By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

CLIMAX, Mich. — Owen and Ellen Love are both gone now, but their farm and their legacy will last; that’s because they decided to preserve their 660-acre farmstead rather than sell it to developers.

In addition, the property was bequeathed to the American Farmland Trust (AFT), a nonprofit organization, and eventually sold to another farmer. Even though the property has changed hands, it’s subject to a conservation easement, which means it can’t be developed for anything other than agriculture.

Proceeds from the sale have resulted in a $2.9 million trust fund called the Owen and Ellen Love Family Farmland Protection Fund. “This fund for Michigan is the only one of its kind in the country that we have,” said Bob Wagner, senior policy and program advisor for the AFT. “If this can be a stimulus to help promote some local funding, it could be an opportunity. It was just announced two weeks ago and we’ve gotten a lot of great comments about the possibility.”

The money is to be used as a revolving loan fund. It’s designed to be used as a bridge loan for buyers who are expecting to receive money but who need to move on a property right away. Wagner said it’s a little scary to lend out as much as $2.5 million at a time, but they have strict requirements for any recipient of a loan.

“In the past we’ve had similar funds in other parts of the country,” he said.
A loan recipient may be a private buyer or a local government. Wagner said he expects there may be applicants soon for the money, since applications for the federal government’s Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program are due soon. Buyers might also participate in the Love Fund if they receive a loan through the state’s land preservation program.

The Love family set the stage for what’s happening now back in the 1990s when they began collaborating with the AFT to preserve their land and eventually create the trust. The Loves had bought the farm in Climax, Mich., situated roughly halfway between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, in 1950. Their son, Bob, was then 10 years old and their daughter, Edith, was 12.

Ellen Love told the AFT in 1996 that Owen wanted to preserve their farm for posterity. First they created a conservation easement for the property, then began working with the AFT to create a trust fund. Love said both their children agreed to give up inheriting the property. Owen retired from farming in the 1970s and the couple had done well enough to buy more land.

“He paid an outrageous sum for that 60-acre piece because the owners were going to develop it and he didn’t want that,” Love said. “This is good farmland here and he wanted to keep as much of it as possible in farming.”

Only about a week after they put ink to paper creating the legacy trust with the AFT, Owen was admitted into the hospital and died. He was 84.
“Owen felt very good about it,” Love said. “He told me, ‘I know it’s the best thing to do.’

“The kids came right out and said they didn’t want (the property). They just didn’t feel that they could manage it and they have their own incomes and investments to support them.”

Under the agreement, the property was deeded to the AFT in 1995. Love continued to live in the house, and she received an income from the AFT. A local family, the Vosburgs, leased the land to farm. Love lived on until she died at age 87; that was in 2001.

After the AFT sold the property last year, the Loves’ children, Bob Love and Edith Pestrue, issued the following statement: “We are proud our parents chose to preserve the Love family farm for agricultural use, and also provide the means for others to save agricultural land. The Owen and Ellen Love Family Farmland Protection Fund will play an essential role in supporting projects that protect the productive use of agricultural land in the state of Michigan.”
Anyone who might be interested in applying for a loan from the AFT’s Love trust, or in learning about other AFT programs, should write to American Farmland Trust c/o Robert Wagner, 1 Short St., Northampton, MA 01060, or send an e-mail to Wagner at bwagner@farmland.org

Wagner may also be reached by telephone at 413-586-9330, ext. 12. The AFT’s website is www.farmland.org