Fields of Dreams Blueberry land increasingly subject to coastal development pressures

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Blueberry land is as much a part of scenic Maine as tall pine trees, the rocky coast and snug little harbors. But a boom in land prices has put much agricultural land at risk to development, and as more and more blueberry fields are converted to house lots, some fear that trend could alter forever an aspect of the state that is quintessentially Maine.

Blueberry land often has qualities developers seek. It is open land; the soil is generally good for on-site septic; and, when it is located on a hillside, it can often offer spectacular views.

“It can be highly attractive land,” said Scott Dickerson, executive director at Coastal Mountains Land Trust in Camden.

The loss of blueberry land to development, though not yet an epidemic, is a present and apparently growing trend, Dickerson said.

“There’s not a town around here that hasn’t lost some blueberry land to development,” he said.

That kind of development can destroy visual qualities that are characteristic of a region, said Jim Dow, executive director of the Blue Hill Heritage Trust.

Wild blueberries are produced in a relatively narrow strip of the state that mainly runs through the coastal counties, areas that have seen steady population growth and continued development pressure. Although there is no state baseline, industry experts figure the state has about 60,000 acres now in blueberry production, with the largest and most productive fields in Hancock and Washington counties.

According to a federal 2002 Census of Agriculture, Maine lost more than 2,000 acres of wild blueberry land between 1997 and 2002.

Industry experts question those numbers for several reasons, noting that some of the larger processors Down East have brought about 10,000 acres back into production in the past decade.

And though they doubt there is any danger that the Down East barrens will become building lots, they confirm that blueberry land increasingly is coming under development pressure.

“There’s no doubt that there’s pressure, especially in the midcoast area,” said David Yarborough, a blueberry specialist with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service.

As land prices rise and as growing and harvesting techniques change, smaller parcels are becoming less profitable and more susceptible to development.

“There’s no doubt that the land is more valuable as building lots than as a blueberry field,” said Blue Hill real estate agent Jeff Allen.

Not only have land prices increased, but prospective Maine transplants like the look of a blueberry field, Allen said. To them, that’s part of what living in Maine means.

“It’s all about aesthetics,” he said.

Some home builders even are willing to pay to transplant blueberry plants to a new building site, and more than one landowner has stripped the blueberry sod from his fields and sold it to developers.

More often, however, a developer’s interest lies not in a blueberry field, but in an attractive building site. Real estate agent and developer Glenith Gray of Sedgwick, for example, recently purchased two parcels of land in Sedgwick – one on Sedgwick Ridge Road, the other on Route 15 – both of which included some blueberry land.

Gray plans to subdivide both parcels, one for house lots, the other for commercial development; and in neither case, she said, was it the blueberries that attracted her attention.

“I didn’t go into debt to buy a blueberry field,” Gray said. “I bought it for the location.”

The same is true, Gray said, of a nearby parcel just up Route 15 on Caterpillar Hill. The parcel, which offers a scenic view of Eggemoggin Reach, Deer Isle, the outer islands, Penobscot Bay and the Camden Hills, and also includes some blueberry land, is on the market for almost $2 million.

“They’re not selling blueberry land for that price,” Gray said. “They’re selling a view.”

Changes in the industry itself may contribute to the willingness of growers to sell smaller fields, according to Joyce Benson, an economist with the State Planning Office. The industry is transforming itself, moving to more intensive management techniques including irrigation and mechanical harvesting, Benson said.

“Some of the older, smaller fields may not be as well-suited to that. With the cost involved, they may not be able to use mechanical harvesting. It may not be economical,” she said.

That’s part of the reason Kermit Allen, treasurer of G.M. Allen & Son in Orland, sold the two parcels to developer Gray. The family-run business and individual family members together still own about 1,000 acres of blueberry land in Hancock County, so the company still has a viable berry supply for its freezers. But, Allen said, the fields on those parcels had not been producing much in recent years.

“I’ll probably wish I still had them now that the berries are coming back,” he said. “But they paid a pretty good price for them – more than I’d see from blueberries while I’m alive, and then some.”

Allen indicated that the company needs to concentrate on its higher-producing fields in order to compete with the larger processors who can use machines to rake their fields.

“It’s hard to compete with them when they can pick by machine,” he said. “We can’t do that here; it’s pretty rocky. They can pick berries a lot cheaper.”

Allen said he doubted that much more blueberry land will be developed or that the loss of the smaller fields will have much impact on the industry overall.

As long as there’s a strong demand for the berries, most small growers will keep their land in blueberries, he said. And demand has stayed high in recent years thanks to research touting the health benefits of wild blueberries, he said.

The loss of that land probably won’t affect production, either. The trend in recent years has been toward higher yields, according to Yarborough at the Extension Service.

Still, the increased cost of managing blueberry land is making it less than profitable for the small private growers.

Dale and Gail Carter of Sedgwick built their home at the edge of a blueberry field that has been in Gail’s family for generations. They’ve spent the past eight years bringing the 10-acre parcel back into production and reclaiming parts of the field that had grown up to alders and poplar, and they rely on the local processors to provide the yearly maintenance and the rakers.

“If you maintain them the way they’re supposed to be, kill the weeds and fertilize, and if you hire rakers, the price is so high it’s not even a break-even proposition,” Dale Carter said, “not for the small grower.”

The Carters like living near a blueberry field, being able to pick a few berries for muffins, and the solitude the fields and their surrounding property provide them. So they’re not about to develop their blueberry land, even if it doesn’t show a profit.

“We’re not doing it to make big bucks in blueberries,” Dale Carter said recently. “We wanted to bring back the land that was once blueberry ground and keep it the way it was. As good stewards of the land, we have an obligation to keep it as best we can.”

Even nonprofit, conservation organizations that have had some success in acquiring blueberry land say they’re having a difficult time managing it. Coastal Mountains Land Trust is considering using mechanical harvesting on a portion of its 300-acre Beech Hill Preserve, mainly because it’s increasingly difficult to find crews to rake, Dickerson said.

The Blue Hill Heritage Trust owns a 40-acre parcel on Caterpillar Hill in Sedgwick where, at this point, it is more interested in just keeping the blueberry land open than in actually harvesting the berries. But, according to Dow, it has been difficult just to find a crew willing to burn the fields.

As development pressures increase, Dow said, it becomes more important to consider what scenic or visual aspects of a region should be protected and preserved and to find ways to do that.

“We need to see if there can’t be a compromise that doesn’t destroy that visual quality,” he said.

It can be done, he said, pointing to a 130-acre subdivision on Caterpillar Hill, which was developed years ago. Although the plan allowed for 10 house lots, Dow said, a conservation easement on the land required that the homes be set in the woods and kept the scenic qualities of the blueberry fields intact.

“There is a middle ground,” Dow said.