Protected by: CT- Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and Connecticut Farmland Trust
Year Protected: 2019
Acres: 51
After five years of work involving Connecticut Farmland Trust, farmland preservation activists and many others, the 51-acre Strong Family Farm was permanently protected as farmland.
In a unique, three-part real estate deal, seven passionate people who took a combined $1 million from savings to buy the land from the Strong family in 2015, sold it to the Connecticut Farmland Trust (CFT) in September 2019.
CFT transferred ownership of the land less than one month later to the nonprofit organization that manages the farm and operates an educational center, Strong Family Farm, Inc. The Strong Family Farm, Inc., a nonprofit organization independent of the family, will continue running educational programs on the land and in the barns.
CFT purchased the farm with grants from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition grant, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Bafflin Foundation, Northern Connecticut Land Trust, CFT and donations from the town of Vernon’s open space fund, and more than 450 individuals who gave $49,721.
The land will continue to be used as a farm, with two local farmers leasing the land – one to grow corn to feed their cows and another as a grazing pasture for beef cattle.
Please read the longer version of this heartwarming story in our newsletter.