Update: Purchaser of Williamstown Farm Declines to Talk About Deal
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – A Williamstown farm that has been on the market for several years was purchased this week, but the purchaser has declined to talk about its plans for the property.
On Monday, the real estate agent listing the Green River Farms property in South Williamstown confirmed that a deal had closed on the property and directed inquiries to an employee of an Alabama-based farm consulting company named Understanding Agriculture.
On Tuesday, Morgan Hartman, identified as a “consultant” on Understanding Agriculture’s website, returned an email asking about the company’s plan for the property by saying, “We'll be issuing a press release in the next couple of weeks. After that press release I'll be available for an interview.”
On Saturday morning, iBerkshires.com posted a story identifying Understanding Agriculture as the purchaser, but in a subsequent email, Hartman said that the consulting firm itself was not the purchaser.
He still declined to identify who purchased the property or for what purpose.
“Neither Understanding Ag, LLC, nor any of its constituent members purchased Green River Farms,” Hartman wrote, continuing to use his business email. “When I use the collective term ‘our’ I am referring to the actual owners and management of the farm.”
Hartman still did not say who the "actual owners" are.
According to the Registry of Deeds website, the new owner of the property is a corporate entity known as Green River Regenerative Farm Inc. for $1.9 million. The Secretary of State's website lists that company at 66 West St. in Pittsfield with a Dirk Schultze of Wisconsin Dells, Wis., as the sole officer.
In 2010, Franklin Lewis of the state of Florida purchased the farm for a reported $1.5 million.
Lewis' Farmland Enterprises LLC is listed on the town's tax roll as the owner of three parcels: a 65-acre parcel on the west side of Cold Spring Road (Route 7), just south of the Mount Greylock Regional School campus and two contiguous parcels on the east side of Cold Spring Road, both with Green River Road addresses, one measuring 84 acres and the other 94 acres.
In total, the 244 acres and associated buildings, principally at 2480 Green River Road, have an assessed value of $778,786.
Last year, the Berkshire Eagle reported that Lewis was advertising the 244 acres for sale with an asking price of $2.75 million.
According to its website, Understanding Ag describes itself as, "real farmers and ranchers who combine decades of experience to help our clients successfully implement regenerative agricultural and ecological principles that replace the input-intensive, agricultural model to enable sustained profitable farming and ranching operations."
There is no information on the website about the consulting firm owning or purchasing any other farms.
The Natural Resources Defense Council describes regenerative farming as a philosophy of farming and ranching, "in harmony with nature."
"Practitioners [of regenerative farming] take a broader view of their role in the world, especially in terms of soil and nutrient cycles," according to the website nrdc.org. "By contrast, the industrial agricultural system that dominates Western food and fiber supply chains incentivizes practices that promote soil erosion at a rate of 10 to 100 times higher than soil formation; nutrient runoff and harmful algal blooms in freshwater and coastal systems; and monocropping and other threats to local biodiversity, including critical pollinators."
