Facts and Links

• Cattle can be good for watersheds. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/itn/05/050303.htm
• New York State is losing 9,000 Acres of farmland per year.  That`s about 2 farms per week. newyork.farmland.org
• New York State lost 23% of dairy farms the five years between 2007 - 2011. http://ithacasfoodweb.blogspot.com/2011/04/dairy-prices-rise-farmers-struggle.html
• http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/11/14/142305869/newbie-farmers-find-that-dirt-isnt-cheap
• In 1940, one farmer fed 19 people, in 2010, one farmer feeds 155 people.  High Plains Journal, March 11, 2011 http://www.hpj.com/
• "The average American is now more than three generations removed from the farm." http://www.jdsupra.com/documents/389d65de-2aa5-4651-a944-8df396a24de5.pdf
• Beginning farmers today are predominantly young (under 30) and do not all come from farm families. http://www.beginningfarmers.org/ , http://www.youngfarmers.org/reports/Building_A_Future_With_Farmers.pdf

A Division by Infinity Problem

Divide any number by infinity and you get a number infinitely closer to zero. The Division by Infinity Problem distorts the economics of farming in the Western New York State region: as everyone takes their small piece of paradise to build a home, the land available for agriculture is not just diminished but is divided into ever smaller fragments that are, by nature, less productive and less efficient. Farmers have higher transportation costs for lower yield and higher waste, for example wasted seed, fertilizer, or water at boundaries. Further complicating things for the small business farmer are the increasing multitude of contract agreements to rent land from an ever increasing number of owners of smaller parcels. More contracts mean more paperwork, accounting, and legal work. The value of a simple handshake is diminishing here too. This is where a sale of a conservation easement on a larger tract of land will help farmers, present and future, maintain a productive land-base while avoiding the complications of farming on a patchwork, or rather a crazy-quilt, of land.

Land is property and the right to it is paramount among people’s priorities. The idea that your land or property has value leaves one with a sense of security; a back-up plan for any of several worst- case-scenarios: a terminal illness, an extra hot summer, a disease that wipes out a crop or a herd, or even a child that needs a place to re-build his home. When any of these scenarios plays out, a farmer has to sell his land, and, to make it worth his sacrifice, he sells it for a use other than agriculture in order to receive the maximum value of the land (the total value of all agriculture, development, any remaining mineral rights, and all recreational rights). No one should deny the landowner this.

No matter which generation sells a parcel to someone who builds on it, or gives a parcel to someone who builds on it, or builds on it; the land is forever taken out of agriculture. It is every property owner’s right to sell his land and to receive a fair market value for every right to it that he sells (i.e. agriculture, development, mineral, timber and/or recreational rights). Only in the case that a person sells a conservation easement to her land for a fair market value (the value of the development rights) does the land remain available for farming and can be sold for the fair market value of the remaining rights (agriculture, mineral, recreational, timber, etc.) in the present or any future generation.

Land can only be divided so many times before it loses the character that made it valuable for division in the first place. If everyone builds a house on his fathers farm, and his father’s, and so on, even a significantly declining population will see an end to agricultural land in not so many generations.

Let them look to the past, but let them also look to the future; let them look to the land of their ancestors, but let them look also to the land of their children.

  Wilfrid Laurier (1841 – 1919)

  a Canadian statesman

Letter of Support

Spring, 2011

Statement of Support- Zenner Road Conservation Easement

By Jillian Krupski, Granddaughter/Farm Enthusiast

We’re a farm family. We’ve been sustainable before “sustainable” was a buzzword and organic before “organic” implied a certain social status. In a day and age where obesity is an epidemic, we have a healthy relationship with food and manual labor. We’re American. We’re middle-class. None of us are full-time farmers. We have careers: a chemical engineer, a research biologist, a project manager. We shop at large grocery stores, drive non fuel-efficient cars, and live in 1970’s-era subdivisions. You wouldn’t call us environmentalists, but our farm is our world.

We divide our year by the season: June is for strawberries, July is pea and pickle season. August is for cauliflower and tomatoes. April is spent in the greenhouse, November finds us winterizing the chicken house. We practice farming because we know we have an incredible gift of land to which a decreasing amount of people have access. We do it because we always have. We do it because it is our heritage and because it is immensely satisfying. We do it because we believe it’s incredibly important to pass it on.

Of course this farm is special for one thousand or more snapshots in time: for the myriad summer evenings the pond has given up its sunfish to ecstatic grandchildren; for the 40+ years that the woods have sheltered bands of campers and ordinary families singing like a world-class choir around a campfire; for the simple mystery of filling a plastic milk jug with crisp spring water straight from a hillside spigot; for the grove of pines that have provided years and years of Christmas Trees, for the sugar maples and the sugar shack and a rich warm maple perfume that cuts through cold spring air. For innumerable nights of catching fireflies in mason jars. For teaching brothers and cousins how to work together to get the ATV out of a mudhole or to construct cauliflower boxes at a rapid pace or to move an entire irrigation system in the 30 minutes after ice cream cones and before sunset. For teaching three generations how to be good stewards of our earth.

