Conservationists pay to preserve NY farmland
Source: Newsday.com, by Michael Virtanen
August 25, 2007
CHAZY, N.Y. - The scent of fertilizer hung over the southwestern fields of Rovers Farm not far from the Canadian border. The passing tanker truck with the manure sprayer carried a pungent exclamation point on a summer afternoon.
Marinus "Dutch" Rovers himself, taking a few minutes from cutting alfalfa in a sweeter-smelling field farther east, stepped down from the glass cab of the large mower to discuss the $2.36 million he was paid this year to keep this farm as perpetual as the grass.
"I think it's an excellent program because farming and urbanization doesn't work," Rovers said. "You want to spray and spread manure behind all these houses you're going to have a big headache."
The first farmland conservation easement in Clinton County was approved in 2003 and closed in April for these 1,600 acres near Lake Champlain, including 1,100 feet of lakefront next to a wildlife management area. In return for about 85 percent of the appraised market value, Rovers gave up most development rights. He can't sell it off in pieces to builders should he ever need the money, though he can put up some more farm buildings.
"Size was one of the factors that ties to it. They also look at viability, heirs, natural reserves, quality of farmland," said Chris Maron, Champlain Valley director for the nonprofit Adirondack Land Trust. "I think lately proximity to protected farmers also ties into it."
The nonprofit Land Trust partnered with the county for the conservation easement, along with the state of New York, which paid almost $2.1 million, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which added $278,000.
Some other farms on the fertile plains northeast of the Adirondacks are following.
"It's a way for the state to maintain agriculture and help keep agriculture within agricultural areas," the 58-year-old Rovers said. "It was kind of my way of making sure the farm will always stay in agriculture."
Through 2006, New York's Farmland Protection Program had invested $116.6 million to protect from development 50,430 acres on 241 farms in 26 counties, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. The program was established in 1996 in response to the accelerating loss of farmland statewide.
The federal Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program, which also began in 1996 and faces 5-year reauthorization by Congress in the pending farm bill, helped protect 52,489 acres of agricultural and grazing land from development in the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, mostly in the East, said Marilyn Stephenson, program manager for New York.
Through 2007, the USDA program has enrolled 2,704 easements for 531,958 acres with a value of $1.63 billion and a federal contribution of $537 million, according to agency spokeswoman Sylvia Rainford. Among them are the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine and the former Daniel Webster farm in New Hampshire.
"The development pressure is very strong on the East Coast," Stephenson said, noting the concept was developed on Long Island more than 30 years ago, and now many local, regional and national land trusts and conservancies are involved around the country. "Land is being converted fairly quickly for housing, road building and commercial use. The pressure is intense. We're seeing increasing applications to our program from people who are just thinking of the future and want to protect their farm."
In rural Clinton County, Rovers said there's residential development pressure along the roadways surrounding the farms, and conserving quality farmland is critical for the United States. "We need to be able to produce our own food in our own country. We don't want to be held hostage, like we are with oil," he said.
From a conservationist's perspective, it's important to protect farmland and open space, Maron said, and it's also important to protect water quality. The New York program requires farmers to use "sound agricultural practices." That language could be stronger to require wider setbacks from rivers, he said, filter strips to keep nutrients out of waterways.
The federal program requires farmers to have a conservation plan, Stephenson said.
The Little Chazy River runs through Rovers' farm.
Rovers acquired a share of the farm from his parents, Canadian Demigr Des who started it in 1966. He later bought out his brothers' shares and expanded. He used the easement funds to pay back money borrowed to build a new rotating milking platform.
That should enable them to expand from about 900 dairy cows now to 1,600 or 1,700. They farm about 3,000 total acres in the towns of Chazy and Champlain, with about 800 acres of alfalfa grass for the cows, as well as 1,200 acres of corn and 800 acres of soy beans, about half of the beans as cash crop. They have about a dozen employees, he said.
"We write the IRS a check every year," Rovers said. The higher price of milk this year due to worldwide demand is helping, too, he said.
His son Lance was operating a baler on another part of the farm with Rovers' young grandson Dayton riding along.
"We work every day, but if you like it, it's not really work," Lance Rovers said. "Plus I get to spend all my time with my family."
The federal program looks for prime farmland that's clustered among other farms with the infrastructure to support it, Stephenson said. She agreed that spreading manure and spraying pesticides don't mix well with residential subdivisions.
"FRPP is not seeking to protect the last farm in town. We're seeking to protect farms that are viable with really good soils and with infrastructure around them," she said. "That's for the benefit of all of us who enjoy local food that's safe and locally produced."
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