Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP)
2007 Accomplishments

The Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP) is a voluntary program that helps farmers and ranchers keep their land in agriculture and prevents conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses. The program provides matching funds to State, Tribal, and local governments and nongovernmental organizations with existing farmland protection programs to purchase conservation easements. These entities purchase easements from landowners in exchange for a lump sum payment, not to exceed the appraised fair market value of the land’s development rights. The easements are perpetual easements.

In 2007, more than $661,000 helped purchase one conservation easement in Maine.

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130-Acre Mitchell Ledge Farm Protected

Mitchell Ledge Farm is Freeport's largest working farm and a well-known Freeport landmark where registered Belted Galloway cattle are raised by farm owners Mary and Andy LeMaistre.  The Freeport Land Trust purchased two conservation easements to protect 130 acres of scenic pastures, hay fields, woodlands, streams and wetlands from future development or subdivision, forever.  The easements granted by the LeMaistres will also allow the Freeport Land Trust to create trails for public access through woods around farm fields and across Kelsey Brook, which runs through the property.  The Land Trust has secured trail easements from abutting property owners that will soon, once the trail is created, make it possible to walk through the woods from Mitchell Ledge Farm to the Trust's Calderwood property on Maquoit Bay.

The Land Trust raised more than $900,000 to purchase the easements, securing funds through the Land for Maine's Future Program, the Natural Resources Conservation Service Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program, and 100 plus local donors.

Farm and Ranchland Protection Program (FRPP) National website 

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