Senate Bill 2469 isn’t making headlines, but it could have a big impact for farms and related businesses in the commonwealth.
This bill aims to add a formal definition of “agritourism” to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 128 and extend existing agricultural zoning protections to qualifying farm-based activities, including you-pick operations, farm markets, and educational or cultural events held on working farms.1 That’s a meaningful move. Right now, whether a barn event or a farm stand falls within protected agricultural land use depends largely on which town you’re in and how local zoning boards interpret the rules. A commonwealth-wide definition cuts through that inconsistency and gives farm owners a clear legal baseline to build on.
The signal in the details is just as important as the definition itself. The bill ties its zoning protections to farms where agritourism revenue stays below 25% of total gross income and where the majority of product used in the activity comes from Massachusetts farms, with at least 35% grown on-site.2 That’s not a restriction placed on ambition. It’s the commonwealth aiming to make sure farm-based businesses to grow in a way that keeps agriculture at the center of their success. Massachusetts is betting that diversified farm operations, ones that bring the community to farms for activities as well as products, instead of just bringing farm products out to distributers and resellers, are good for rural economies and worth protecting under law. Recognition and protection of these activities through legislation helps farm owners who have already been running that kind of operation informally, and might make it more appealing for enterprising agriculturalists to start up new businesses in the state.
If you’re a farm owner in Massachusetts, this is a good moment to look at how your operation is structured. Zoning protections matter, but so do the contracts you use with vendors and event partners, the liability framework around on-farm activities, and the business entity that sits underneath all of it. The law moving in your direction creates opportunity. Making sure your business is set up to capture that opportunity is a different step, and one worth taking.
- S. 2469, 193d Gen. Ct. (Mass. 2023) (proposing addition of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 128, § 1B to define agritourism as an agriculturally related educational, entertainment, historical, cultural, or recreational activity on a farm open to the public, and extending zoning protections under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 40A, § 3 to qualifying activities). ↩
- S. 2469, 193d Gen. Ct. (Mass. 2023), § 2 (conditioning zoning protections on agritourism revenues not exceeding 25% of gross farm income, with at least 65% of remaining income from Massachusetts farm product sales, at least 35% of which must originate from the subject farm). ↩
