Lisa Primiano is the deputy chief of the Division of Planning and Development at the R.I. Department of Environmental Management. She was one of the lead people on the deal to conserve the Ferolbink Farms property in Tiverton as farmland – a project that took more than two years to complete.
Primiano recently took some time to speak about the Ferolbink Farms property and what goes on behind the scenes of conservation projects.
PBN: Can you tell us about the Ferolbink Farms project?
PRIMIANO: The Ferolbink Farm project is an agricultural land preservation project that resulted in the preservation of 140 acres of prime agricultural land in the town of Tiverton and also included the preservation of a 13-acre conservation tract consisting of salt marsh and a tidal creek extending into Little Compton. The property is located on the Sakonnet River watershed and has been operating as a farm since 1870.
The farm is currently owned by the Peckham family. The family farm primarily grows potatoes, squash and some Christmas trees.
The farmer will retain land ownership of the farmland parcel but the state and the R.I. Agricultural Land Preservation Commission now own the development rights. This means that the “right to develop” has been removed from the property. He will still be able to develop agricultural-related buildings and access roads.
The 13-acre parcel was transferred outright to The Nature Conservancy and will be managed for conservation.
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PBN: Why was the protection of this particular land so important?
PRIMIANO: Ferolbink Farm is an important agricultural resource. It is the largest potato farm in Rhode Island. The family sell their products to Frito-Lay for potato chips, and most recently the farm joined a five-member co-op selling Rhode Island potatoes under the brand name “Royal” potatoes. This farm has excellent prime farm soils, provides employment for local residents and has high production.
The land is not only an important agricultural resource, but also provides unparalleled coastal scenic vistas of the Sakonnet River for local residents and area visitors. The preservation of the farm provides not only for the current day farmer but preserves the land and its soils for future growing needs.
Finally, the preserved 13-acre parcel at the south end of the parcel serves to connect two preserved tracts of land, the Donovan Marsh, a DEM-owned parcel and the Fogland Marsh, owned by The Nature Conservancy. Together, over 50 acres of coastal marshland is now protected, an important nesting and feeding habitat for migratory songbirds.
PBN: I understand this project took quite a long time to come to reality. How come and why stick with it?
PRIMIANO: Most of today’s land preservation projects involve multiple partnerships, all with varying interests, grant applications, processes, standards, rules and regulations.
This project started with funding from three different federal programs: NOAA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and USDA; two state agencies: the R.I. Department of Environmental Management and the R.I. Agricultural Land Preservation Commission; three nonprofits: The Nature Conservancy, the Tiverton Land Trust and the Little Compton Agricultural Land Conservancy Trust; and a large number of private donors and neighbors.
Over time, we forfeited two of the federal funding sources due to project requirements that could not be met. The good news, however, is that the remaining federal funding source – the USDA’s Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program, ended up providing 50 percent of the funding needed for the project.
We stuck with this project because it was so important to the agricultural and conservation community. We were fortunate to have a landowner who was committed and partners that worked hard to enough to overcome time delays and local requirements in order to proceed.
There were several times over the course of the last two years, when it looked like we would not be able to complete this project due to the real estate market crash and loss of committed funds due to program requirements. DEM and its partners truly willed this project to closing – we simply were not going to let it fail.
PBN: This project involved a lot of partnerships. Is that typical of many of projects? Why are partnerships so important?
PRIMIANO: Very few land conservation projects would be completed without partnerships. It is very difficult to find funding and to execute a complex project independently. All of the conservation interests in the state work very well together.
We all understand the needs of each other and have worked hard to develop relationships and partnerships that are complementary, not competitive. This project was able to garner close to $1 million in local support funds, truly inspiring.
We recently have been able to tap into federal funding programs that allow us to stretch each state dollar so that with federal funds and other partner funding, our state share is down around 20 percent funding for our projects. We can accomplish much more with our precious bond funds this way. Leveraging funds is extremely important to every project – it is much easier to gain support on local levels when you have partners.
PBN: How does this project fit into the larger scale of what DEM does for conservation of farmland?
PRIMIANO: While perhaps average in size based upon a straight acreage count (140 acre versus our largest project at 486 acres), it was one of the top three in terms of production. Ferolbink utilizes virtually every square inch of its land for farming. The farmer also leases additional farmland in the area for production with a total operation of about 275 acres.
The state has completed 83 distinct farmland preservation projects since its beginnings in 1985; this project ranks at the top in terms of time to complete, complicated funding sources, and energy committed to make it happen. In the midst of this difficult real estate market, it may be as close to making a miracle happen as we’ll ever experience!
