Vermont staff: Locally produced food accounts for about 10% of state food spending; farmland continues to shrink

A staff member presenting to the Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry committee said Vermonters now spend an estimated 10.1% of their food dollars on food produced in the state, a figure the presenter said was a 2022 projection based on revised state-level expenditure data.

The presentation matters because committee members are weighing targets and policy where state figures and land-use trends intersect: Vermont has set an internal target to raise local food purchasing and the state faces continuing loss of farmland even as woodland on farms grows. The staff member told the committee the data and methodology are being shared with other New England states and that the next statewide data collection will cover 2025.

The presenter said the 10.1% figure reflects two changes: an updated dataset that raised the estimated total food spending used as the denominator, and a projection of local purchases for 2022. Using previously available totals (about $2.3 billion for 2020) would have produced a 16.1% local share; the presenter said the revised denominators for 2020–2022 are nearer $3.6–$3.7 billion, which reduces the percentage. The presenter summarized the projection as about $381,000,000 in local food and beverage spending in Vermont for the year in question and explicitly noted the total "does include alcohol sales." The presenter also said the 2020 estimate (based on earlier methods) was about $371,000,000.

Representative O'Brien questioned how other states compared; the presenter said the six-state New England combined percentage calculated for the same methodology was about 3.1% and that several states were surprised to see lower-than-expected percentages. The presenter added that while a low percentage in a large state can still represent large dollars (for example, a small percentage in Massachusetts can equal more than $1 billion), Vermont has set a target to reach 25% local purchasing by 2030 and the regional goal is 30% by 2030.

The committee heard how the change in the denominator came from newly available state-level food-expenditure data previously reported only at the national level. The presenter said the local-purchase estimates are built from sales reported by distributors, retailers, farms and food manufacturers and count ready-to-eat sales; they do not count plant starts or seedling purchases. In the presenter’s words, "Every 1 of $10 is being spent, or 10 of a 100, is, is being used on, on local food that's produced, here in the state." The presenter also explained that for categories such as milk and some value-added products the definition of "local" follows the statutory definition used by the state, which requires some products to be produced in Vermont to qualify as local.

The presentation broke local purchasing down by market channel: retail grocery captures the largest share of local food dollars, followed by restaurants, direct-to-consumer sales, and institutional sales (K–12, higher education and hospitals). The presenter said grocery-store expenditures represent a substantial opportunity — citing roughly $1.8 billion spent at grocery stores and supercenters in Vermont and $36.7 billion across New England — and noted grocery retail is about 56% of total food expenditures while restaurants account for about 30%.

Direct-to-consumer sales (farmers markets, CSA, farm stands) remained a small share of total food expenditures in the presenter’s figures; the presenter noted that some growth has occurred in "direct sales through intermediated markets" (farms selling directly to retailers, institutions or food hubs), which the presenter said increased nearly 86% since USDA began tracking that category.

On land use and farmland, the presenter showed long-term decline in farmland acreage: about an 11% decrease from historical baselines and a 1.6% decrease from 2017 to 2022. An analysis cited by the presenter (American Farmland Trust) projected potential future farmland losses under development scenarios of roughly 41,000 acres under a business-as-usual scenario and up to about 62,000 acres under a more accelerated development scenario. The presenter also noted woodland acreage on farms rose about 19.4% since 2007 and indicated that woodland now represents roughly 47% of acreage on farmland. The presenter cautioned that some land currently counted as farmland may have converted to woodland through natural succession and that conversion for conservation can also remove land from active production.

Committee members raised policy concerns and trade-offs. One member asked whether conservation purchases that take productive land out of agriculture should be considered when projecting farmland loss; another member raised solar siting and whether prime agricultural soil is being covered by energy development. The presenter referenced Act 250 as one mechanism that factors into land-use decisions and noted policy questions remain about protecting prime agricultural soils from certain kinds of development.

The committee was told the methodology for measuring local food purchasing has been shared with several other New England states and that data collection for 2025 will begin in the coming year. No formal vote or policy decision was recorded in the presentation segment; the committee discussion ended with a plan to continue the topic at a future meeting.

The committee's next scheduled work on these slides and data was set for a later session, with staff indicating they will continue the conversation when the committee reconvenes.