Vermont Land Trust urges more tools, funding to speed farmland transfers

Maggie Doan, Farmland Access Program manager at the Vermont Land Trust, told a legislative hearing on H 3 86 that the trust uses conservation easements, interim ownership and other tools to keep farmland in production and make it affordable for new and beginning farmers.

Doan said the Vermont Land Trust (VLT) conserves thousands of acres and layers farmland-access work onto ecological protection, but rising land values and an aging farm population are creating new pressures. "Our work is really to support the transfer of farmlands, in Vermont to keep it owned by farmers and in agricultural production," Doan said.

The testimony described several existing VLT tools. The trust holds conservation easements and sometimes fee ownership, keeps options to purchase at agricultural value on many easements, and has developed a lease-with-option-to-purchase model. Doan said VLT raised patient capital to provide buy‑and‑hold financing: "We have 15,000,000 in debt capital that's available to buy and hold farms." Since 2019, VLT has bought 12 farms to place under leases with an option to buy and to give farmers a multiyear runway to secure financing.

Doan also summarized recent activity and demand: VLT conserved close to 9,000 acres in 2024 (about 2,400 acres of that farmland), helped seven families buy farmland, protected roughly 38 miles of river frontage and about 250 acres of wetlands, and reports roughly 800–1,000 farm seekers on its waiting lists. The trust has completed about 100 successful transfers since it began this work and reports 80 conserved farms sold in the last five years.

Doan offered two project examples. In Jericho, three separate vegetable businesses purchased a conserved 52‑acre property through a shared LLC called Lee River LLC; VLT helped secure a 50‑foot river buffer paid for with Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) funds, Vermont Housing & Conservation Board (VHCB) contributions and local conservation money. In Waitsfield, VLT bought a 70‑acre parcel as interim owner and leased it to the next generation of operators; combined funding from VHCB, NRCS and the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) reduced the purchase price to under 20% of full market value for that buyer, according to Doan.

Doan said the trust can and does consider subdivision in easement design to allow multiple, smaller viable farm units where conservation terms and viability analysis support that outcome. "Most of our easements allow in our sole discretion subdivision, as long as we can get information from potential buyers that those individual units can be viable farm businesses," she said, noting VLT often works with the farm viability network, NOFA, the Intervale Center and the University of Vermont on those assessments.

She listed persistent needs: more legal and tax assistance for transfers, consistent funding for Vermont Land Link (VLT's online clearinghouse for land opportunities), more professional development capacity for transfer planning, and financial incentives that lower the cost to sellers who want to sell or lease to new farmers. Doan mentioned a Minnesota tax‑credit program that pays landowners who sell or lease to new and beginning farmers as a model worth studying.

Committee members asked about pilot models and housing. Doan said VLT is working on projects to place multiple producers on larger conserved parcels, and that the lease‑to‑own approach gives projects time to organize governance and business structures. She underscored that housing needs and farm access are linked: many prospective farmers cannot afford a house in addition to buying land, and easement design must consider housing placement and ownership separately from conserved farming land.

Doan closed by endorsing study and investment in the farmland‑transfer network and by urging continued support for Vermont Land Link and legal/tax capacity to help transfers proceed.

The hearing was part of introductory consideration of H 3 86; no committee action or formal vote on the bill was recorded in the transcript excerpt.