Farmer-to-Farmer Land Transfer
Brown Spring Farm, West Newbury
A Long-time Family Farm Transfers to a New Farmer
Chris Grant had been running a successful egg and poultry operation for years without secure access to his own land.
Like many young farmers in our region, Chris faced expensive land costs created by intense development pressure, including Brown Spring Farm when it came on the market.
That’s when Greenbelt and Chris (seen on the left with fiancée Alice Tonry) came together to conserve the farmland, while reducing land value to make it affordable for Chris to buy.
Greenbelt and the Town of West Newbury purchased an Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) on the land that extinguished 3 house lots.
Reducing the number of houses that could exist on the property to one lowered the property value to a number Chris could reach.
“After farming on borrowed or rented land for so long, it feels good to be able to set up simple things like a greenhouse, irrigation, and deer fencing that will be permanent and not worry that we might have to remove them after a season or two,” said Grant and Tonry.
The farm preserves an important cornerstone of West Newbury’s agricultural economy, and provides a reliable source of fresh, local food at the new Grant Family Farm farmstand in West Newbury.