Farmland Preservation

Every minute of every day, two acres of agricultural land are lost to development.  We're witnessing this loss of farmland in our own communities, and as the pressures of real estate and commercial development win out over local farmland, we lose the sources of our local food. 

But the costs of lost farmland go beyond local food:  Farmland also provides food and cover for wildlife, helps control flooding, protects wetlands and watersheds and maintains air quality, as well as absorbing and filtering wastewater and providing groundwater recharge.

At Enterprise farm, the land we own is under APR protection. Another piece of land we lease and grow on was preserved thanks to the work of the Whately Land Trust and the American Farmland Trust.  Enterprise Farm takes care of the land we grow on by rotating crops and maintaining soil fertility -- but we hope to have a broader impact.

The way we see it, as long as the food on your plate is coming from California, we'll continue to lose our local farmland -- and when a farm is paved over to make room for a big box store, it's lost forever.  For this reason, we hope our partnerships with other farms will help to sustain them, preserving as much farmland in Massachusetts and on the East Coast as possible.

Some of the material above is borrowed from the web site of the American Farmland Trust.