Partners Celebrate Preservation of Three Farms

NRCS East Regional Assistant Chief Richard Coombe joined representatives from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RI DEM), and other local partners to announce the preservation of the Miner, Panciera, and Tomaquag Valley farms in the Town of Hopkinton

NRCS East Regional Assistant Chief Richard Coombe joined representatives from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RI DEM) and other local partners to announce the preservation of the Miner, Panciera, and Tomaquag Valley farms in the Town of Hopkinton.

The Miner Farm is the first Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) easement purchased in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States. The easement will permanently protect 16 acres of pasture on the 61 acre farm that produces livestock, horses, chickens, and exotic birds.

Mr. Coombe noted that a pond on the farm where Bob Miner’s father, Charles signed his conservation plan in 1949, was designed by the Soil Conservation Service several years later. The old documents had been laminated and on display to illustrate the multi-generation family commitment to conservation.

Find out more about NRCS in Rhode Island.

Acting Director for the RI DEM, Michael Sullivan moderated the event, introduced NRCS Rhode Island State Conservationist Judith Doerner and thanked Judy for her leadership in getting environmental projects off the ground, “she will be sorely missed when she leaves for Vermont in September,” Sullivan said.

“The purchase of the Miner farm conservation easement will provide permanent protection for the land and protect it from conversion to non-grassland uses,” Doerner said.
Your contact is Jeanne Comerford,  NRCS public affairs specialist, at 401-822-8816.