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Farm Viability Enhancement Program

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Farm Viability Enhancement Program

The Farm Viability Enhancement Program helps farmers keep their families on the land and keep sprawl from consuming their farms. It involves strengthening the business skills of farmers, combined with diversification and environmental integrity. 

Over the past ten years, many farmers have found that the Farm Viability Enhancement Program helpful. Could the Farm Viability Program be right for your farm?

Applications

The  Department of Agricultural Resources has recently announced an open enrollment period for the Farm Viability Enhancement Program. The deadline for applications is Monday, June 23, 2008.  For more information and a copy of the application click on Request for Response #AGR-FVEP-09-16 [PDF].

Farm Viability Enhancement Program Results as of June 30, 2007:

During Fiscal Year 2007, the Farm Viability Enhancement Program provided technical assistance to 28 farms with 24 completing business plans. 21 farms received funding and were placed under Agricultural Covenants protecting 1802 acres. The Program impacted an additional 1898 acres of leased land and protected land under participant management. FY 2007 spending was $965,650 in direct grants to farms and over $160,000 was spent on technical assistance costs to consultants and business plan writers.

Since the Farm Viability Program was initiated in 1996, 349 farms have been selected to participate in the program. A total of 284 farms have now been protected by Covenants and received grant awards (*).

The 284 farms that have participated in the Farm Viability Enhancement Program result in:

• 27,300 acres placed in protective covenants
• 23,367 acres were impacted (additional acreage leased by farms or land already in the APR program for which business plans were developed).
• A total of 50,667 acres of Massachusetts farmland have been impacted by the Farm Viability Program
• Total of grants paid to participant farms $10,921,772.00
• Total spending on grants per acre placed in protective covenant – $400/acre
• 73% of farmers in the Program invest additional capital beyond the grant amount to implement business improvement strategies. The average additional investment is $31,791.

(*) There were 24 renewal farms with updated business plans and new covenants that were recorded twice in the totals reported.

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