For seven decades, Jeff Biddle has worked and enjoyed watching the seasons change in the fields and woods of his 170-acre Bear Meadows Farm near Tussey Mountain. He loves every part of running his dairy farm: Milking cows and talking to his customers as they visit the farm to buy raw milk, eggs, grass-fed beef and artisan cheese. He loves living up in the woods, seeing the spring flowers in bloom, and watching bears and turkeys.
Now, he is free from worries of bulldozers, asphalt and rooftops taking over his land.
Biddle preserved 170 acres in late July when he finalized a conservation easement with the Centre County Farmland Trust. The legally binding easement bans development and is tied to the property deed, so that the land will be preserved and protected no matter who owns it in the future.
Biddle, who has thought about preserving the farm for about 30 years, turned down two lucrative offers over the years from interested buyers. One told him he could make a lot of money and he had such a beautiful property.
“And I said ‘Yes, I do,’ have a beautiful property,” said Biddle. “And that’s because there’s no houses on it — which is true. I mean, once you build houses and look at rooftops, it’s not beautiful anymore. It’s a nice development.”
A Life of Connection to the Land
For Biddle, his connection to this place and his time making a living and life here were all more important than the money offered.
“Honestly, I’ve been picking rocks off this farm ever since I was a little kid. We grow a lot of rocks here,” he said and chuckled. “I don’t know how many tons and tons and tons of rocks I’ve picked off this farm. And to see a bulldozer come in and take all those years of hard work and not care …No.” He shook his head.
While Biddle’s sacrifice of the development rights of his land may lower its economic value, his decision to preserve the land offers tremendous conservation value, benefits and ecosystem services for central Pennsylvania — and retains scenic, productive farmland in Centre County.
The fields, forests and natural, open land of the farm benefits water quality and habitat for wildlife. The trees and soil store carbon. The land will be available for agriculture and the beautiful views of the land will still be visible from Route 322 for residents and visitors to Centre County.
The Power of Partnership
“Bear Meadows Farm is a beautiful, well-run farm located on the edge of the ‘growth boundary’ for the Centre Region,” said Dan Guss, president of the Centre County Farmland Trust. “The fields and forests on the farm are an important groundwater resource for the Spring Creek headwaters. CCFT is thrilled to have enabled Jeff Biddle in preserving this important resource for the benefit for future generations.”
Preserving Bear Meadows Farm was possible through a partnership between ClearWater Conservancy, a nationally accredited land trust and large local conservation organization, and the Centre County Farmland Trust, a small, farmland-focused land trust. ClearWater helped secure the conservation easement by assisting with technical and legal work, easement documents, mapping and fieldwork.
“ClearWater’s partnership with the Centre County Farmland Trust to preserve Bear Meadows Farm not only protects a loved family dairy farm but also advances the Upper Spring Creek Watershed Coldwater Conservation Plan and maintains scenic open space in our growing region,” said Ryan Hamilton, ClearWater Conservancy’s Director of Land Conservation.
Protected Land for a Healthier, Cleaner Spring Creek
Hamilton is referring to ClearWater’s work over more than 30 years to protect the Spring Creek watershed, specifically the part that focuses on land surrounding the headwaters of Spring Creek. The Spring Creek watershed is a network of surface streams, groundwater and subsurface aquifers that provides drinking water, habitat for wild trout, and opportunities for outdoor recreation and tourism in the region.
To protect the water quality of Spring Creek requires protecting the lands that make up the headwaters. Bear Meadows Farm includes a historic spring house from which flows the headwaters of an unnamed tributary to Spring Creek. The farm contains two other unnamed tributaries and two ponds fed by seepage springs.
“All of the seeps and streams on the Bear Meadows Farm Property flow in a northerly direction to Spring Creek, which flows to Bald Eagle Creek, to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, and finally, the Susquehanna River, a major contributor to the Chesapeake Bay,” according to a Baseline Documentation Report that ClearWater prepared as part of the Bear Meadows Farm conservation easement.
The farm includes many types of soil suitable for agriculture, 50 acres of pasture and hay and 11 acres of cultivated crops. The conservation easement is also intended to protect the land suitable for agriculture for agricultural use.
