Letter: Westport no longer a ‘Right to Farm’ community 

Posted 8/16/18


To the editor:

Last week, I read a letter in this paper that convinced me Westport is no longer a Right to Farm community. Activists have used the debacle at the Medeiros property as a pretext …

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Letter: Westport no longer a ‘Right to Farm’ community 

Posted


To the editor:

Last week, I read a letter in this paper that convinced me Westport is no longer a Right to Farm community. Activists have used the debacle at the Medeiros property as a pretext for going after neighbors who raise livestock in town, even those who do so responsibly and sustainably. As a result, two people raising livestock that I know — who represent the next generation of farmers in Westport — gave up on Westport and moved their animals out of town. Left unchecked, this hostility to farming all but guarantees a future without livestock farms and farmers in Westport. 

Imagine what your town would look like then. Open pastures bounded by stone walls would disappear. What’s left of your rural landscape would become suburbia’s next frontier, sprouting sprawl as the final crop. “Farmers are the custodians of the countryside,” said a speaker at a regional conference organized earlier this year by The Livestock Institute. Drive away the remaining farmers in Westport and there will be no more open countryside to gaze upon, only wooded roadsides interrupted by cul de sacs of asphalt. 

The disappearance of New England sheep farming when the woolen textile industry migrated south for cheap labor a century ago altered the regional landscape dramatically. Pastures went to seed and trees took root. Ditto when the internal combustion engine eliminated the need for hayfields to fuel horses hitched to wagons, drays and buggies.

The only livestock left keeping the countryside here open are a handful of dairy farm holdouts and animal husbandry on a small scale: homestead herds of beef cattle or milk goats, poultry, and a few horses or pigs. While other parts of the U.S. are dominated by concentrated livestock operations on a massive scale, small scale animal husbandry persists in New England where farms are relatively small. In Vermont, the small scale farming ecosystem is making a dramatic comeback thanks to creative incentives for aspiring farmers and farm businesses. This is largely due to non-farming neighbors who want to keep Vermont looking like Vermont.

If Westport truly aspires to be a Right to Farm community, then everyone who treasures the rural landscape needs to speak up in defense of local farms and the farmers who grow your food, preserve your views of the countryside and who require very little in the way of costly public services (such as providing schools for expanding residential real estate).

Make your voice heard at commission meetings. Ask town officials to protect the Right to Farm and raise animals responsibly. Know your local farmer and befriend him or her. Make arrangements to buy their eggs or the meat from their animals once the new slaughterhouse facility opens on State Road. This direct, farmer-to-consumer relationship builds local trust, letting the farmer know that you care who grows your food and how animals are raised in your community. It also cuts out the middleman from the transaction, keeping more of your food dollars circulating in the local economy. 

Land conservation groups have a responsibility here, too: remind the public that farmers are valued partners in land conservation, not enemies to be harassed out of town. Saner voices must be heard to stop the insanity that is hostility to responsible farmers and farmland stewardship in Westport.

Carter Wilkie

Little Compton

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Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.