Vermont Housing Conservation Board 2005 - Vermont Housing and ...

“Watching the O’Connell family
revitalize (their farm) . . . is encouraging
to the many people in town
who value our agricultural heritage,”
said a letter written on behalf of the
Corinth Select Board, supporting the
farm’s conservation. The project was
also supported by the Orange County
Headwaters Project, an initiative in
Corinth and Washington that has
gathered momentum as well as quite a
bit of local and regional funding support
for their efforts.
Rich has learned how to farm by
asking questions, reading, and just
doing it. “We work every inch of this
property,” he says. “We’re no strangers
to 18-hour days, if that’s what it takes.
“We’re upgrading and getting more
efficient. To make it small, you need to
be more efficient.”
The O’Connells started shipping
milk when prices were at a 40-year
low, but they have stuck it out. “This
is more a lifestyle choice, for us,” Rich
says. “Sometimes the paychecks aren’t
big, sometimes they’re not enough
— but I’m driven by determination.”
The new barn was “100 percent
made possible by the UVLT,” he says.
The public funding was the first he had
received for the farm, from any source.
“Being a small farm, you aren’t the
first choice for any financial institution
handing out money,” he observes,
drily.
The O’Connells’ decision to conserve
helped leverage similar choices
by several adjoining landowners. Jack
and Susi Learmouth, Glynn Pellagrino,
and Anne Bergeron conserved a total
of 129 acres, much of which had been
part of the original farm now owned
by the O’Connells.
“These landowners were cheered
as pioneers in a conservation initiative
organized by Corinth and Washington
residents,” the UVLT told its members
in a September letter, “to conserve
large blocks of working forest and
farmland — an opportunity, say the
project’s organizers, ‘to collectively
affect the way our area will look, feel,
and function far into the future.’”
Rich O’Connell knows it’s up to
him to make his farm work. “This
is my place — and if I don’t do it, it
doesn’t get done.”
But now he also knows the land on
which his business relies is secure.
“The whole area around here
will remain rural,” he says. “The leaf
peepers are going to keep coming
by. They’re going to want to come to
places like this.”
Local Conservation Program Helps Towns Realize Their Objectives
VHCB’s Local Conservation Program provides funding for the acquisition of land or easements to
provide public access to water, trails or greenways, to protect or expand town parks and town forests,
and to conserve agricultural land and public historic properties. Local Conservation awards are limited
to $150,000 and require a minimum one-third match of total project costs in the form of local fundraising,
in-kind services, and/or donations of land and easements that further the conservation goals of
the project. More than 60 towns have used the program to acquire or conserve land, creating ballfields,
public parks and trails, and securing public access to swimming holes and historic buildings.
Local Farmland Conservation
Smaller farms like the O'Connell Farm that may be unable to compete for funding under VHCB’s statewide
Farmland Conservation Program are eligible for grants under the Local Conservation Program.
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