Committee to send House-Senate agriculture bill to conference after debate over poultry rules and a stakeholder study

The Agriculture and Environment Committee reviewed differences between the House and Senate versions of a bill affecting municipal regulation of agriculture on May 21, 2026, and agreed to send the measure to a committee of conference to resolve outstanding differences.

Solicitor Bradley Schoeman, who opened the committee’s side-by-side reading, said the House version "moves the poultry flock piece from a prohibition on municipal regulation by bylaw to permitting some regulation by bylaw," and walked members through deletions, renumbering and definition changes between the two texts. Schoeman told the committee the House language also removes a poultry definition and adds flexibility for municipalities to consider parcel size and to set numerical limits "to be fewer than the minimum number as enumerated" in related rules.

Why it matters: The change would narrow a Senate-era prohibition on municipal bylaws and instead allow some local regulation of poultry and livestock in certain circumstances, while the House reinserts a study of conflicts between agriculture and denser population centers. That study would convene stakeholders—Schoeman listed agriculture organizations, the Vermont League of Cities of Towns, Vermont Farm to Plate, regional planning and zoning experts, and the Land Access and Opportunity Board—and produce recommendations and model bylaws. Schoeman said the report is due to the Agriculture and Environment Committee on 01/21/2027.

Committee members raised two central concerns. One member said placing a specific numeric limit in statute is problematic: "I'm very leery of putting a number in any statute because you could say, why isn't it 13th? How come it's not 11?" He also objected that the draft stakeholder group "has gotta put every farm group in that membership as well," arguing farmers should be explicitly represented in the study.

The chair proposed, and members agreed, to resolve the differences in a committee of conference rather than by immediate concurrence or new floor amendments. The chair said the conference committee would be composed of "Joe, Brian, and myself." The transcript does not record a formal roll-call vote; members expressed verbal agreement and planned to proceed to the conference process.

The Agency of Agriculture’s Steve Collier told the committee the agency "support[s] the compromise," adding that the League also supports the poultry language, signaling stakeholder and agency support for the negotiated wording. The chair also noted he had circulated an additional amendment (referred to as H 710) restoring earlier solar-siting language for members’ review.

Next steps: Members planned to convene the committee of conference to reconcile the House and Senate texts; the stakeholder study as described in the House draft would be tasked to produce a report by 01/21/2027. No formal floor vote is recorded in the provided transcript.