The surprising shifts #ClimateChange is bringing to #Vermont #farms: #RicePaddies, #peaches, #saffron
By Maeve Fairfax
Jun 26, 2025
TOWNS STATEWIDE — "Vermont’s farmers are growing crops that better suit the state’s warmer and wetter climate — and branching into products that provide income even when traditional crops fail.
"Since 1900, annual temperatures in Vermont have increased by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, and annual precipitation has increased by 21% over the same span, according to the state. The changes have forced agriculture to adapt in sometimes surprising ways.
"Now that winters are milder, it has become commonplace for Vermont orchards to grow peaches. Nick Cowles owns Shelburne Orchards, and 35 years ago, he saw a bedraggled peach tree at a hardware store and bought it on a whim. Since then — especially in more recent years — peaches have become a lucrative addition to his business.
"Peach trees like rain, and so the increased precipitation in Vermont does not bother them. Historically, temperatures posed a problem for peach-growing.
" 'It takes around 15-17 degrees below zero in the winter to kill the bud, and it used to be that there would be a stretch in the winter that we would get those temperatures. I figured we would get a peach crop maybe every third year,' Cowles said.
"Now, he said, 'it’s rare that they freeze out.'
"Innovation is also making Vermont a more peach-friendly place.
"Farmers have used new technology to develop more cold-hardy peach varieties, Cowles said, and he now has trees that ripen at different times so that the picking lasts longer and brings in more customers.
"In Ferrisburgh, Erik Andrus has turned his hayfields into rice paddies.
"His Boundbrook Farm uses the rice-and-duck farming technique, a pesticide-free method in which ducklings are released into rice paddies. They control weeds and pests — and provide fertilizer.
"The farm mostly grows cold-tolerant rice varieties from Japan, which sits at a similar latitude to Vermont, but has recently started to grow loto rice from Italy.
"The farm once accidentally planted Koshihikari, a variety of Japanese rice poorly suited to the cold. It did eventually mature, but not until October, which Andrus said was 'a little bit of a nailbiter.'
"Floods and droughts appear to be striking Vermont more frequently, but the rice grown at Boundbrook Farm is fairly immune to both, Andrus said.
"The plants can be underwater for two days without being harmed, and the grains are protected by a husk that means they won’t be contaminated by pollution from floodwaters. Because the varieties can be planted in floodplains, they can get water even during droughts.
"Andrus said 'flood-prone bottomlands' are the best places to create rice paddies. Vermont has many such areas, and rice could represent a path forward for farms impacted by flooding.
"He works as a consultant at Cornell University, where a team of researchers is studying rice-farming techniques in the Hudson Valley. They are also offering workshops and creating resources for farmers.
"But nothing like that exists in Vermont, and acquiring the tools, seeds and knowledge to create and manage a rice paddy without help is unrealistic for most farmers here.
"Andy Jones, the manager of Burlington’s Intervale Community Farm, said it has become easier to grow crops that like it warm: peppers, eggplants, melons, sweet potatoes.
"The member-owned farm has also seen increased yields of cold-weather spinach, lettuce and kale grown in unheated greenhouses in the winter. The flip side is that, for several weeks in the summer, the farm has had to stop growing some of those crops because it gets too hot."
