Established in 2002, the Connecticut Farmland Trust is the only private statewide conservation organization dedicated solely to permanently protecting Connecticut’s farmland. The Connecticut Farmland Trust holds agricultural conservation easements that protect 2,096 acres of farmland on 26 farms around the state, has assisted partners in the preservation of 789 additional acres, and serves as a leading resource on conserving Connecticut’s working farmland.

Meryl Streep served as a Honorary Chairwoman at the 2002 Celebration of Connecticut Farms, a benefit for the preservation of the state’s farmlands that took place at Averill Farm in Washington Depot. The issue of farm preservation was the reason that the Hartford Food System, the Connecticut Farmland Trust and the Working Land Alliance hosted the event, to benefit their year-round work on this issue. If the state continues to lose farmland to development at its present rate – 9,000 acres a year – Connecticut will have no farms by the middle of this century. “I don’t know about you, but 50 years go by very fast,” Streep said in her comments. A member of a community-supported agriculture farm in northwest Connecticut, where the actress and her family have lived for the past 22 years, she urged her listeners to “remember that no farms means no food. It would be crazy to let this precious resource be paved over and developed,” Streep said. “If we lose our farms, we lose a part of our heritage.”