Bradford Dairy Farms is located in West Michigan’s storied Fruit Ridge area, where topography and microclimate create ideal conditions for growing fruit and other crops. Linda married into the Bradford family, ancestor William Bradford came over on the Mayflower and led the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. His descendants established the dairy farm in the 1850’s and Linda’s son, Jason, is the fifth generation on the farm.

“I feel strongly, as my family does, that this land is prime and unique and is excellent for crop and food production. We want to keep it as farmland,” says Linda.

Her love for the farm and its legacy led her to seek protection options—and not only for her farm, but others on the Ridge as well. Some years ago, she participated in a Pennsylvania farmland preservation tour, and she was very inspired by the successful preservation of farmland in Lancaster County. She returned to the state to join the committee that helped launch Kent County’s Farmland Preservation Program. Ultimately, in a series of transactions through the county program, Linda and her family sold the development rights to 328 acres of the farm, now permanently protected with perpetual conservation easements that will ensure the land is never developed.

“We were really fortunate,” Linda says, “Good decisions were made that kept the farm together.”

But when her husband passed away and Linda took over the farming operation, only one of Linda’s four children was interested in operating it. Many farm families face similar circumstances and all too often are forced to divide or even sell the most significant asset, the farmland itself, either because there are no heirs to farm or to ensure an equitable inheritance among heirs.