Coalition discusses CT farmland resilience

Governor Ned Lamont (D) underscored the importance of Connecticut’s agricultural heritage at the Working Lans Alliance annual meeting Nov. 13.
Taylor Plett
Governor Ned Lamont (D) underscored the importance of Connecticut’s agricultural heritage at the Working Lans Alliance annual meeting Nov. 13.
HARTFORD — Farmers, advocates, and public officials peppering the political scale gathered over lunch Wednesday, Nov. 13, to discuss the future of Connecticut farming at the Working Lands Alliance (WLA) annual meeting. The perspective they seemed to share: the conditions for farmers and farmland are critical, and they signal a need for strategies beyond traditional preservation.
“One of the things I’m focused on this year is resiliency,” said U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) in a speech at the meeting. “We’ve had some devastating storms in Connecticut that really hurt our farms [...] and we have to be clear about the fact that the systems of support that we have today are just not sufficient.”
Murphy emphasized the mounting impacts of “climate shock” while other speakers highlighted the difficulties of farmland access, an aging farmer population, and a dearth of federal support for small and mid-sized farms.
While the litany of challenges may look unique in 2024, Connecticut farmland has faced precarity for decades. WLA was formed in 1999 to address the rapid loss of farmland to burgeoning development in the Connecticut River Valley.
At its inception, the idea was to keep farmland preservation at the forefront of policymakers’ agendas through cooperative lobbying efforts.
“This group of advocates came together and said, we need to make the farmland preservation program in the state more nimble and have more funding,” said Chelsea Gazillo, WLA director and American Farmland Trust (AFT) senior New England policy manager.
Today, that group has grown into a broad-based statewide coalition.
The breadth and vitality of this coalition was on display at the meeting, as Gov. Ned Lamont (D) shared laughs with Keith Bishop, the fifth-generation farmer of Bishop’s Orchards in Guilford, whose apple cider adorned the meeting’s luncheon tables.
Lamont, who recently oversaw a State Bond allocation of $9.39 million to farmland preservation efforts, underscored the importance of Connecticut’s agricultural heritage.
“I want young people in particular to remember that this is what Connecticut is and was: a great farming community,” said Lamont, who hails from a Connecticut farming family himself.
As Lamont and other commenters noted the growing pressures of real estate prices and weather events – “[Connecticut] went from floods to fires in the course of literally three months,” said Mason Trumble, deputy commissioner of the CT Dept. of Energy and Environmental Protection – keystone speaker Julia Freedgood argued for solutions that do more than conserve land.
Freedgood, a senior fellow and senior program advisor for AFT, drew from her new book, Planning Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems: From Soil to Soil, emphasizing the need for “a new policy paradigm” that takes an active role in planning more resilient food systems.
“There has to be a vision of the future, and there has to be a way to manifest that future,” she said.
For its part in that vision, WLA proposed a number of policy priorities for the 2025 state legislative cycle.
Gazillo highlighted two in particular: increase the Community Investment Act fee, a real estate transaction fee that supports dairy farm viability, and direct state money to a number of farmland access programs, including down payment assistance for historically marginalized and first-time producers.
“We’re optimistic,” said Gazillo of WLA’s initiatives, though she noted that the upcoming transition in national governance could mean a loss of federal support for farmland protection.
Still, Gazillo maintained that “true change” happens at a smaller scale.
“I still think we can get a lot done at the state level, I still think we can get a lot done locally, and I would just encourage us to not lose hope,” she said.
Amy Dodge of North Canaan proudly shows off her 1969 Pontiac Firebird at the VFW Post Couch-Pipa Post 6851 on Saturday, July 5, at the post’s car show. Amy got the car 30 years ago when she was 18 and has restored it into a show-stopper.
Photo by John Coston
Paul Ramunni, owner and operator of New England Accordion Connection and Museum, with a small portion of his accordion collection.
NORTH CANAAN — New England Accordion Connection and Museum is expanding to an upstairs room in the Canaan Union Station.
The “Community Music Room,” as named by Paul Ramunni, director of the museum, is intended to bring people together around joyful music.
In the spirit of preservation and the creation of new memories and stories, Ramunni’s vision for the new expansion of the museum is a place for people with any instrument to get together and jam. The inspiration for this was about a year ago when two students from the Yale Summer School of Music and Art in Norfolk came to the museum wanting to see an accordion.
Ramunni asked where they were from; one was from Iran and the other from Israel. He recalled, “At that moment, what was going on is what’s always going on over there: their families were in the middle of battles. He said ‘Paul, when we met here for the first time, there was something that connected. It was music. We both agreed that we would never let anything come between us that would ruin that bond.’”
After they left, Ramunni said the idea for a community room struck him. Regardless of background or beliefs, he said, music can bring people together.
Ramunni has more than 650 accordions in his collection, each with its own story to tell.
“When we started collecting,” said Ramunni, “I didn’t think much of the backstory. I was thinking, ‘Hey, that’s a cool little one.’” He soon found out that “there’s a lot of memories packed into each one of these things, because you only played them when you wanted to make other people happy.”
