Farmland

The soils of the Connecticut River Valley are among the deepest and richest in the world. Farms here have a long history of providing abundant crops for residents of Massachusetts and beyond. This region leads the nation in promoting locally grown and organic products through direct sales at farm stands and farmer’s markets. Unfortunately, farmland is also extremely threatened by housing subdivisions.

The Kestrel Trust is dedicated to conserving the best farmland left in the Valley by collaborating with farmers and the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources to purchase agricultural preservation restrictions (APRs) from landowners. This ensures that farmers can continue to farm the land in perpetuity.

One of our priority farming areas is The Great Meadow, a 350+ acre agricultural area in the heart of Hadley, Massachusetts on the banks of the Connecticut River. This is also the town’s very first farming area. The long slender fields, originally designed to be plowed by oxen, were laid out in 1661 and allotted to the first colonial settlers of the town. The Great Meadow was an important part of the town center, which included a tightly clustered village along the common on West Street and the town burial grounds on Cemetery Road. To date, more than 120 acres of farmland in this important area have been conserved. In the fall of 2009, The Great Meadow was recognized by the World Monuments Fund.

The Kestrel Trust has also begun collaborating with Trust for Public Land, Valley Land Fund, and Franklin Land Trust to protect the more than 2,000 acres of farmland between the Fort River and the Holyoke Range. In September 2009, Kestrel assisted the Trust for Public Land secure 67 acres on Moody Bridge Road in Hadley, known as BriMar Farm for the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge.

In 2009, Kestrel joined with the towns of Hadley, Amherst, and Sunderland to place Forever Farmland signs to recognize permanently protected agricultural land. The sign directs people to a new website foreverfarmland.org, which provides links to the organizations working to secure our Valley's farms.

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