Farmland Lease Program

As part of its commitment to perpetuating Vermont’s rural landscape, in 2002 Smokey House put 4,417 acres of land under conservation easement, to be used for both forestry and agriculture. Placing the land under conservation easement turned out to be just half the battle; Smokey House began to face what others across the state were also facing—the failure of conventional family farms.  Smokey House watched two of its longtime tenant farm families go out of business and the third struggle to stay afloat.  Though we had conserved the land from development, we began to see the need (as did leaders in the state) to conserve the farm economy in order to maintain the land’s working character.  Over a period of years, we engaged agriculture, natural resource, and business leaders in a dialogue about how we might keep this prime agricultural land in production.  It was this region-wide conversation which urged us to rethink our notion of “program”—we began to consider our ecologically sound and economically productive management of natural resources as an important Smokey House program.  Now, we look to the future for the opportunity to develop our land programming so that we more completely conserve the rural character of this valley.  We are also working to transition the working farms to a next generation of farmers, more accustomed to sustainable agriculture and more comfortable with business planning.  Our first farmer is on-site with an 80-head herd of dairy cows, and the milk tanker is once again a familiar sight on Danby Mountain Road.