A pair of Litchfield County farms are the latest entrants into the state’s farmland preservation program, authorities say.
Carlwood Farm in North Canaan and Kuslis Farm in Watertown are the ninth and tenth farms to be protected this year from non-agricultural development under the program. To date, the program has preserved 313 farms and more than 40,000 acres.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service Farm & Ranch Lands Protection Program partnered with the state in both preservation projects, which bring the total protected farmland in Litchfield County to nearly 7,800 acres, state Ag Commissioner Steven Reviczky said.
Ninety-acre Carlwood Farm, owned by Doug and Cris Carlson, has been a working dairy farm since the 1940s. It supports a milking herd of about 50 Holstein cows as part of the AgriMark dairy cooperative. The farm on Canaan Valley Road contains 65 acres of prime and statewide important soils.
The 73-acre Kuslis Farm, on Barnes Road in Watertown, is mainly used to grow hay to feed beef cattle raised there by Debbie Kuslis, a daughter-in-law of owner Lillian Kuslis.
