More Facts About Agricultural Land Loss
Last week, the Agricultural Working Group of the Vermont Conservation Strategy Initiative (VCSI) considered a presentation by Ryan Patch, Agriculture Climate and Land Use Policy Manager at the Agency of Ag, covering land use in agriculture in Vermont from 1840 - 2024. We recommend you view his very informative slideshow here. Since the peak of agriculture in Vermont in 1880, when there were over 35K farms representing 84% of the entire VT landmass, ag production in the state has consolidated into 12% of the total land use today. In a business as usual scenario, makers of Act 250 project that 39% of the current agricultural land will produce less or no food due to being impacted as a “critical resource area,” namely river corridor, wetland, high elevation or as slope or soils with shallow bedrock. American Farmland Trust estimates that Vermont will lose between 41K to 61,800 acres by 2040 to development. The remaining 61% are under high pressure for development. How will the group decide about the question of which farmland should be protected from development for food production in the future? In our last update we shared that New England Feeding New England projects a need for an additional 989,000 acres across the North East U.S. to produce only 30% of food consumed in VT by 2030.