Blending Land Conservation with Economic Development

Terry H. Jones
Jones Family Farms, Shelton

What a privilege to address you on Plant Science Day at the start of this new century! As a prologue to my subject I must speak in praise of The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, the oldest agricultural research station in America. Indeed, it occupies a special place in our state and is part of the rich fabric that clothes Connecticut in success. The men and women scientists here are dedicated to defining knowledge and unraveling mysteries in nature, which improves the lives of every citizen of Connecticut!

I am a fan of this Station and have been fascinated by its work all my lifetime of over 50 years. Discovery of vitamins and creating the first hybrid corn who can deny that the work done on this little patch of God’s earth by Connecticut scientists has radiated outwards to improve life on our entire planet!

As a child I was exposed early to the Station’s work. Our farm in Shelton sometimes served as a research area. I remember with intrigue, mysterious grapefruit sized bundles around branches of blue spruce growing on our hillside where a station scientist sought to clone the perfect tree by air layering. In the early 1950’s I remember John Schread and another young scientist visiting our farm. That young scientist was Paul Waggoner he is here with us today, still serving this Station after 50 years, including many years as director.

Coming to Lockwood Farm each August was a ritual seldom missed. To see the progress made in plant science and the beauty of this farm overlooking the Sleeping Giant continues to be memorable.

The achievements of this Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station read like a litany of the progress and betterment of life in Connecticut and beyond. Whether it’s overcoming crises in our plants, such as blue mold or black vine weevil, or reducing a threat to people such as West Nile virus and Lyme disease, the scientists are here today as they have been for over 125 years making Connecticut and our Nation a better place. Let us never forget all this beloved institution has done!

Have you ever made a compost heap? The key to composting is combining a variety of plant materials in proper ratios to facilitate their decomposition into soil-enriching fertilizer. The Station scientists who have worked on composting projects can attest to the value of blending the raw ingredients to yield compost that gives health to a soil. It’s good stuff and has the magical ability to improve any soil.

Today I want to share ideas and plant seeds to sprout changes in the way we are growing our Connecticut communities. I want to talk with you about how land conservation can be blended with economic development to form a compost that can enrich our communities.

Charles Lindbergh wrote in his book "Spirit of St. Louis": Ideas are like seeds, apparently insignificant when first held in the hand. If a wind or a new current of thought drifts them away, nothing is lost. But once firmly planted, they can grow and flower into almost anything at all, a cornstalk or a giant redwood or a flight across the ocean.

We cannot be the first human to fly solo across the Atlantic, and we may not toil in our laboratories and field plots as did station scientist Donald Jones to bring the world hybrid corn, but each one of us can leave this place the beautiful Lockwood Farm and bring back to our communities this idea:

Simply stated, as we grow our cities and towns, we have the ability to blend land conservation with economic development! We can blend and mix the two and it will make a fertile compost for growing a healthy community!

As we grow our towns and cities in Connecticut, some view land conservation and economic development as different goals. All too often public policy decisions are made regarding land use, which would seem to put these goals at competitive odds with each other. Bit by bit, many towns have lost precious farm and forest land to sprawling development that ultimately becomes a liability to the community.

My City of Shelton and some other Connecticut communities are exploring ways to achieve both economic development and conservation of lands for farming, recreation, and natural resource protection.

Whether we are cultivating plants or growing a community, balance is the secret to a healthy result. If the natural resources of the beautiful spaces of our towns are threatened, we should not stand idly by, any more than a farmer would if his crops or livestock are threatened or parents do if their child is in danger.

As you would expect from a farmer interested in land conservation in his town, I have with me today family and friends of the farm and fellow Shelton Conservation Commission members including co-chair Harriet Wilber and Land Trust president Marybeth Banks. Also here are Bob and Marcella Stockmal who recently preserved their beautiful forest through a combination of charitable giving and sale of development rights.

Who you might not expect in addition, are Shelton’s Mayor Mark Lauretti, Planning and Zoning Chairman Joe Pagliarro, our economic development commissioner, City Attorney Tom Welch, and our State Representative Dick Belden. Also here is the press, including our local newspaper editor.

I did not invite these men and women out of fear no one else would be here to listen although that crossed my mind! I invited them because they are a team. They are a team that is in some form potentially present in each of our 169 Connecticut towns and cities. And they are a team that must play together to grow a balanced and successful community.

This team must work together like seasoned athletes. They must break out their spading forks and take their appropriate positions at turning the compost heap until it yields the wonderful, rich humus that symbolizes the texture and diversity of a successful community!

One great shortfall is that in many communities the farm and conservation folks are not a working part of the economic development team. And the consequence is simply that groups work at odds, especially without the common goal of achieving a balanced combination of conserving farms, forests, and special green spaces along with vibrant economic development. When all members of this team do not play together, we have sprawl and accidental cities instead of a balanced successful community.

Remember back to childhood and those wonderful wooden puzzles, where pieces were inset onto a recessed wooden base. We would dump the pieces in a scrambled heap on a table or floor then eagerly shuffle them into position achieving at last a perfect placement into the wooden frame. Voilà! a completed picture.

Well, think of your town as a puzzle. What picture do your citizens want to create as the pieces are placed together?

For most communities the desired pieces will create a picture of prosperity and economic development. Yet we all want to maintain our quality of life as the framework that holds the pieces together. The old thinking was that the pieces of our puzzle represented the development of business, industry, commercial, and residential with the necessary garnish of schools, ball fields, and parks.

