Agency of Agriculture proposes law to restore farming exemption, expand 'right to grow food'

The Agency of Agriculture proposed statutory language Jan. 16 designed to restore and clarify when farming is exempt from municipal zoning after a recent Supreme Court ruling, Agency counsel Steve Collier told a legislative committee.

"We want everyone in the state of Vermont to be able to farm whenever they have the land," Collier said, describing the draft as a return to the prior framework while modernizing several thresholds.

Why it matters: The Supreme Court decision narrowed what activities automatically qualify as "farming" for zoning purposes, producing local disputes where small, high‑density parcels met the old tests. The agency's draft would (a) add an explicit right to grow plants irrespective of Required Agricultural Practices (RAPs), (b) create a narrowly worded backyard poultry exemption, (c) preserve the existing 4‑acre default but allow Agency discretion to treat livestock on 1–4 acre parcels as farming where the land base adequately manages nutrients and waste, and (d) raise the current $2,000 annual agricultural sales or Schedule F test to $5,000 to reduce instances where very small operations…