State allocates $9.39 million to farmland preservation

HARTFORD — The State Bond Commission approved an allocation of $9.39 million to the Connecticut Department of Agriculture’s farmland preservation efforts at a Special Meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 22.

The allocation will support the department’s Farmland Preservation Program, which places prime farmland under protective conservation easements through the acquisition of farm owners’ development rights.

Since its inception in the late 1970s, the preservation program has preserved over 50,000 acres of working lands in the state. That work has been largely funded by taxpayer dollars. According to Rebecca Eddy, agricultural department director of communications, the state has footed the bill for about 51% of the farm parcels protected through the program over the past five years.

Eddy noted the preservation plan’s benefits extend beyond local farmers to their broader communities, as the program helps ensure that “a food and fiber producing land resource base is available to provide residents access to Connecticut-grown farm products.”

But whether the program’s conservation easements do enough to maintain farmland in effect has been a source of recent debate.

“We are having, in my neck of the woods, a dispute about the enforceability of the easements that are being written here, to make sure that they actually preserve the farmland,” said State Rep. and Committee co-Chair Maria Horn (D-64) at the Oct. 22 meeting.

Horn’s comment referenced an ongoing dispute in Sharon about the department of agriculture’s decision to approve the construction of multimillion-dollar residences on two farms put under easement in the mid-1980s. The decision sparked legal pushback from Sharon Land Trust and led both Horn and State Sen. Stephen Harding (R-30) to challenge the department on its easement interpretation process.

“My concern is just making sure that the process for drafting these easements today actually has more teeth,” said Horn.

Jamie Smith, director of the agricultural department’s Bureau of Agricultural Development and Resource Conservation, responded assuringly.

“Our easements now look very different from the easements of the late 70s and early 80s,” she said, noting the department “very much agree[s]” with Horn’s concern for the program’s efficacy.

Governor Ned Lamont (D) closed the discussion by suggesting that Smith have an agricultural department legal representative follow up with Horn on the issue.

“I understand that our current easements are better drafted and very enforceable, but [we have] some questions about the earlier easements, and we want to make sure that they’re enforceable as well,” he said.

While the $9.39 million allocation to the agricultural department represents only 1.5% of the general obligation bond funds approved at the meeting, farmland preservation was one of the select priorities highlighted by Gov. Lamont in his opening statements.

“We’re preserving another 1200 acres of farmland, which I think is really important,” said Lamont, referencing the 18 farmland properties poised to join the farmland preservation project with the new funding.

Agriculture supports upwards of 31,000 jobs in Connecticut and contributes an annual $4 billion to the state’s economy. At the same time, Connecticut is losing farmland to development at a startling rate, while untenable economic conditions and mounting real estate prices threaten what remains.

For farmers like Terry Tanner, whose farm in Warren is one of the proposed additions to the preservation project, a farmland conservation easement is one of few options to safeguard one’s agricultural heritage.

“The Tanner Farm has been here for almost 250 years, so it’ll be preserved,” said Tanner. After inheriting the farm from his father, Tanner ran a dairy operation with his wife, Tara, until the strain of the dairy market finally convinced them to convert to hay in 2017.

As the last in the family line interested in farming, the Tanners hope to soon preserve their 204 acres of farmland and transition them to a stewardship model under Warren Land Trust.

“I’m retired. I mean, I still take care of the land, I still do the hay and so forth, but I just don’t milk cows there anymore, and I don’t have anybody behind me that wants to be a dairy farmer,” said Tanner. “So I’ll be the first steward.”