By Molly Lovell
Editor
     Some residents became curious and a bit concerned when for sale signs popped up at Benjamin Farm on Pleasant Hill Road a few weeks ago.
     President of the Scarborough Land Conservation Trust (SLCT) Laurene Swaney said she’s been fielding dozens of phone calls regarding the future of the 128-acre property. The farm’s former owner, Jerred Benjamin passed away last year and now the farm lies in the hands of his five children.
     “We made the family an offer six months ago, but at that time the estate wasn’t settled so they said they would talk to us before they did anything,” Swaney said.
     The price tag attached to the former cattle farm is $5.8 million.
     The SLCT has actually been trying to work out a conservation purchase of the farm for more than 10 years and have had a few offers on paper. She declined to elaborate on the details of the offers.
     Swaney said the SLCT didn’t know the family was planning to hang the sale signs that went up recently, but said she and the board are more than willing to sit down with the Benjamin family in an effort to work something out.
     “I think several of them are just trying to do their due diligence and find out what the property is worth. I’m hopeful they will make good on wanting to sit down and talk with us about a conservation purchase,” Swaney said.
     Phone calls to two of Benjamin’s children were not returned as of press time.
     Preserving the farm is not an impossible feat considering the success that’s been seen with the 434-acre Broadturn Farm, Swaney said. The property is in agricultural conservation with the SLCT and is a community supported agriculture farm that raises organic vegetables and poultry.
     “We have gone through the whole process of taking an inactive farm and turning it into an active farm . . . it’s an incredible model for future farmland/conservation protection in Scarborough,” Swaney said.
     Swaney said the SLCT was very active in procuring funds for the Broadturn Farm, formerly known as the Meserve property. The group received $1.3 million from the Land for Maine’s Future program. Though funds for farmland protection are not currently available through that program, funds will be available in November, Swaney said. She called that “good timing,” in terms of working out a conservation purchase for Benjamin Farm.
     “We’re acting as urgently and expediently as we can and we understand that yes, that’s really one of the places people recognize as a prime piece of land for conservation. We’re going to do the best we can,” she said.
     Scarborough resident Roger Doiron is interested in protecting Benjamin Farm from residential development because turning the property into a working agricultural landscape is a way for the town to become more self reliant in terms of food production.
     “There has to be a commitment on the part of residents in the sense that they have to see the value of the farm, not simply the aesthetic value of those rolling hills and untouched forest land,” Doiron said.
     Last year Doiron served on a task force appointed by the Maine legislature that addressed the state’s food policy.
      “This one farm is important, but we need to think about this in a larger perspective in terms of what Scarborough residents are eating and what they will be eating 20 years from now . . .every town, community and neighborhood needs to be thinking about how we can be making some type of gesture that gets us a little bit closer toward being self reliant in terms of our food production,” he said.
     Swaney said she has observed much public support behind preserving this land, but that further steps in terms of finding financial support for the project cannot be taken until the SLCT board is able to sit down with the Benjamin family.
     “I was friends with Mr. Benjamin, as were a lot of people in town. His idea for that farm was that it would continue to be a farm and be open,” Swaney said, and added, “The family is trying to honor their father’s wishes, but I understand they also want to get the value out of the property.  We’re all for paying what the property is worth.”
     Swaney said the SLCT has had much success since its inception in 1977 as they manage more than 1,000 acres in Scarborough.