by David Flint
Nineteen varieties of the Berry Patch’s “magnificent melons” were laid out on a long table for a melon tasting event Tuesday, August 17, to celebrate the permanent protection of 108 acres of prime farmland in Stephentown. On hand to help with tasting and rating the exquisite melons along with
customers, friends and neighbors were NYS Agriculture & Markets Commissioner Patrick Hooker, NY State Senator Roy McDonald, NY Assemblyman Tony Jordan, Rensselaer County Executive Kathy Jimino, David Haight, New York Director of the American Farmland Trust, and Ken Herrington, County Legislator and Chair of the Rensselaer County Agriculture & Farmland Protection Board.
Dale Riggs and Don Miles, owners of Stone Wall Hill Farm, the home of the Berry Patch, actually closed on the sale of the development rights to 108 acres of their farmland last December but decided to hold off for better weather to celebrate. The Agricultural Stewardship Association (ASA) was the prime partner in arranging the sale and will hold the conservation easement on the acreage.
Don and Dale are first generation farmers, but they love their land as though it had been in the family for decades. They had both witnessed the loss of productive land to development while living in other states. “We saw land gobbled by residential and commercial development, which is what happens to areas where people don’t value viable farmland,” Dale said. “I would never want that to happen to land that I had worked and nurtured!”
Riggs thanked all the partners that included Rensselaer County, the Columbia Land Conservancy and the Rensselaer Land Trust, aided by a grant from the State’s farmland protection program. She is very proud, she said, and can sleep well at night, knowing that 500 years from now hikers up on Round Top Mountain can look down and see the land still undeveloped, still being farmed.
ASA Executive Director Teri Ptacek said that the great support for farmland protection projects in both the Washington and Rensselaer County legislatures helped to generate funding for the project, 75% of which came from New York State. She noted that Riggs and Miles themselves provided 23% and the rest came from loyal Berry Patch customers and employees stimulated by a challenge grant of $5,000 from one of them.
County Executive Jimino praised Riggs and Miles for their courage and persistence through a long process that they started back in 2001. It’s important to protect farmland, she said, to keep a safe and affordable food supply. Ken Herrington echoed this saying that obtaining farmland protection easements is often a tough sell to farmers who tend to wonder what the catch is. But with the help of the ASA there have been a number of successful projects in the north of Rensselaer County and now here in the south. Farmers have grown to trust the ASA, he said. Unfortunately, however, now that there is a lot of interest in farmland protection, the State has cut way back on the funding.
Commissioner Hooker said he will do his best to see that funding is restored. The two State legislators present, he said, understand the need to protect the precious farmland in this valley and elsewhere, but the challenge is to get the other 210 legislators to understand and appreciate the need. What Riggs and Miles have done, he said, is a metaphor for where we have to go statewide. Assemblyman Jordan agreed. “The fight is important. When [farmland] is gone, it’s gone forever.” Senator McDonald added that farmers are struggling and he spoke of the need to buy their products and help them keep farmland in agriculture. “My colleagues downstate forget where food comes from,” he said. “We say don’t just love New York but buy New York. This is one of the finest agricultural areas in the world, and we can’t afford to lose it.”
Officers of the ASA have noted that, “The credit for this project truly belongs to the community – because it took a whole community of concerned people to get it done. We extend thanks and congratulations to everyone who helped with the protection of this well known farm.”
The winners in the melon contest, by the way, were the Aphrodite muskmelon, the Amy canary melon and the Tri-X Palomar watermelon.