We now realize a balanced community benefits from additional pieces to complete the puzzle. They represent open spaces¾ ideally a fabric of working farms, forests, wildlife corridor, and natural areas for passive recreation. And for those communities with a worn-out downtown or riverfront, their renewal is also an important piece of the puzzle.

Let us recall the words and vision of John F. Kennedy, spoken 3 weeks before his death 38 years ago:

The possibilities of a balanced community are unlimited, for any town that can keep intact these pieces of their land use puzzle. Remember, diversity is the key. No two towns are exactly alike. If larger working farms are no longer left, encourage the preservation of smaller green spaces for community gardens and pocket parks. Part-time farming of fruits, vegetables, plants, and flowers, may be successful on only a couple of acres. Several such enterprises can sustain a local farmers’ market. In Shelton, some small neighborhood growers make a great contribution to our downtown market each Saturday. And farmers’ markets can make a great difference in reviving a downtown! Farms preserve the richness of the surrounding land while the gathering of people at the weekly markets can provide opportunities for townspeople to reconnect with each other. Call it "face time." It helps create a sense of place and that’s good for the human spirit.

Our picture puzzle is now completed and set within the framework of a good quality of life. This picture of balanced growth applies on a larger scale to our State of Connecticut. The environmental benefits of land conservation the working landscapes of healthy farms, forests, and waterways, and the restful interlude of roadways not sprawled along these are the elements that will continue to insure Connecticut remains an attractive place for business, industry, and commerce.

Nor should we forget tourism, a leading part of Connecticut’s economy. Be assured, if tourism is to remain strong in Connecticut we must maintain a working landscape of farmland, forests, clean rivers, lakes, and streams, and preserved places of historic interest. This natural beauty makes our state attractive to tourists!

In short, whether at the local level or statewide, land conservation should be viewed as a vital partner to economic development. What a pitch! saving a working landscape that nourishes agriculture and tourism¾ multibillion-dollar industries in Connecticut. Receiving the fringe benefits of a healthier environment and sustainable quality of life are wonderful as well. And economic development is sure to follow.

In Shelton, the economic development leaders have found that it’s good business to preserve land for farms, forests, wildlife corridors, and greenways. The corporate scouts scoping our town to locate their business like the diversity and working landscape of the farms, forests, and waterways. It is part of the tour our economic development people provide to tempt prospective businesses to our town. They check out the new school, and then visit the farms. The corporate CEOs know their employees will like a balanced community with ample green spaces.

A decade ago the City of Shelton actually decommissioned a corridor zoned for industry. This down zoning was a remarkable decision given the demand for businesses to locate to our City. Corporate development along our Route 8/Consitution Boulevard corridor has steadily progressed. Shelton’s grand list exceeds $2.5 billion and the daily influx of the workforce nearly doubles our population to over 60,000.

Removing this land along State Route 110 from potential corporate or industrial development helped insure that Shelton will grow in balance with its natural environment.

Over a mile long and nearly as wide, this corridor has become a working lands greenway. Our farm is a part of this greenway, as well as parcels belonging to a water company, land trust, and city open space. Parts of our farm have been permanently protected with conservation easements. Other land-owning families located within this corridor have caught the preservation spirit, and have given birth to new farm businesses. The younger generation is sensing new opportunities. The land, under the stewardship of young entrepreneurs, is sprouting new orchard, grape, vegetable, Christmas tree, and livestock ventures.

Kids come by school bus from New Haven, Bridgeport, and Waterbury to learn about farming and see where food really begins. Scouts camp in the pristine forest of the land trust property. Water quality and flood protection are ensured for several downstream communities. Future food security for the region is provided by protecting the prime agricultural soils. All this in a working lands greenway once slated for industrial development!

This can happen in your town. Even on a smaller scale, you can "grow the green." Be persistent. Distinguished anthropologist Margaret Mead once said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." I challenge each of you to be one of those "thoughtful, committed citizens"!

We need to leave this place this beautiful, historic, working research farm beside the pastoral profile of the Sleeping Giant and go back to our communities and reflect on what special places remain in our hometowns. We need to focus our reflections into a sharp vision of how we want our environment and our working green landscape to look and how we want to leave these as a legacy to our children and our children’s children. We need to pass along a conservation ethic and show future generations love and respect for the land. And we must take care to leave them land to love.

We need to gather not only the conservationists, but also the landowners, the town leaders, the economic development people, the educators, concerned citizens, and the media to create a team and to unify that team to pursue a common vision of a beautiful community. Go forth and encourage local dialogue that will provide your team with a healthy compost of ideas that will fertilize a strategy to save the beauty of green places to nurture future generations. The task is daunting, but many tools and techniques are available to help, from both public and private sources. We must be persistent and we must work together. If our compost heap does not heat up to generate good results, find out what is missing, then mix it in!

We need to complete the puzzle of growth into a successful picture for the future of our towns and our state. The people of Connecticut have within them a longing to protect the beauty of their natural environment. That sentiment is, I think, a Sleeping Giant lying at the heart and soul of each of our communities. Waken that giant to action! Breathe life into it with your vision of a balanced community. Nourish it with a compost of ideas to blend successful land conservation with economic growth. Embrace the soul of our beautiful Connecticut lands and be their good stewards so future generations can enjoy and protect their rich bounty.