The Litchfield Hills Greenprint Program got some very high profile press last Sunday in the New York Times regarding the regional importance of Farmland Preservation in New Milford, Connecticut. Fair use excerpt:
(An) ethic of self-reliance is behind the mayor’s desire to hold onto a sizable chunk of New Milford’s remaining farmland. Much of the land that used to support dairy cows and tobacco here is these days turning out jumbo colonials. Before housing spreads over the remaining pastures, the mayor says, she would like to set aside a reserve of agricultural land as a guarantee that the town will always have a local source for food or, possibly, renewable energy.
“For me,” she said, “it’s a sustainability issue.”
...Totaling nearly 1,000 acres, the five farms represent one of the largest contiguous stretches with prime agricultural soils left in Litchfield County, said Tim Abbott, program director of the Litchfield Hills Greenprint, a project organized by the Housatonic Valley Association and the Trust For Public Land.
Maintaining such large tracts of agricultural land, as opposed to single farms surrounded by housing, is vital to sustaining farming, Mr. Abbott said, because a greater amount of land will allow for more adaptability over time.
“This is New Milford’s last, best hope to keep farming intact the way they know and love it,” he said.
I must confess that ever since the Wall Street Journal included me as a representative Luddite Birder in a front page story about technology and bird watching, I've been secretly hoping for the other wing to fly. With the NYT story, I now appear to occupy the radical conservation center, though hopefully not in the same way as Spinal Tap bass player Derek Smalls, who described himself as the "lukewarm water" between two lead guitarists.
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