger issue again, up until May, the understanding was that agriculture was exempt from municipal zoning. But somebody who had We use the example of goats, and I don't know for sheep, maybe we could switch to sheep. Don't know what the number is.

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Save, save,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: okay. So somebody who had fewer than 15, so who had three or four perhaps, was not subject to the wraps, so therefore was not exempt from municipal regulation. And I wonder whether any of your maybe rural Vermont's members are sort of falling into that category and wouldn't be recognized as agriculture for this purpose, but consider themselves farmers and maybe making a fairly significant amount of income, but perhaps not because the income alone can get them over that.

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: Well, is how the RIPs already work and this is also one reason why these different qualifying criteria are important. See, even someone milking three goats making more than $2,000 would be subject to the RIPs. So yes, we probably do have those members who hopefully also come forward reaching out. Like if we were to do a public hearing, I think that would be a great idea to hear from a greater number of people affected how this would benefit them. And yeah, when we have a chance to share our language, we would have more to say about how we would recommend mitigating the court's guidance with the statutory language that we would want to recommend.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Chairman, you can have eight sheep, three milking goats, six pigs, and and a vegetable farm stand. And, you know, absolutely, it's diversified farming. It it's it's more security than guy that thinks he ought to have 2,200 mature dairy cows. You know? And maybe they've got 50 maples they tap as well or what whatever, what have you. It's that schedule act. And as you said, once you started farming, you were scheduled act. And, you know, tying that into it somehow as well. I I just I there's there's a way and then we're under the purview of the agency of agriculture for everything we do. And then we need to tie in accessory and on farm structures into that and get that out at 02:50. One

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: step at a time

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: here. Was broad jump in.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Any other questions or feedback? So I guess we'll know more when we see your actual language, but would you characterize it as trying to just put us back where we were?

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: No, I think it would take us further because we do aim to codify a right to grow food because we believe right now, even before the Supreme Court ruling, technically towns could limit food cultivating practices and that also threw in the homeowner associations because literally when I was looking for farmland in Vermont, came across those homeowners associations. There's one in Randolph, for example, doesn't allow livestock production at all in any scale. So there's now an opportunity to actually enshrine that food cultivating practices are not ought to be prohibited ever and that would be the right to grow food.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Right. If you don't have anything else then? That's it. Thank you so much.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We have quick tomorrow morning.

[Caroline Gordon (Legislative Director, Rural Vermont)]: When

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: sometime tomorrow, the agency is going to come in and yeah, tomorrow morning. And then we'll have ledge counsel here as well. The agency, I think, is bringing actual language. That's something concrete to look at. Good, we are, I think let's take a short break here. Don't go far, and yep, be ready to jump back in.