Editor’s Note: We received the following information from John Fulop, board president of Berkshire Community Land Trust, and we felt it was important to share it with Edge readers.
Molly Comstock, who founded Colfax Farm almost ten years ago, is suddenly faced with losing her lease. For the last four years her farm has been located at 181 West Road in Alford. The Berkshire Community Land Trust (BCLT) has agreed to search for new property to house the farm and needs your help. Your input is needed to solve a land access problem for Colfax Farm.
The farm serves 120 CSA members with organically grown vegetables as well as some fruit (strawberries and raspberries). Colfax Farm also serves 120 customers at farmers markets and supplies produce to six area restaurants. The organic farm employs a no-till method of cultivation, which creates nutrient rich soil. The farm presently houses a permanent 30′ x 75′ propane-heated greenhouse, which was recently funded by a $12,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture. Two 16′ x 100′ unheated hoop houses are mobile and serve to extend the growing season into fall and early spring.
BCLT and its sister organization, the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires, are nonprofit organizations that date back to 1980. Together they hold and administer leases on three parcels of land totaling 49 acres restricted to year-round resident-owners in South Egremont and Great Barrington. Including two nonprofit organizations, there are 24 leaseholders in total.
In 1997, Indian Line Farm in South Egremont came up for sale following the tragic death of its owner, Robyn Van En, founder of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement in the U.S. A group of friends of the farm wanted to keep the excellent farmland in active production to supply vegetables to the Berkshire community. Individuals donated for Berkshire Community Land Trust to purchase the land; The Nature Conservancy purchased an overlaying conservation easement; and two farmers took out a mortgage to purchase the buildings. The farmers lease the land on a 98-year lease and own the buildings. The lease requires organic vegetable production. The result: quality farmland stays in permanent active local food production, supporting a family and several seasonal workers.
Could Indian Line Farm provide a model for Colfax Farm? Could the community of people around Colfax Farm identify a donor of land to Berkshire Community Land Trust for this purpose? Molly is presently hoping to find 10 acres of land in the Alford/West Stockbridge area on which to locate her greenhouse, hoop houses, and at a tiny house in which she can live close to her work. The site, hopefully a flat parcel, will need water, electricity which she hopes to create with solar collectors, and heat which will be provided by a geothermal system.
Join us on Wednesday, June 30 from 7:30-8:30 p.m for a community forum via Zoom. BCLT Board member Rob Putnam will host a conversation with Colfax’s Molly Comstock and Elizabeth Keen of Indian Line Farm to discuss how the CLT model helped to preserve Indian Line Farm and how it could be leveraged to provide secure access to land for Colfax Farm. This forum is being cosponsored by Berkshire Grown and Berkshire Agricultural Ventures.
To contact Molly regarding any leads into a tax deductible land donation or lease, phone 607-743-8190, email colfaxfarm@gmail.com or contact Berkshire Community Land Trust at office@berkshirecommunitylandtrust.org.
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