How the Shock of Catastrophic Floods Is Changing Farming in Vermont

When they bought their organic vegetable farm in South Royalton, Vt., slung along the fertile floodplain of the White River, Ashley Loehr and Antoine Guerlain took comfort in the dense buffer of shrubs and trees that lay between their fields and the gently swirling water.

It was 2021, a decade after the remnants of Hurricane Irene drove the river far over its banks, swamping the farm and wide swaths of the state. Determined to prevent another such disaster, the prior owner had proactively planted the trees, imagining a rising wall of woods that would at least make future flooding less grievous.

There was no way to know if the barrier, 35 feet wide, would be enough — until last July, when another devastating storm surged across Vermont. The river gathered force and busted through, again overtaking fields and destroying crops.

In the year since, Ms. Loehr and Mr. Guerlain, as well as some 3,000 other Vermont farmers hit hard by the two-day storm, have wrestled with a newly urgent reckoning: how to plan a future knowing that as the climate changes, so-called 100-year storms may strike every 10 years — or even more frequently.

Vermont farmers have long adapted to the twists and turns of climate: tapping maple trees earlier as winters have warmed, for example, and investing less in berry crops as hotter, wetter weather makes them more vulnerable to pests and fungus. But the shock of last summer’s catastrophic flooding — followed by another damaging deluge this month — underscored a level of risk that is hard to mitigate, given the state’s mountainous terrain and its proximity to the Atlantic.

The warming ocean allows more moisture to evaporate into the atmosphere, fueling storms and heavy rains. And mountains funnel water rapidly downhill, raising the danger that streams and rivers will overflow and low-lying land will quickly flood.

“These are rural areas, without a lot of wealth and population, which can make it hard to adapt to climate change,” said Tim Waring, an associate professor at the University of Maine who studies cultural adaptation in agriculture. “We need to be supporting people so they can experiment, and then have conversations about their experiments.”

Certain aspects of farming in Vermont might help, he said: The state’s growing cohort of younger farmers may adapt to the new circumstances more easily than older farmers. Their close ties make it easier to share new strategies. And the diverse output of the state’s farms builds in some economic buffers — if one crop is lost, another may survive — while also fostering flexibility and openness to new approaches.

At their farm, known as Hurricane Flats, Ms. Loehr and Mr. Guerlain have reconsidered everything they do. After the flood last summer, they reorganized the fields into narrow strips, with alternating crops, in the hopes that taller, larger plants, such as the popcorn they grow in abundance, will offer smaller plants nearby some protection from wind and water. They are also experimenting with planting vegetables within banks of rye and clover, so that more deep roots hold the soil in place and prevent it from washing away.

And in May, they planted 600 more trees along the river buffer zone, widening it from 35 to 50 feet and marking each new sapling with a slim pink ribbon.

“We’re doing things we’ve never done before, because things are happening that have never happened before,” said Ms. Loehr, 38, who started working on farms in upstate New York when she was 14. “Even in my time doing this, the pattern and predictability has steadily eroded.”

The basic timetables of farming — when the last frost happens, when it’s safe to plant — have been upended, she said. “It’s like there are no absolute truths anymore.”

As rain fell one recent afternoon, Ms. Loehr leaned in close to compare winter squash plants surrounded by clover to those with no erosion barrier. With a shrug, she acknowledged that the squash in the protected soil had grown more slowly.

It is not the only trade-off that farmers in Vermont have been forced to consider.

Since the flooding last summer inflicted an estimated $70 million in farm losses statewide, farmers are carrying more debt, said Roy Beckford, director of the University of Vermont Extension, and co-chairman of the Agriculture Recovery Task Force created by Gov. Phil Scott last August.

Most farms in Vermont are small, and 70 percent cannot afford crop or livestock insurance, he said.

“A lot of them are just sustaining themselves,” said Mr. Beckford.

Adding to the risk, much of the state’s farmland lies in river valleys, where rich, loamy soil is ideally suited to growing lettuce and broccoli — but where nearby waterways pose a constant threat. Newer farmers, who have gravitated to Vermont in recent years, often end up renting the most affordable land, which can also be the most susceptible to flooding.

And floods are far from their only worry. Last month, the state was struck with an unusually early heat wave, as well as a rare tornado watch. A late freeze in May 2023 ravaged fruit crops, causing nearly $6 million in losses.

Angie Holl and her husband Alex Holl, Vermont natives who moved back to the state in 2021, bought a neglected farm in Tinmouth and began to build a diverse business raising pigs and poultry and growing vegetables and flowers; last summer was their first season there. Set at the foot of a mountain, their farm, Rootin Tootin Acres, was inundated last July when the higher ground above it crumbled and rain cascaded downhill, leaving their plants in two feet of water.

“It twisted and turned us — we questioned everything we moved here to do,” said Ms. Holl, 32. “But farmers are resilient, and the truth is that we farm because we love it.”

This year, they remade their gardens, adding yards of topsoil and raised beds to protect their plants.

Some older farmers, who lost buildings and equipment to the flooding in addition to crops, have given up, Mr. Beckford said.

Younger farmers tend to bring tremendous optimism. But they may feel more uncertain now, after two major floods a year apart, said Rachel Schattman, an assistant professor of sustainable agriculture at the University of Maine and a former Vermont farmer who moved her farm away from the Winooski River after it was flooded during Hurricane Irene. She now oversees a program that pairs farmers with advisers who help them plan for climate adaptation.

In its latest report, the farm recovery task force called for more disaster grants for farmers, more help with grant and loan applications, and making federal insurance programs more affordable for smaller farms.

Mental health resources for farmers should also be expanded, task force members wrote, noting that demand doubled after the floods last summer.

“Every time the forecast looks iffy, people feel the anxiety,” said Anson Tebbetts, Vermont’s secretary of agriculture, food and markets.

A few weeks ago, as more than seven inches of rain fell in some parts of the state, two people died, and homes, roads and bridges washed away. Some farmers who had clawed their way back from last year’s losses watched as the remnants of Hurricane Beryl, the earliest Category 5 storm on record in the Atlantic, flooded their fields again.

Braden Lalancette, a flower farmer who rents land on the Intervale, a cooperative of small farms in Burlington, was among those hit a second time. Situated near where the Winooski River empties into Lake Champlain, farms on the Intervale were deluged in last year’s storm as well as the more recent one, Mr. Lalancette said.

As they did last summer, hundreds of volunteers from Burlington rushed to help the farmers harvest what they could in the hours before the waters rose.

“There was a real sense of community, and of collective grief,” Mr. Lalancette, 30, said.

He and his partner, Brooke Giard, 34, had resolved to extend their growing season after last year’s flooding, to help moderate the impact of lost crops. They had also begun experimenting with larger perennials, like lilacs and hydrangeas, on the “untested theory” that they might better withstand flooding.

The day after this month’s storm, they began to reflect on their future again while paddling a canoe over the land where their flower crops had been.

“Is it silly to be farming in a flood plain?” Mr. Lalancette asked. “We rent our farm, so financially, the possibility of moving isn’t really there for us.”

Even if they could farm elsewhere, he said, it would be hard to leave a community of farmers that they love, one defined by friendship and collaboration, shared equipment and a common struggle for survival.

At the Intervale that day, the mood was somber and surreal.

“It hits a lot harder,” Mr. Lalancette said, “when it’s two years in a row.”