The new “Community Music Room” at Canaan Union Station.David Carley
42 years had gone by since Ramunni first picked up the instrument, and he found himself in the garage of a collector with more than a dozen accordions. He was sending them to a Holocaust Museum in Glen Cove, Long Island. “Those came out of the camps at Dachau during World War II,” Ramunni explained.
“That’s what got me going when I went around looking at accordions, I’d look for the stories. This is history here. It’s not just bottle caps that we’re collecting here. This is what people did with these things, and sacrifices they made. It’s important to preserve,” he stated.
Even the origins of the accordion, according to Ramunni, came from a desire for community. “Since the birth of the country, these things were being made in people’s shops because they wanted music… So, they came up with the first accordions,” which were smaller, wooden contraptions called flutinas, originally patented in 1829 in Vienna, Austria.
The beginning of the 20th century is when the instrument took its modern form with a larger body and piano keys. From 1900 to 1960, millions were made in the United States, and competing companies would distinguish their product with intricate case designs and impressive craftsmanship.
Perhaps more important are the stories imbued within, and as Ramunni shared, “They each have their own personality.”
Bidders at the Sharon Historical Society's annual fundraiser auction consider options of unique cakes arranged on a display table Thursday, July 3.
SHARON — With the soundtrack of thunder on Thursday evening, the Sharon Historical Society & Museum’s Cake Auction fundraiser persisted.
Interim Executive Director Abbey Nova said, “I love seeing the variety of cakes from all kinds of bakers: kids to professionals to passionate home amateurs. And I love how brings the community together.”
It was the second year in a row that the event had been afflicted by bad weather. Despite this, enthusiasm was unaffected.
As bidders gathered under the tent with the sound of rain above, cakes were brought out by auctioneers Brian Ross, Chris Robinson, Danny Tieger and Barclay Collins. Tieger described the event as “whimsical” and how he hoped to “bring a bit of whimsy” himself.
The 28 numbered cakes spread across multiple display tables in the museum showcased a wide range of styles.
The first cake set the bar and was bought for $1,000, which was rather fittingly named “40 Carat Cake,” baked by Mary O’Brien and donated by Mo Dore.
Cake No. 20, "Red, White & Bloom."David Carley
Cake No. 20, titled “Red, White & Bloom: Connecticut in Full Flower,” baked by Nicole Parker King had flower decorations with incredible realism in red, white and blue Fourth of July spirit, bringing “fireworks to the desert table–minus the pyrotechnics,” as written the accompanying label.
Cake No. 19, "Let Them Eat Bread."David Carley
Right beside it, Cake No. 19, “Let Them Eat Bread,” by Myra Plescia, extended the definition of what a cake can be: “The humble rustic loaf of bread is back,” the label declared.
Cake No. 16, “Covered Bridge” by Jonas Coats was a cake diorama inspired by the covered bridge in West Cornwall.
Cake No. 16 was a recreation of the covered bridge in West Cornwall. It was aptly named "Covered Bridge."David Carley
Cake No. 10, “Ode to Mudge Pond,” was made by Sharon’s three selectmen. Baked by Lynn Kearcher and decorated by Casey Flanagan and John Brett, the card said it “evokes the natural wildlife and tranquility of Mudge Pond.”
Each were sold from the range of a few hundred dollars to a couple thousand, showing immense support for the historical society and its importance to the community.
Noah Sher created custom insect artwork at the David M. Hunt Library workshop Wednesday, July 2.
FALLS VILLAGE — Artist Erica Crofut led a bug sculpture workshop on the lawn of the David M. Hunt Library Wednesday, July 2.
About half a dozen children participated.
Crofut came prepared with bug shapes cut from plywood and painted a neutral color, assorted acrylic paints and brushes, and a box full of old shirts for smocks. (A Brooks Brothers label was attached to one of them.)
Crofut told her young artists that they had options. “We’ve got some happy bugs. We’ve got some grumpy-looking ones.”
She encouraged the children to try for realism with their bugs.
“Bugs hang out where?” Crofut asked.
The answers came back. “Leaves. Bark. Awnings. Your face.”
“They try to camouflage themselves,” concluded Crofut. “So design your camouflage for your bug.”
Eli Sher created custom insect artwork at the David M. Hunt Library workshop Wednesday, July 2.Copey Rollins
Crofut was assisted by Alesia Curletti of Housatonic, Massachusetts, and a student at the Berkshire Waldorf School in Great Barrington. Curletti said she has been helping Crofut on a major piece of sculpture destined for the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.
Crofut and Curletti watched carefully as the artists got down to business, painstakingly painting their bugs one color at a time, in order to keep the process orderly.
“I don’t care if you get paint on my drop cloth,” Crofut said. “That’s what it’s for.”
At one point the entire group paused at the sight of a couple of fawns messing around in a grassy area across the street from the library lawn.
“Where’s the mama?” wondered Crofut.
Everyone held their breath as a car approached, and let out a collective sigh of relief when the fawns fled into the woods instead of wandering into the vehicle’s path.