STUYVESANT – Environmental organization Scenic Hudson has purchased development rights on a 60-acre farmland property in the Town of Stuyvesant, guaranteeing the land can continue contributing to the community’s agriculture-based economy and rural character.

Located within the state-designated Columbia-Greene North Scenic Area of Statewide Significance, the property contains a mix of grassland and forested ravines. Offering views of the Hudson Valley to the Catskill Mountains, the land sits across Route 9J from the Nutten Hook State Unique Area, originally protected by Scenic Hudson. Streams that form in its ravines flow into Newton Hook Creek, a Hudson River tributary.

Scenic Hudson Senior Land Project Manager Charlie Laing negotiated the purchase, which owner Elisa Koizumi committed to at a price 25 percent below the conservation easement’s appraised value.

Currently this land is being used by a local dairy farmer.

Since Scenic Hudson initiated plans to conserve a “critical mass” of working farms in Stuyvesant in 1999, it has protected more than 3,100 acres encompassing 13 farms. Additional farmland in the town has been preserved by the Columbia Land Conservancy,

Funds for this transaction came from Scenic Hudson’s Lila Acheson and DeWitt Wallace Hudson Valley Land Preservation Endowment.