The Agency of Agriculture said Wednesday it will ask the legislature to restore a long-standing municipal zoning exemption for agricultural activity that the state has treated as uniformly protected for decades.

Steve Collier, general counsel for the Agency of Agriculture, told the committee the Supreme Court’s May 2025 decision narrowed the scope of what towns cannot regulate to only what is enumerated in the Required Agricultural Practices (RAPs). "The Supreme Court construed it differently than my understanding then," Collier said, and the agency plans to propose corrective language "to restore the exemption." Collier said the agency hopes to share draft language with the committee early next week.

Collier said the agency has been negotiating language with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT) and farm groups to build consensus. VLCT has proposed limited carve-outs allowing municipal regulation in downtowns, village centers and certain growth areas; Collier said the agency is trying to narrow those areas while protecting viable farms. "We don't want to do anything to stop anyone from growing food in the state who's able to," he said, but warned that allowing towns to zone agriculture could create "patchwork and a bunch of different municipal zoning regulations" that raise costs for farms that operate in multiple towns.

The agency framed the change as largely restorative: Collier traced the exemption to Act 250-era state zoning rules and said farming has been treated as exempt for decades. He said the agency will also clarify statutory thresholds that determine whether a farm qualifies for the exemption.

The discussion also touched on solar development on prime agricultural soils. Committee members asked whether the state can protect prime soils from utility-scale solar, and Collier said current statute treats land with solar on prime soils as remaining legally classified as prime soils and requires decommissioning plans, but he cautioned that in practice "it's never happened" that panels were removed and land returned to prior agricultural use. That uncertainty shapes agency concerns about how siting and decommissioning rules function in practice.

Collier outlined several other statutory housekeeping items the agency plans to propose: correcting a drafting error in an older milk purchaser statute so a farmer retains a right to a secretary-level hearing before termination of a milk contract; allowing the Farm-to-School program to use contracts as well as grants for certain services; removing an obsolete interstate pest-control compact from statute; modernizing pesticide exam procedures to allow online testing; and updating the state seed law to align with the Uniform Seed Law.

The agency emphasized process and next steps rather than immediate votes. Collier said staff are working toward consensus language with stakeholders and expect to provide the committee with comparison language showing the proposed changes and historical text. The committee signaled interest in considering the draft and in pursuing S.60, a separate farmers’ bill referenced in the session.

The agency will return with draft statutory language for the committee’s review and with further discussions planned between legislators, VLCT and farm groups. The committee did not take a formal vote on any statutory changes at the session.