WENDELL — More than 80 years after its founding, Diemand Farm has permanently protected 29 acres of its operation as part of a 674-acre Landscape Partnership conservation project that creates a 30,000-acre corridor stretching from the Connecticut River to Quabbin Reservoir.
The overall Mormon Hollow Working Lands Corridor Project coordinated by Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust over the past three years conserves half a dozen farms in Wendell and Montague.
A conservation restriction on part of the three-generation Diemand Farm, founded in 1936 by Al and Elsie Diemand, is being held by Mount Grace and the Town of Wendell.
“We always had laying hens for the family kitchen,” said their daughter, Faith, who now runs the farm with her brother and sister, Peter and Anne. “But the main business was birds for meat. We really became an egg farm after the bottom fell out of the market for meat birds.” By the 1990s, the farm had about 100 commercial egg customers, including restaurants, schools, stores and camps.
Al and Elsie, who sold chicken meat to Campbells Soup in the 1960s, kept an active role in running the farm even as the next generation grew up, Faith Diemand remembers.
“The man from the UMass Agricultural extension was at the farm in the 1980s and he mentioned there was a real call for turkeys, so when dad was away, we ordered 500 of them. Dad came back and saw the 500 turkeys and he said, ‘All right, let’s see what you kids can do.’”
The turkeys worked out well, and 30 years later, the next generation has continue to innovate, running a 175-acre farm that raises chickens, free-range turkeys, sheep, and grass-fed cattle for meat while selling eggs from 3,000 laying hens. There’s also a catering business and farm store.
The conservation project began in 2014 with a meal hosted at Diemand Farm at the request of Bill and Laurel Facey from Sugarbush Farm next door.
After talking it over, the neighbors, representing Sugarbush Farm, Jerusalem Hill Farm, Stoney Hollow Farm and Hunting Farm, agreed to work with Mount Grace, the towns of Montague and Wendell and the Department of Fish and Game, to protect 674 acres using the state Landscape Partnership Grant Program.
“This project has always been about neighbors who care deeply about the land and about each other,” says Jamie Pottern, Mount Grace farm conservation program manager. “Bill and Laurel were the original heartbeat — they had a vision not just of conserving their own farm, but of keeping their local farming community intact.”
“It’s such a good feeling to know that even after we’re gone, some of the land will be safe and will still be in the hands of a farmer,” Faith Diemand said. “I can’t emphasize enough how much I feel that keeping the land safe is so vital. This is the future. It’s a different way of life and a good life.”
The Mormon Hollow project was also supported by the 1772 Foundation, the Conservation Fund, and the Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts. Since 1986, Mount Grace has helped protect more than 32,000 acres.