By VDC staff

What should be growing on Vermont’s farmland: crops or solar panels? 

On January 28, Representative Gregory Burtt (R-Caledonia-Washington) introduced his new bill, H.677, which was sponsored among others by two fellow members of the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry. According to Burtt, its lead sponsor, the goal of the bill is concise: “protect our farmland”. The bill is clear that farmland should be treated differently than other kinds of land due to its agricultural value. 

The changes that the bill makes are small, barely two pages of new law, but they solidify the importance of farmland as Vermont considers how it will meet its electrification goals. The bill gives the Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets a seat at the table with the Agency of Natural Resources and the Public Utilities Commission when considering electrical generation facilities on primary agricultural lands.  

Information for In Committee news reports are sourced from GoldenDomeVt.com and the General Assembly website. 

The introduction of H.677 follows the Public Utility Commission’s approval of a mega solar farm in Shaftsbury in the fall of 2025. The 80-acre project rivals the state’s largest solar farm in Windsor county. As of January 2026, Vermont has 54 operating solar projects which generate a combined electrical output of 155mw. It was pointed out during the committee discussion that even a single small nuclear reactor can produce an output upwards of 300mw. 

According to a study authored by the US Department of Energy (DOE), estimates point to the United States nationally sourcing 45% of its electricity from solar by 2050, marking a drastic increase from the 4% that is currently produced nationally. The DOE’s study also suggests that upwards of 10 million acres of predominantly rural land will be used in this transition due to its usual proximity to grid infrastructure and logistics. Farmland is largely dry, flat, and has excellent access to sunlight—all characteristics that solar engineers look for in search for locations. 

The loss of farmland is expected to have an effect on the consumer produce market but it may also have an effect on broader portions of the economy as a large percentage of rural agricultural land is used to grow corn, canola, and soybeans which are used in the production of biofuels, lubricants, and other products. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, 46% of the United State’s 2023 corn crop was used in ethanol production and 50% of soy oil was used in biofuel production. 

During the committee discussion, dairy farmer and lawmaker Rep. Richard Nelson (R-Orleans 1) pointed out that farmers can get higher profits per acre by leasing their land for solar projects, rather than traditional agriculture. “The value of a crop, great corn crop on a good year would net a farmer $400 an acre. I’ve heard values on solar rent paid to the farmer up to $2,000 per acre.” In addition to this, Nelson explained that land leases for solar can last a long time and provide guaranteed income to farmers that isn’t affected by shifting commodity costs in milk prices, feed, seed, or fertilizers. 

A May, 2024 Purdue University survey found that 20% of the farmers and ranchers surveyed had spoken with a solar dealer in the prior six months. The same survey tracks monthly agriculture economy sentiments among participants who report labor uncertainty, rising commodities costs, lack of successors in farm ownership, and mental health/suicide, with the latter being 3.5x the national average. 

Rep. Burtt’s bill brings up a tense and complicated topic of debate. There is tension between the expression of private property rights and the concern over the loss of productive farmland, especially as the number of rural farms in Vermont decline and increasingly the food eaten by Americans is grown outside of the United States.