This allows owners to continue to live on the land or sell it, but the land remains protected. Conservation easements occur when a land owner donates or sells the right to develop land to a government agency or land trust, but the property itself remains in private hands. All land trusts use conservation easements, but because owning land outright makes it easier to protect, most land trusts now prefer land be conveyed to them. CFT is different from most land trusts, too, in that it does not own any land instead it holds agricultural conservation easements. Twenty-five per cent are under 35 acres, reflecting CFT’s original purpose of protecting small farms.Įven though some of Connecticut’s 137 land trusts now also protect farmland, CFT remains the only state-wide land trust dedicated specifically to protecting working lands, which are best described as lands producing food or fiber, generating crops for livestock, or growing commercial plants. Today CFT protects nearly 5,000 acres in Connecticut consisting of more than 60 farms ranging from just under 5 acres to more than 210 acres. The Kamis family, who renamed the site Walnut Ledge Farm, have farmed there for seven years, posting on their website their goal to “develop a healthy environment to grow delicious food” and raise their two young daughters. CFT’s easement allowed the valuable farmland to be sold to its current owners Michael and Joanna Kamis.

Elsie Scaglia wanted to sell her 16-acre berry farm and orchard yet keep it in agriculture, but her parcel was too small for existing state preservation programs. We were losing small farms to development because few conservation options were available.” CFT was incorporated in 2002 to protect working lands for future generations of farmers and to save farmland that other conservation agencies would not.ĬFT’s first project, in South Glastonbury, reflected those concerns. Furthermore, state and federal programs prioritized larger properties, making it difficult to protect smaller farms. In 2000, most land trusts weren’t protecting farmland, and many of those who did viewed agriculture as a side benefit of protecting open spaces. As CFT Executive Director Elisabeth Moore explains, “We filled a niche.

According to a University of Connecticut analysis, Connecticut agriculture generates $4 billion in revenue for the state, with small family farms at its heart.īut saving those small family farms-some of which are historic and have been in families for generations-has not always been something local land trusts were interested in.

“It’s all about saving good land for the future.” He says this often, when testifying in front of the state legislature, when talking to other farmers and landowners, and at Connecticut Farmland Trust (CFT) board meetings. “It’s all about the land,” says dairy farmer and Connecticut Farmland Trust board member Robin Chesmir of Graywall Farms in Lebanon, Connecticut.

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