Bear Meadows Farm also includes rich forests that provide habitat for wildlife and plants that can store carbon, mitigating rising carbon levels in the atmosphere: 55 acres of deciduous forest, 13 acres of evergreen forest, 26 acres of mixed forest and four acres of grassland.
About Jeff Biddle and Bear Meadows Farm
Several spots in the woods are among Biddle’s favorite at the farm. He and his wife, Claudia, live in the hunting camp his father built prior to buying the farm.
“We live in the woods. It’s fantastic. I don’t mow grass. I don’t rake leaves. We have bears and turkey and deer and waterfowl out our window,” said Biddle.
Harold Biddle, Jeff’s father, purchased six acres in the woods to build the hunting camp, then purchased the 175-acre property in 1959. He restored the barn, built an addition to the barn, repaired and replaced outbuildings and raised beef cattle.
Jeff Biddle grew up on the farm, left to become a cabinet-maker and operated his own woodworking business. As he and Claudia raised their family, he continued to work on the farm helping his father with the beef operation.
“For some reason, ever since I was a kid I wanted to have a dairy farm,” he said. “I don’t know why.”
His father was not interested in dairy farming.
At 49, intent on pursuing dairy farming, Jeff and Claudia were about to purchase a farm in Mifflin County. Instead, Harold and Jeff agreed to transition to a dairy operation. Jeff and Claudia took over Bear Meadows Farm in 2002. Three years later, they converted the farm to a grass-based dairy and in 2009, received a permit for raw milk sales from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
Biddle calls dairy farming his “mid-life crisis.”
A Niche for High-Quality, Local Raw Milk & Artisan Cheese
Now, Bear Meadows Farm raises grass-fed dairy cows and sells raw milk, ground beef and about 10 different types of cheeses made from the farm’s milk off-site by a cheesemaker. It also raises chickens and sells eggs.
Biddle’s answer to consolidation in the dairy industry was to develop a niche market for Bear Meadows’ high-quality, raw milk. A diet of all grass makes for a higher level of healthful omega-3 fatty acids in the milk. And, most of the herd produces a protein known as “A2” in the milk that makes the milk easier to digest.
“We are so particular about the quality of the milk,” said Biddle, who posts the test results of Bear Meadows’ raw milk for customers to see as they come to purchase milk. An independent lab tests the milk every two weeks.
Biddle has been interested in preserving the farm since the late 1990s, before he inherited it following Harold’s death in 2009. Bear Meadows has been on the waiting list for preservation through Centre County’s Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.
Meanwhile, CCFT President Dan Guss, a regular customer of Bear Meadows Farm raw milk, started talking about preserving the land through the Centre County Farmland Trust about 10 years ago.
Over many conversations, they worked through every aspect of the easement, to ensure Biddle had peace of mind.
“It felt great,” Biddle said, when the easement was finalized on July 24. The easement provides legal protection for the land, all of his favorite spots from the forest rich with good childhood memories, to the meadow in the springtime full of sweet scents from the blooming crabapple trees and the pastures where he walks and sometimes spots a four-leaf clover.
Jeff and Claudia have two grown children and five grandchildren.
He hopes the land will continue to be farmed long into the future.
But that part is uncertain, he notes, given the high initial capital costs for young farmers and low returns of the current agricultural economy. As of now, no one is in place to farm when Biddle retires.
“We need to start preserving farmers,” he said.
About the Centre County Farmland Trust
The Centre County Farmland Trust is a non-profit, farmland-focused land trust that partners with landowners in Central Pennsylvania to preserve land and its natural resources. Our mission is to preserve and protect farmland and open land in Central Pennsylvania. CCFT holds conservation easements on 19 properties and 1,728 acres.
About ClearWater Conservancy
ClearWater Conservancy is a nationally accredited land trust and locally formed conservation organization nestled in the heart of central Pennsylvania. Since 1980, ClearWater has worked to improve and protect the natural resources of central Pennsylvania for all, through land conservation, water resource protection, and environmental outreach to the community.