Christie DeBoer, Executive Director of the Wallkill Valley Land Trust (WVLT), discussed the benefits of preserving farmland in the Hudson Valley and the land trust’s role in the process with Town of Gardiner residents recently at the Town Hall.

DeBoer explained in detail the benefits of getting conservation easements. The perks included providing working capital, funding sources, leveraged funding and potential tax benefits for the property owners. She also discussed the future of farmland protection.

Before introducing DeBoer, Jean-Ann McGrane, chair of Gardiner’s Open Space Commission, explained that farming remains “one of, if not the primary, economic driver” for the Town of Gardiner.

McGrane said that farms account for 5,100 acres of land in the town of Gardiner, which is close to 20 percent of the town property. She said there were 24 farms in Gardiner, including orchards, vineyards, beef-producing farms and the only sheep and dairy farm in Ulster County.

“That’s a tremendous amount of impact on our community,” McGrane said. “Farms are tightly interwoven with the town’s scenic and rural character. They are also critical protectors in so many ways of the water resources of our community, which we really rely on because the majority of us rely on wells for our drinking water.”

McGrane said farmland conservation was critically important because “once farmland is gone, it’s gone. It’s irreplaceable.”

DeBoer said the WVLT works with landowners to protect and conserve land for its natural, recreational, scenic, historic or agricultural value.

She said the land trust, which was formed in 1987, holds 41 conservation easements totaling over 3,000 acres in Ulster County. The WVLT works with willing landowners to secure conservation easements in order to permanently protect their land from future development for the benefit of present and future generations, DeBoer said.

“We protect open spaces, farms and trails forever,” she said.

The preserved lands range from a couple acres to over 200 acres, DeBoer noted.

Some of the largest parcels include the 118-acre Joppenbergh Mountain in Rosendale and the 65-acre Wallkill Valley Rail Trail, including the Rosendale Trestle.

Among the benefits of having a conservation easement is that the property owner can receive a New York State tax credit that is equal to 25 percent of the property tax on the property protected by the easement. It is capped at $5,000 a year.

There are also federal tax incentives that include raising the deduction an owner can take for a conservation easement.

For property owners who don’t wish to donate their land for a conservation easement, DeBoer said there is an option called the Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) where farm owners can receive funds for providing an easement.

“This is generally done especially with farmers,” DeBoer said. “The value that you’re giving up with that conservation easement is provided to you at the closing. The intent of doing a Purchase of Development Rights, especially with farmland easements, is that the farmer is able to take that equity that they’re giving up, put it back into their farm, pay off the mortgage, invest in the farm and make the farm sustainable and the conservation easement is in place.”

Following DeBoer’s presentation, Carrie Wasser of the Willow Pond Sheep Farm in Gardiner which is owned by husband Brent and her, gave a ringing endorsement to the Wallkill Valley Land Trust’s help in ensuring that their property would be preserved in the years to come.

Wasser said her parents, Greg and Janet Abels, got a conservation easement on the farmland about 15 years ago because they wanted to preserve a barn from the 1850s on the property, some of the natural streams and undisturbed views on the land.

“When they conserved it, they did not know and I did not know that I would be farming here one day,” Wasser said. “It shows how important foresight is. In the interim, they could have sold the land or had an issue and I maybe could not have been farming here.”

Wasser said that when she inherits the land she will benefit financially from having the easement on the property.

“Of course, it just gives my parents great joy to know that this will always have the ability to be farmland,” Wasser said.