Vermont farmers estimate that they suffered $18 million in losses due to this summer’s drought, according to a new Agency of Agriculture report released last week.
The agency sent out a survey in September asking farmers about the impacts of dry weather that stretched from June through September.
And according to the data from 208 farms across the state, the drought damaged a total of 81,748 acres.
Scott Waterman, spokesperson for the Agency of Agriculture, said the 2025 drought followed two years of devastating floods and damaging frost that affected farms across Vermont.
“It’s one more challenge in a long list but it’s really bad,” Waterman said. “The drought did things to farmers that they’re not used to, unlike flooding which often happens around the state. We just don’t deal with drought in the northeast part of the United States.”
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Addison County saw the most acres affected by far, according to the survey. Thirty farmers there reported a little more than $1.4 million in damages across about 25,000 acres.
Rutland County had the next highest total number of acres at 14,728.
Waterman said dairy farmers are especially feeling the pinch now, as they head into winter with less hay and feed corn due to low yields brought on by the dry weather.
The losses are driving them to purchase their winter animal feed when prices are at their highest.
“Lots of dairy farms had trouble with corn crops,” he said. “So if they can’t get winter feed growing on their own land they have to go out and buy it.”
According to the report, 58% of the farmers who responded said the drought of 2025 was the worst they had ever seen.
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Most of the farmers who responded run dairy, produce or livestock operations. A smaller percentage of the respondents produce maple syrup or feed crops.
A lot of farmers also had to pay to bring water to their farms for their crops or animals.
And that, as well, affects their bottom lines.
“The drought has had a very negative effect on agriculture and farmers in Vermont,” Waterman said. “Lots of reports of burned out fields, dried out wells, ponds running low, creeks and brooks running low or gone, all of the adds up. The drought really hammered farmers hard.”
