Several years ago, a neighbor asked Shelley Waddle if she and her husband, Jeff, had ever considered protecting their 1,158-acre Saltville farm from development with a conservation easement. She was …
Tag Archives: farmland
Shenandoah easement donor: “We’re going to take care of the land”
Growing up, Wade Hawkins watched neighboring farms be developed throughout the 1990s. His father and grandfather tried to purchase and save some of them, but couldn’t compete with developers. Wade didn’t want his family’s farm to suffer a similar fate, so he protected the land with a VOF easement.
Survey finds VOF easements largely protecting working farms and forestland
A new survey of 631 landowners who granted conservation easements to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) since 2000 reveals that landowners are primarily managing those lands for agricultural production and/or …
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Family protects 350-year-old farm along the Mattaponi River
It’s one thing for a farm to stay intact for 350 years. It’s another thing for a farm to stay in the same family for that long. Next year, Locust …
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VOF protects 700,000th acre with easement on New Kent farm
The Virginia Outdoors Foundation recently protected its 700,000th acre of open space thanks to a conservation easement donated on a 116-acre Bicentennial Farm in New Kent County. It’s VOF’s second …
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Craun Farm, Augusta County
Jim Craun celebrated a 100th birthday in June. Not his—his barn’s. The barn is one of several buildings that Mr. Craun has restored on his family’s 165-acre farm in Augusta …
White House Farm Foundation, Page County
In 1760, about 30 years before construction began on the White House in the District of Columbia, a Mennonite settler named Martin Kauffman II built his own little White House …
Bath County farmer protects 315 acres along two miles of Back Creek
Ed Cook was just a boy when he fell in love with the Bath County farm he now owns. Back then, the property belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Law, who …
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106-acre farm in Pulaski County donated to VOF
Margaret Virginia Smith was just 19 years old when her father passed away in 1944, leaving her with the family farm and instructions to “provide for your mother for her …
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Middlesex easement saves family farm, protects seven miles of tidal shoreline
Originally released through the Office of the Governor Governor Bob McDonnell announced today that one of the largest waterfront farms along the lower tidal Rappahannock River has been permanently protected …
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