Vermont Land Trust: Helping Farm Businesses Grow

Land conservation helps one Fairfield family modernize their dairy business and go from 80 milking cows to 200 milking cows. Land conservation helps another family buy additional land to expand their maple sugar business.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Vermont Land Trust
• land conservation
• dairy farm
• organic
• maple sugar
• sugaring
• family farm
• Fairfield
• economy

[VermontLandTrust]

Most farm conservation projects involve the selling of a conservation easement. A conservation easement is a legal tool that limits future development (e.g. prevents subdivisions for housing, protects agricultural soil, etc.). Many farmers use the proceeds from the sale of development rights on their property to expand their operation, reduce debt, build new barns, or transfer the farm to the next generation. Funding for these sales come from state, federal, and private sources.

[fakir0005]

When I saw the headline I thought the Land Trust gave the family some money grant. Now I see that it is talking about land conservation. How did land conservation enable the family to buy more cows. I thought by land Conservation people mean preventing erosion of soil. To prevent erosion people would be using money to grow grass and plants instead of buying cows. That means a family would need money to prevent erosion and to buy cows. What does the land Trust do.