Pray Farm

Posted on July 27, 2012

Property Owner:

Land trust or other conservation organization

Property Location:

Bradford, ME

The Land

Total number of acres available with this property:

1000+

Acres of cropland or tillable land:

301-500

Acres of pasture:

301-500

Acres of forested land:

501-1000

Farm Information

Water sources present:

Available

Barns and sheds:

Available

Farmer housing:

Available

Equipment and machinery:

Available

Tenure Arrangement

Property for sale

Property for sale:

UNDER CONTRACT! Most of the work MFT does to protect farmland does not involve MFT buying or selling farms. Yet through one of MFT’s programs (the “Buy/Protect/Sell” program), MFT does purchase a small number of farms each year for the purpose of protecting these farms with agricultural easements and then reselling them to farmers. MFT attempts to re-sell farms at fair prices that reflect the value of the property once it is protected. Assessing the value of protected farmland can be difficult. In some cases, MFT has access to appraisal information to guide pricing decisions; but in other cases, MFT has no such information and simply uses its own best judgment. When MFT buys farms in areas where there is high development pressure, the value of the property could be reduced considerably once an easement is placed on it. If MFT paid full market value for such a property, it will be re-selling the property for much less than it paid for the property. But at other times, MFT may re-sell a property for close to what it paid for that property. This might occur when MFT paid less than market value for a property (as it often does) and/or when the property is not located in an area with much development pressure (so that the value of the easement is relatively small).

Sale Price:

$1,000,000-$1,500,000

Additional Information

UNDER CONTRACT! Pray Farm has operated successfully as a large dairy for many years. The previous owners expanded their land holdings in order to have the fields their dairy operation required. There are approximately 490 acres of fields and 550 acres of working woods on this 1,033 acre farm. The farm offers two homesteads, each with housing and ag buildings. The Pond Road farm (Parcel J1 on the aerial) is the location for all the dairy operations and has a 2-apartment house, as well as dairy barn, calf/dry cow open sheds, Quonset storage building for equipment, shop building for equipment repair and maintenance and bunker silos for feed storage. The West Road farm (Parcel A on the aerial) has a recently re-modeled home, garage, ell and barn that are all attached. There is a mobile home on this property as well. As shown on the aerial map of the farm, not all the parcels are contiguous, but lie in close proximity to each other in three parcel groupings of varying size. One advantage of this is that several different farming operations can be conducted easily in the same farm. Bradford is a farm community surrounded by other farming communities; so good ag infrastructure exists in the area. This farm can remain a dairy operation, be converted to beef cattle or diversify either or both of these operations into vegetable crops, berries and hay. There is the possibility of selling the property in parcel groupings if J1 and J2 can be sold first.

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