The preliminary results of a 2025 state survey show that last year’s drought cost Vermont farms more than $15.9 million. Most farmers said it was the worst drought they’d ever seen, according to the survey, which was conducted by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets and the Ve rmont Agriculture Recovery Task Force. The final survey is expected to be published by the end of January, according to the agency. Numbers are not expected to significantly change. (As of publication, the current public dashboard does not contain the most updated information from the survey.) Respondents came from 200 farms across Vermont’s 14 counties, the majority from Addison, Orleans and Rutland counties. The results show 79,000 acres were impacted by the drought, a total swath roughly one and a half times the size of Grand Isle County.  READ MORE Farmers faced lower crop yields and insufficient pasture for livestock, according to survey responses. They had to pay to bring in additional feed and water. Some had to sell animals such as goats and sheep early because their food stores were scarce. When asked what resources they needed, most farmers responded that they needed financial assistance. Now, agricultural advocates are again asking the legislature for that help. “Farmers cannot continue to bear the cost of these disasters without support from the state,” Maddie Kempner, policy and organizing director at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, or NOFA-VT, told lawmakers in the Senate Agriculture Committee last week. Vermont’s latest drought forces a broader reckoning with how the state prepares for – and pays for – climate-driven agricultural disasters. As lawmakers again debate whether to create a standing disaster fund for farms, the losses documented in the survey sharpen a central question for the Legislature and the public alike: can Vermont continue responding to extreme weather events ad hoc after the damage is done, or should it establish a system that protects farms before disaster hits.  Kempner asked lawmakers to back S.60, a bill proposed last session to establish a Farm Security Fund, a permanent well of money to provide financial assistance to farmers facing losses from weather conditions such as high winds, flooding, extreme heat, abnormal freezes, fire and drought.  The bill, first introduced by Sen. Ruth Hardy, D-Addison, was passed by the Senate last year and ended up in the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry, where it was expanded to include other working lands like forests. It lagged in the Appropriations Committee as the session ended.  Removal of climate Since then, House Appropriations added amendments to the bill that were presented to the House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday morning, including the removal of references to climate. The phrase “climate-based” was struck and replaced with the phrase “weather-based,” for example.  “The committee asked for any reference to climate or climate change to be removed because they didn’t want to create controversy or discussion or debate on climate,” Michael O’Grady, deputy chief counsel for Vermont’s Office of Legislative Counsel, told lawmakers. Climate change, largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels, leads to more extreme weather events like heat waves, drought, flooding and wildfires. “Our food system is really resilient and really robust in this state, but with the amount and frequency of weather and economic challenges that farmers are facing, they’re really taking the brunt of climate change,” Eli Hersh, a farmer who runs Honey Field Farm in Norwich, said over the phone. Lindsey Brand, marketing and communications director at NOFA-VT, said on Friday, before the amendments were added, that her organization is hoping the House will pass the bill soon, moving it closer to a law this legislative session. NOFA-VT wants a $20 million fund, which Brand said would be the minimum useful number based on average losses documented on farms over the last three years. “The losses from the drought are really devastating,” Brand said, emphasizing the impact not only on farmers but on downstream communities. “Farmers impact their local economy so much that when they experience big losses like that because of factors outside of their control, it’s really serious.” About a quarter of survey respondents had crop or livestock insurance, but the majority did not have access to such aid. Many farms in Vermont, which are often small and have diversified sources of income, are not covered by rainy day funds like federal crop insurance programs, according to the proposed legislation. Hersh said that in fields without irrigation access, he struggled to get a good harvest.  “In most other seasons, we had never gotten dry enough for some of those fields to really start showing the lack of water,” Hersh said. Drought conditions made fall cover cropping challenging, which could impact soil quality moving forward, he said. “There really is a need for the state to support the farming community with that safety net to ensure that you don’t just lose a couple dozen farms every time there’s a bad weather year,” Hersh said. “It starts adding up in terms of who’s left to grow the food for us.”  Sen. Russ Ingalls, R-Essex, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told advocates that farmers’ voices needed to be heard in the Appropriations Committee, where such disaster relief funds could be doled out by the state. “You’ve already sold us,” Ingalls said. Drought versus floods The losses from the drought are similar to prior floods, according to Abbey Willard, agriculture development division director at the agency that managed the survey. The 2023 flood resulted in about $16 million in agricultural losses; the 2024 flood claimed farming losses totalling more than $15 million, she said. These impacts build over time, according to the survey. Three-quarters of respondents were impacted by previous major weather events like floods, freezes, or wind storms, and the majority of those respondents were impacted by two or more events.  But the impacts from the drought felt more obscured across the state than more visceral events like floods, she added. “What’s hard and different about this drought versus the floods of 2023 or 2024 is that unless you’re growing crops or raising animals outdoors, or your industry is dependent on the climate, you may not be aware that we’re experiencing a drought in Vermont,” Willard said. “We have snow on the ground, we’re getting rain events and yet we still have agricultural businesses that don’t have enough feed for their animals.”  Willard said a statewide disaster assistance program like the Farm Security Fund seemed reasonable, if only because it took so long for federal dollars to trickle down.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture allocated millions of dollars in block grant funding to support Vermont’s agricultural and forestry businesses impacted by the 2023 and 2024 floods, but it’s been more than a year since those funds were appropriated by Congress and they’ve yet to reach the state, Willard said. The drought has continued into January for the eastern half of Vermont; most of Caledonia and Essex counties are still in a severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor housed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. For the rest of the state, even if drought-like conditions are over, it will take time for the land to recover.  In September, Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts asked the federal government to declare a secretarial statewide disaster designation for the impacts of the ongoing drought in the state.  By mid-January, the state had not heard back. Read the story on VTDigger here: Drought cost Vermont farmers $15.9M . ...read more read less