Pinello Farm Lands
Are Conserved by Trust
By Sandy Vondrasek Cooch

The 242-acre Pinello Farm on Monday became the fifth Randolph Center area farm to be conserved—that is, protected from future commercial, industrial, or residential development—under an agreement with the Vermont Land Trust.

The dairy farm, jointly owned by Jane and Frank Pinello, and David Pinello, is on the South Randolph Road. The Pinellos milk about 200 cows, raise their own replacement heifers, and harvest hay and corn on 85 acres on the farm, and on another 340 acres of rented land.

Funds to purchase the development rights to the Pinello farm came from a grant from the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, as well as a $10,000 allocation from the Randolph Conservation Fund. It was the first time that the Randolph fund has been used to preserve farmland.

"The farm has excellent soils, with 77 acres of nationally prime soils, and 54 acres of statewide rated soils," according to a release from the Vermont Land Trust.

"It’s a terrifically well-run, modern dairy farm," said Mark McEathron, the Trust’s executive director, this week.

New Agreement

In the Pinello Farm project, the Land Trust utilized a relatively new type of agreement that not only protects the farm from being carved up and developed, but also makes it much more likely that the property will remain a working farm, according to McEathron.

The new-style agreement is called an "Option to Purchase at Agricultural Value," or OPAV.

"The purpose behind the OPAV is to prevent the sale of conserved land to people who want beautiful ‘country estates,’ but who aren’t farmers," McEathron explained.

For most the 30 years it has been in existence, the Vermont Land Trust has used "longstanding conservation easement language," when working with landowners to preserve their lands. These agreements—either purchased by the Land Trust or donated by the owners—transfer the right for most future development to the Land Trust.

Owners, depending on the property, retain the right for farming, forest management, and harvesting, the right to build trails and other similar rights. They also can sell the property, with the conservation agreement remaining in effect for all succeeding landowners.

The traditional agreements give the Land Trust "a right to match dollar-for-dollar an offer to buy" the land in the future. However, the Land Trust can find itself facing wealthy buyers interested in converting a conserved, "working landscape" into a country estate.

"We cannot compete with those numbers," McEathron said.

The OPAV gives the Land Trust the right to buy the property at its "agricultural land value," he said. The Pinellos retain the right to sell or give their farm to family members, or to sell to a farmer (as defined by the IRS) "at any price."

McEathron said the Land Trust would exercise its OPAV option to purchase only if it appeared the property were in jeopardy of being sold to a non-farmer.

Look for a Farmer

"We would then look around for a farmer to sell to as quickly as we could," he said. "The goal is not to own the land but to keep it as a working farm."

"Our focus always has been on Vermont’s working landscape—the working farm, managed forestland, as well as land important for local communities, especially those where there is concentrated recreational use," he said.

This week, Jane Pinello said conservation "was a way to ensure the next generation that there will be a farm available."

"There are so many challenges now trying to farm, and conserving the land eliminates one of them," she said.

Pinello, her husband Frank, and brother-in-law David, have operated the farm since 1982, and owned it since 1987.

A Group Effort

However, Pinello stressed that this farm is a group project, dependent on the cooperation and support of family members, employees, and landowners who rent extra crop land to the Pinellos. The supporting cast also includes neighbors—working and retired farmers—who assist with the farm work load. One of the landowners who rents land to the Pinellos, for example, mows the fields as well.

"We receive a lot of support for keeping the farm viable, and could not have done it without everyone behind us," she stressed.

The Land Trust’s McEathron noted that the fact that the Pinellos rent so much land—340 acres in the Randolph area to raise corn and hay—amplifies the effect of the farm conservation.

Having that much land devoted to farming "really brings a lot of stability to the landscape," he said.

It is also beneficial, McEathron noted, to have a cluster of conserved farms, as the Randolph area now does. A concentration of farms makes it more likely businesses that support farmers—such as equipment and feed suppliers—will remain in the area.

Other nearby conserved farms = include the Lake (now Beilder) Farm, Silloway Farm, Osha Farm, and Scheindel Farm.