Posted September 18, 2025 at 10:46am by VDW Admin
Sign-on opportunities to support Farm & Forestry Operations Security Fund (S.60), and emergent effort to protect farming exemptions from municipal regulation
NOFA-VT and Rural Vermont, members of the Farm to Plate Network, are inviting farms and organizations to express their support for two important policy issues that will be in front of the legislature during the upcoming 2026 legislative session.
How to support S.60:
The Farm & Forestry Operations Security Fund (S.60) seeks to establish an emergency relief fund that would provide payments for farm and forest businesses who incur losses due to extreme weather conditions including flooding, drought, and abnormal freeze conditions (i.e., extreme and early frost) – all of which have occurred and severely impacted the farming community over the last three years. Click here to read a summary of the bill.
In 2025, S.60 passed out of the Senate Agriculture and Appropriations Committee, passed the full Senate, and passed the House Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry Committee. Currently, the bill resides in the House Appropriations Committee.
Show your support for S.60 and Vermont's farmers and forestry operations by signing onto the support letter below. If you have any questions, please reach out to Maddie Kempner from NOFA-VT.
How to support protecting farming exemptions from municipal regulation:
The Vermont Supreme Court ruled on May 30, 2025, that farming is not exempt from all municipal regulation. Instead, the court interpreted the “ag exemption” in 24 V.S.A. § 4413(d)(1)(A) [the Municipal Zoning Statute] as a reference only to the policies and standards intended to reduce agricultural water pollution. The court concluded that municipalities may regulate all aspects of farming that do not relate to water quality, thereby setting a new precedent in stark contrast to the previous statewide understanding that farming is exempt from municipal zoning regulations.
Essentially, the longstanding interpretation has been that municipal regulations cannot interfere with practices defined by the RAPs (previously the Accepted Agricultural Practices (AAPs)) as the RAPs fall under the regulatory jurisdiction of the Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets. The new ruling now draws a distinction between the regulation of these practices broadly, and the regulation of these practices as they apply specifically to water quality impacts. As all qualifying farms are subject to the RAPs overseen by VAAFM regardless of their relationship to a water body, this ruling and newly granted authority creates a confusing and complex mosaic of regulatory oversight that farms now face, in which depending on where a farm is located it could be subject to different levels of local regulations and oversight that others are not exposed to.
Rural Vermont has organized a coalition of farmer organizations and advocates to address this issue during the 2026 legislative session. The plan is to restore previously understood exemptions, with changes that could also address concerns from towns in more densely populated areas, by clarifying the statutory language.
Voice your support for this effort: