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Agriculture
The rural character of Martha’s Vineyard is island agriculture. While Martha’s Vineyard has a rich farming heritage indeed, what’s more important is the thriving, growing island agriculture of today. In particular, Sheriff’s Meadow takes note of the Island Grown Initiative, the local manifestation of the locally-grown movement that is sweeping the United States. As the island’s land trust, part of whose mission is to conserve rural character, and as the island’s largest private landowner, we intend to provide support to agriculture on Martha’s Vineyard.
We intend to support agriculture in two ways. One, we will strive to conserve agricultural land, and two, we will seek places on our properties to allow and encourage agricultural use. Sheriff’s Meadow has conserved many acres of farmland already and we will emphasize agricultural preservation in the future. We will be sure that, where appropriate, the conservation restrictions that we write allow for sustainable agricultural uses, and we will seek to conserve key pieces of farmland through future conservation gifts and purchases.
Where possible, Sheriff’s Meadow will also make available land for use by island farmers. To begin with, we are examining which of our lands feature prime agricultural soils. For these properties, we will update our management plans to make sure that agriculture is a planned use of the property. Once included in the plan, we will then issue requests-for-proposals to the farming community on the island. We will select what we judge to be the best proposals, and then enter into a lease, license or other suitable agreement with the successful farmer. We believe that by supporting agriculture, we will demonstrate good stewardship of our lands and we will do our part to make Martha’s Vineyard a sustainable community.
We will also strive to promote other aspects of agriculture. For instance, Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation owns many hundreds of acres of forestland, much of which is in need of attention. Under the care of a licensed forester, these forests can provide firewood and sawtimber while still remaining a forest ecosystem. Perhaps some of our trees can provide the wood for our benches and kiosks, perhaps we can provide wood for other island programs. We can also encourage families to feel free to enter into our woodlands to gather huckleberries and blueberries, for example. West Chop Woods abounds in berries, and we can promote berry-picking as an enjoyable family tradition. Landscaping has become a major business on Matha’s Vineyard, and one way we may be able to help could be to gather little bluestem seeds, for example, and to make those seeds available for sale or use by landscaping firms.
We encourage all those with an interest in agriculture on Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation properties to contact us with ideas. We also encourage you to check our website for requests-for-proposals.
