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Land access board urges agriculture mapping under Act 181 to plan farmland protection
Summary
The Land Access and Opportunity Board urged legislators to require regional planning commissions to include agricultural resources, prime soils and at‑risk parcels on future land‑use maps created under Act 181, arguing the maps are needed to strategically protect farmland and meet food‑security goals.
Jean Hamilton, director of program development for the Land Access and Opportunity Board (LAOB), told the committee that regional planning commissions (RPCs) are preparing future land‑use maps under Act 181 but that those maps currently reflect agricultural land primarily through "current use" and do not show future agricultural resources or underutilized parcels.
Hamilton recommended the Legislature require RPCs to include agricultural data layers such as current agricultural land, prime agricultural soils, agricultural easements, certified organic land, and parcels at risk of conversion from flooding, retirement or development. "If we want food security in this state, we actually need to think strategically about how to make sure that agricultural land stay in agriculture," she said.
Caroline Shippen Gordon of Wilburmann (testifying from the agriculture community) noted New England Feeding New England projections and said Vermont would likely need to double its agricultural acreage to reach certain regional production goals; she argued a statewide mapping mandate would help RPCs target where additional acres should be prioritized.
Hamilton told the committee that future land‑use maps created under Act 181 currently do not include tiers 2 and 3 (as those rules are still being developed) and that without explicit agricultural mapping, towns with limited planning capacity could fail to identify and protect important agricultural parcels when areas are designated as Tier 1 growth areas.
Why it matters: Mapping agricultural resources at the RPC level would create a shared, strategic dataset to inform conservation, land‑use decisions and local zoning changes aimed at preserving farmland and supporting food production targets.
Committee members asked about data availability; Hamilton said most recommended layers already exist (prime soils, current use, easements) though mapping underutilized land and projections tied to feeding‑the‑region goals may require additional work and coordination with New England Feeding New England.
