Farmland Protection Board Picks Kingston, Mulligan, Batzing Farms for Conservation

LIVINGSTON COUNTY – Members of the County Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board and County Planning Board recommends that over 1,300 acres in three of our finest high-producing farms be permanently conserved by the Genesee Valley Nature Conservancy.

The Conservancy’s Dave Bojanowski was among those to successfully ask the Livingston County Public Services Committee for support of these selections Wednesday morning. The selections will go to the Livingston County Board of Supervisors next for final consideration.

“The Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board selected these farms as the most important lands to protect next,” said Bojanowski. “If the County Board of Supervisors approves the selections, the Conservancy, then approach each Town to make sure that they endorse the selections, and we work with the farms to conserve those lands. One of the reasons that Livingston County has been so successful in conserving farmland is because the Conservancy, towns and farms work together on this.”

The Board of Supervisors will consider endorsing the recommendation to conserve:

700 acres of Kingston Farms, a fifth-generation dairy farm in Geneseo;

100 acres of Mulligan Farms, a third-generation heifer and crop farm in Avon.

and 500 acres of Batzing Farm in York, a fifth-generation century farm, meaning that it has been in operation for over 100 years.

In 2015, the Conservancy announced that Livingston County had the most protected acreage of any county in New York State. The County, Conservancy and farmer trinity has ensured that 6,700 acres of farmland will not be industrially developed. Over 4,100 more acres are in the process of being conserved.

Permanently protecting farmland from non-agricultural use is a recommendation of the 2006 Livingston County Farmland Protection Plan.