Campaign to Preserve Working Farms

Blue Hill Farm
Project Fundraising Goal: $400,000

Blue Hill Farm: 185 Keyes Hill Road, New Marlborough, MA; 249 +/- total acres; owned and lovingly cared for by the Goodnow Family since the mid 1960s.

Preservation Project Goal: Conserve 245 acres via a MA Agricultural Preservation Restriction

(APR) while allowing an experienced farming family to purchase the farmstead and work the land with sustainable agricultural practices.

Project Partners: New Marlborough Land Trust, The Trustees of Reservations, Berkshire Agricultural Ventures, the Thieriot Foundation, Massachusetts Department of Agriculture,

Massachusetts Audubon, Berkshire Natural Resources Council, the McNiff Family (dba Pat's Pastured) and the Goodnow Family.

Scope of Preservation Project: The nine project partners are working collectively towards a shared goal: To permanently protect 245 unfragmented acres and preserve Blue Hill Farm as a working farmstead. Conserving the acreage intact will secure the habitat, the water resources, open space, and prime agricultural soils that make this property unique.

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to preserve intact a legacy farm of 249 +/- contiguous acres, including three residential dwellings (a main farmhouse, a caretaker’s house and an abandoned but restorable house), barns, and other agricultural structures. The property contains a rich mixed hardwood forested area and open hay fields. The Umpachene River borders much of the east, south and west boundaries.

Benefits of the Blue Hill Farm project:

Preservation of the farmstead will benefit the entire New Marlborough community by:

• Conserving ecologically important land permanently

• Strengthening the Berkshire’s agricultural industry and supporting other local farmers

• Ensuring Blue Hill Farm remains affordable for agricultural use in perpetuity

• Contributing to New Marlborough’s economic base

• Sustaining the Town’s historic rural landscape.

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