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A Farm Forever: Federal and state programs help protect land and a legacyThirty acres of Dracut land farmed by the Leczynski family for over 87 years will remain in agriculture forever thanks to the federal Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP), the state Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) program, and the Town of Dracut Community Preservation Committee. |
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Jump Starting Succession: NRCS helps Friends of Wissatinnewag restore native grasses at burial siteA 70 foot gravel embankment at a Native American burial site in Greenfield, Massachusetts, will soon be carpeted in native grasses if the recent efforts of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service staff and local volunteers are successful. |
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A Culvert Operation: NRCS and Mass Audubon partner to restore salt marsh at Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary, South DartmouthNormal tidal flow to a seven acre South Dartmouth salt marsh has been restored thanks to a partnership between the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Through the federal Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), NRCS provided $13,128 in cost-share assistance, as well as technical assistance, to replace a culvert in the Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary that was too small. |
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Land of Opportunities: NRCS helps Nuestras Raíces restore urban land for farmingIn 2004, Nuestras Raíces, a grass-roots organization that promotes economic, human and community development for the Latino community in Holyoke, Massachusetts, contacted the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service field office in Hadley for assistance with conservation planning on land the organization had recently purchased along the Connecticut River. |
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A River Flows Through It: Celebrating the protection of Plymouth cranberry land and restoration of the Eel RiverSome 95 acres of cranberry land in Plymouth, Massachusetts, will remain as open space thanks to the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and a partnership of local and federal agencies and non-profit organizations. NRCS contributed more than $300,000 toward conservation easements, construction for the restoration of the stream and surrounding wetlands, and other associated costs through the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP). |
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A Sea Change for Conservation: Cape Cod shellfish growers join in successful EQIP pilotIn a unique pilot program under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Cape Cod's shellfish growers were eligible for cost-share assistance on conservation practices for the first time in 2005. |
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Silent Protectors heard from againWith the record rainfall in October 2005, five dams and a floodwall built decades ago by the USDA Soil Conservation Service (SCS) in the Upper Quaboag River Watershed of central Massachusetts prevented an estimated $3 million in flood damages during the storms, according to the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, formerly the SCS. |
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For Berkshire County farmer, clean water is key to conservation stewardshipStanding behind George Noble’s farmhouse, looking over his corn field to the rolling Berkshire hills beyond, you’d never guess that Tweenbrook Farm is within the city limits of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. But despite its city zip code, the farm is nestled on 110 acres between the Housatonic River on the west, Sykes Brook on the south and Sackett Brook on the north. |
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Essex County farmers are stewards of land pressured by development and steeped in historyThe quiet of Robert and Kathleen Brown’s farmland in West Newbury, where the whisper of summer breezes is disturbed only by the chirping of birds and the buzzing of honey bees, stands in contrast to the sounds of traffic that carry over the hayfield behind their Farmer Brown’s Farmstand on busy Maple Street in Middleton. |
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After four decades, USDA dams still silent protectors of SuAsCo watershed townsTen dams built by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Soil Conservation Service (SCS) between 1962 and 1987 in the Sudbury-Assabet-Concord rivers watershed – also known as the SuAsCo watershed – are today providing an estimated $1.7 million in annual flood damage reduction benefits in eastern Massachusetts, according to the agency, now called the Natural Resources Conservation Service. |
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AMA project is part of Appleton Farms’ farming legacyThe oldest continually operating farm in the Massachusetts, Appleton Farms in Ipswich, Mass., is thriving today with the help of the NRCS Agricultural Management Assistance program. This farm, once on the frontier of a new England, was given as a land grant to Samuel Appleton in 1638. Now Appleton Farms is designated as one of the commonwealth’s Century Farms and has one of largest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs in the state. |
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New Salem Farmer WHIPs Invasive PlantsWhen Carol Hillman and her former husband bought a hillside orchard in the Western Massachusetts town of New Salem in 1968, the apple trees had been abandoned and were badly in need of pruning. “You couldn’t walk through the rows because of the dead branches that were there, so we did a large restoration,” recalled Hillman, looking out over the panoramic view of the northern tip of the Quabbin Reservoir from her 1760 farmhouse. |
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Massachusetts Goat Producer Gets Pasture-ized!As a child growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Bob Ramirez visited a farm through a program for city kids. That visit made such an impression on him that 12 years ago, Ramirez and his wife Cynthia bought a farm in this hilltown and started raising angora goats. Today, with technical assistance from NRCS, the 29 award-winning goats at Keldaby Farm peacefully graze the hilly pastures surrounding the farmstead where the Ramirez’s sell mohair wool, weave woolen clothing and run a bed and breakfast. |
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NRCS staff, Montague town officials work to restore vegetation on Sawmill RiverStaff from NRCS, the Town of Montague, and the Franklin Conservation District marked Earth Day 2004 by planting live willow stakes at three sites along the Sawmill River. The planting is among assistance provided by NRCS at the town’s request as part of an on-going river restoration project. |
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