WARREN – Nine months after a broad private and public coalition came together as a stopgap measure to buy and preserve the Kingsbury farm, the Vermont Foodbank has stepped up to buy the highly-visible 20-acre farm along scenic Route 100.

The sale will not only assure a permanent supply of fresh produce for food shelves around the state, but will protect the view in the Route 100 corridor, provide a meeting place for the community and create access to the farm's 1,400 feet of river frontage through an extension of the Mad River Path.

The community partners, which included Mad River Valley groups and individuals, the town of Warren and the Vermont Land Trust, "are in the giddy phase," said Liza Walker, Mad River Valley regional director of the Vermont Land Trust and the person who put the transaction together.

Doug O'Brien, chief executive officer of the Vermont Foodbank, described the process that resulted in the Foodbank's being chosen to buy the farm as "a miracle."

Ten days before the deadline for buyers to submit proposals to the Vermont Land Trust, O'Brien saw a newspaper advertisement offering the farm for sale.

"My wife and I would like to buy a farm," he said. But the ad specified that the buyer would have to maintain the property as a working farm, something the O'Briens could not guarantee. "We've got five little kids," he explained. "This was not going to work."

However, the Foodbank's long-range plan called for the organization to own a farm, so O'Brien told the senior staff about the ad, noting that it mentioned a large barn, farmhouse and five-bay garage. He and the staff drove by the property on the weekend and agreed it was "almost perfect."

"It's a good thing there was a deadline, because we could have met on this endlessly," O'Brien observed. He told the staff, "The only thing I worry about if we don't do this is for years regretting that we didn't do it."

A major donor had just made a large gift to the Foodbank, enabling it to submit a proposal. "We really moved on it," O'Brien said. The 11th-hour offer was accepted, and this winter the Foodbank will purchase the farm for $225,000. The Vermont Land Trust's process of conserving the farm was equally hair-raising.

In June 2006, Walker said she started getting calls from people in Warren asking, "Have you seen the 'for sale' signs? What are we going to do?'" The farm was listed for $1.25 million, which put it far beyond the Land Trust's reach.

Even so, a coalition of Mad River Valley groups began meeting with the Land Trust to develop a strategy for conserving the property. Local partners included the Mad River Valley Localvore Project, the Mad River Valley Planning District, Friends of the Mad River, Yestermorrow Design/Build School, the Mad River Path Association, the Warren Selectboard and Conservation Commission, the Mad River Water Conservation Partnership and the Mad River Housing Coalition. The representatives called themselves the Kingsbury Community Farm Advisory Committee.

The price of the farm was lowered, first to $995,000 and later to around $670,000. The real estate broker called Walker every time it was reduced, but Walker was on vacation in August 2007 when the price dropped to $495,000. The head of one of the groups acted immediately to get the property under contract. "It was a huge leap," Walker observed.

Representatives of the coalition, whose members changed over time, met weekly with the Vermont Land Trust to figure out how to pay for the contract and how to use the property. Everyone agreed that it should serve the community and advance local agriculture.

Finally, when the town of Warren's Conservation Reserve Fund offered $125,000 toward the purchase, the Vermont Land Trust was convinced of the community's commitment and accepted assignment of the contract, closing on it in November 2007. The Land Trust would act as a "bridge," holding the property while the groups developed a plan for its use through meetings with the broader community.

More than 150 people attended an open house to discuss the future of the farm, an indication of their "overwhelming interest," Walker said. "We had a mile-long list of different funky ideas for the farm." Suggestions ranged from growing hops for local beer to growing algae for biofuel and human nutrients.

The committee settled on priorities including active agricultural use, permanent protection of the farmland and recreational use. (The farm lies on the proposed corridor for the Mad River Path, a trail system that currently exists in segments but which community supporters envision as a continuous path connecting Warren with Moretown.)

"We knew we wanted it to have a trail. We knew we wanted whatever happened here to embrace the frontage on the river and model sustainable farming practices that would also enhance the quality of the riparian habitat and water quality," Walker said. "We laid it out on the line – 'This is what the community wants for this property' – and we put out a request for proposals and opened it up for one month for anyone who wanted to buy the farm, be they nonprofit or private farmer."

Because the Vermont Land Trust is buying a conservation easement that permanently guarantees the land's use in agriculture, the farm was appraised for only $225,000.

"We could offer it for less than we bought it for, which was incredible," Walker said. She noted that neither the Vermont Foodbank nor a private farmer could have bought the farm if the price had remained at $495,000.

The Land Trust is working on two other projects along the Mad River corridor while it is completing the sale of the Kingsbury farm. The other two purchases, which have not yet been announced, include farms in Moretown and Waitsfield. A fund-raising campaign to help complete all three projects be will be launched in about a month.

Responsibility for managing the farm will fall to Theresa Snow, the director of the Foodbank's agricultural resources department. In addition to planning production, Snow wants to explore the farm's educational potential. She envisions bringing in experts who will offer workshops on fruit-tree grafting, harvesting, cultivating, weed identification, soil-building and on-farm composting – topics she thinks will interest the community.

O'Brien, too, believes the farm will be a great teaching tool, providing "a way to explain the link between agriculture, food systems and ultimately hunger." But most important, he said, it will enable the Foodbank to provide fresh produce on a regular basis to food shelves around the state.

"This is a great opportunity for us to have a regular, stable, secure supply of fresh produce for the people we serve," he said. "In the end, it all gets down to how does this impact hungry people. We're very grateful to the Vermont Land Trust and the community for making this available."