It’s not that you can’t encounter these attributes elsewhere. This type of tradition binds families and generations across the US; it’s our American heritage. Organic peas, berries and pumpkins can be grown
anywhere. Instead, what’s makes this farm unique is the people it has produced. Two married farmers built a system that produced four generous, hardworking individuals who will testify that their moral fabric is a direct result of their farm upbringing. Those four adults have in turn produced ten principled, productive members of society who choose to spend their summer vacations taking part in the familialbound food production process. We, the human products of the Zenner Road Farm are instilled with sense of unique tradition, responsibility and a tie to the earth that we are determined to pass on to generations in perpetuity.

Open Call for Directors

• Are you a busy person who wishes "someone" would take the time to do "something" to keep our landscape intact?
• Do you care that your hometown remains a comfortable suburban-rural farming community?
• Do you know a bit about farming and hunting and forests and gardens?
• Do you have 2-3 hours to spare in a year?

Then by all means, become a Director of Winkelman Farm and make a difference with us today!

Winkelman Farm Conservation Corporation is actively seeking dynamic volunteers to serve as additional Directors on our Board. 

The role of Director is a non-paid volunteer position whose reward is the involvement in the conservation of productive farmland in our own hometown area. Very limited time is demanded of Directors: one annual meeting and regular (quarterly) updates by telephone or email. 

The WFCC Board is responsible for maintaining the Winkelman Farm mission, determining strategic direction and setting policies to carry out the mission, and the oversight of WFCC’s finances and operations. The Board reviews, provides content, and approves/disapproves every land and easement transaction.

The Board is composed of four to six members with diverse skills, backgrounds and experiences who are committed to Board service.

1. Each Board member shall have a connection to the Boston/East Eden area.
2. Each Board member shall have experience and/or education in at least one of the following fields: agriculture, forestry, conservation, outdoor recreation, natural resources extraction (natural gas, gravel), education.
3. Board members serve at-will on a volunteer basis.

SEND your note of interest to us by email or post.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kind Regards,

Winkelman Farm Conservation Corporation

Board of Directors

Dr. Kevin O`Gorman

Mr. Sam Magavern

Christin Hunter
Jeff Wohlheuter

 

Cathy Lynn, Administrator

the Poetics of Farming

The first farmers came

two hundred years ago

bringing wealth to buy land

so their riches would grow

and they did.

Farming through generations
some stayed, others returned
to plant their roots
in the soil they yearned

to plow.

The farms got smaller
as land was parceled
farming in patchwork
became one more hassle

they dealt with.

Now, the last lonely farmer,
farms not for wealth,
not for status and certainly
not for his health

or hers.

She farms for the feel
of soft clay beneath her nails
for the smells after rain
from the stalls and the bales,

steaming.

He farms for the feeling
of skin coated in salt
from the sweat that rewards
a day without fault

of anyone.

They farm because of
breakdowns and frozen pipes,
too much rain, a tough drought,
a calf, who dies in the night;

repairable.

These are the simple fixes
of a simple life you cannot buy;
they farm for the luxury
to hold their heads high

most days.

He is never dim-witted
yet he holds no degree
he is a master of faith
and deep philosophy

of God and nature.

She knows her place
to work the land
for the world to eat
from her own tired hand

gratefully.

He knows he keeps
the land open and free
he maintains its health
and the scenery

for everyone else.

She feels secure
to know the land is wealth
for her children’s houses
or to sell for her health

someday.

He is unnerved
at price fluctuations
for land, corn and milk
and insecure mortgages;

feeling shame.


(c) 2011 Cathy Lynn

Our Mission

WFCC: making conservation affordable for family farms in East Eden.

Many retiring farmers face financial burdens that force the sale of their land for its valuable development rights because they are ineligible for traditional conservation easement tax deductions. WFCC is a not-for-profit organization that seeks creative ways to pay retiring farmers fair market value for the development rights to their land and holds those rights in the form of a conservation easement in perpetuity. Founded in 2007 as an organization of last resort, WFCC aids landowners in East Eden and Boston, NY who wish to preserve the natural, historic and productive farming value of their lands. WFCC works on project properties that lie within the boundaries of Feddick, East Eden, Haag and Keller Roads.

Since 2007, WFCC has protected 110 acres at the corner of Zenner and Feddick Roads with a conservation easement. WFCC is currently fundraising to add another 80 acres contiguous to this property. We have received a pledge of $10,000 which has been matched.  We need at least 10 more like-minded donors to fund our next project.


A Quote for Conversation
"Every time somebody has thought of relief for the farmer it has been to make it so he could borrow more money. What he needs is some way to pay back. Not some way to borrow more."  Will Rogers (about the 1928 version of the Farm Bill)


You Can Make a Tax-Deductible Donation
Please send us an email with your pledge and, when we have accummulated enough pledges to proceed with our project, we will contact you to organize payment.