Partners Celebrate Preservation of Three Farms

First GRP easement purchased in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States

Hopkinton, Rhode Island, June 13, 2005 Richard Coombe, Regional Assistant Chief for the East, joined representatives from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RI DEM), Rhode Island Agricultural Land Preservation Commission, The Nature Conservancy, Hopkinton Land Trust and some of the Rhode Island NRCS staff to announce the preservation of three farms in the Town of Hopkinton: Miner, Panciera and Tomaquag Valley farms.

The Miner Farm is the first Grassland Reserve Program easement purchased in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. The easement will permanently protect 16 acres of pasture on the 61 acre farm, and was purchased for $157,328. The Miner farm consists of various livestock, horses, chickens and exotic birds.

Mr. Coombe noted that the pond in the back was designed by the Soil Conservation Service in the fifties. Bob Miner’s father, Charles signed his conservation plan in 1949. The old documents were laminated and displayed, illustrating the multi-generation family commitment to conservation.

The Acting Director for the RI DEM, Michael Sullivan, emceed the event and introduced Judith Doerner, State Conservationist: He thanked Judy for her leadership in getting environmental projects off the ground and said “she will be sorely missed when she leaves for Vermont in September.” “The purchase of the Miner farm conservation easement will provide permanent protection for the land and protect it from conversion to non-grassland uses,” Doerner said.

Through the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP), development rights were also purchased for the 199 acre Panciera farm. The total purchase price for the farm was $1 million. Many partners provided funding for the project. The FRPP contributed $218,000. Doerner said, “Today we celebrate our collaboration with the many partnerships that allow us to do far more, together, to protect open space than any of us could do on our own.” The purchase of development rights will allow the farmland to permanently remain in agricultural use.

Another farm protected and celebrated during the event, the Tomaquag Valley Farm is one of only three remaining dairy farms in the Town of Hopkinton. Development rights were purchased on the 95 acre farm by the local Hopkinton Land Trust. The property is contiguously located to a 40 acre parcel that is also protected by the local land trust.

Also announced was $2.35 million in FRPP funding to the RI Agricultural Land Preservation Commission to help purchase development rights to five additional RI farms. To date, the Commission has received a total of $5,749,300 from FRPP to purchase farmland development rights Statewide.

“The FRPP helps ensure that valuable, productive land is protected from non-agricultural uses,” said Vicky Drew, Program Manager. “Interest in protecting farmland from urbanization remains very strong in RI. Public support for funding farmland protection and other open space initiatives has been unwavering for the past twenty years.”