BERNARDSTON — After completing a farmland inventory for the town of Bernardston, representatives from Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust found that 90 percent of the town’s farmland is not permanently protected.
Jamie Pottern, land conservation specialist with Mount Grace, and Kathleen Doherty, a MassLIFT-Americorps member temporarily serving as a regional conservation coordinator with Mount Grace, presented the organization’s findings with the Bernardston Board of Selectmen during a meeting Wednesday, July 20.
“A large percentage of farmland is not currently protected, which means it could be developed,” Doherty said. “That was the most important finding, at least from the Mount Grace perspective.”
“Our hope is that by providing real data to illustrate the state of farms in the town, the community can use this data in making strategic choices for helping to conserve individual farms and ensure that they are passed on to the next generation of farmers,” Pottern said of the study.
Each farmland inventory is developed over a period of a few months and funded by Mount Grace as part of the organization’s Farmland Conservation Program, Pottern said. The process involves preliminary mapping and working with farmers, community members and agricultural commissions to refine the data.
Inventories have been completed for 10 towns to date: Bernardston, Northfield, Warwick, Athol, Orange, Petersham, Hardwick, Barre, Gill and Greenfield.
“The goals for the inventories are to work with community members and town committees to determine how much farmland there is, where it is, what is being produced and if it the farm is protected,” Pottern said. “This can lay the groundwork for communities setting priorities for farmland conservation and planning for the future.”
In hopes of increasing the town’s protected farmland, Pottern explained that property owners can seek to have restrictions placed on their deeds to prevent future development, and can often receive grant money or tax credit in exchange.
“We’re trying to provide landowners with more information earlier,” Pottern said.
Bernardston’s farmland inventory also includes a map of the town’s agricultural soils.
“Bernardston has a good amount of prime and statewide important farmland,” Doherty said. However, 77 percent of the town’s 4,892 acres of prime and statewide important farmland soils are not being utilized for crops or pasture.
“The soil is there to support more farms than we already have,” Doherty said. “(The inventory) can be a tool for open space planning.”
Currently, farms make up 3,040 acres or 20 percent of the town’s total land area. The most commonly produced farm product is hay, followed by horses.
Pottern and Doherty discussed how Bernardston could use the inventory’s map of farm products to inform residents of what each farm sells and which are open to the public, increasing the town’s potential for agritourism.
Pottern hopes the study can spark conversation about the future of Bernardston’s rural character, the local economy and ways to support local farmers.