For Biddle, the farm represents decades of work and memories (Bellisario Student Media photo)
For 70 years, Jeff Biddle has lived and worked on Bear Meadows Farm near Tussey Mountain in Pennsylvania. In July this year, Biddle permanently protected the 170-acre farm from development after turning down two lucrative offers from buyers, according to the Centre County Farmland Trust (CCFT). ClearWater Conservancy has worked for more than 30 years to protect the watershed and land around its headwaters. The farm includes 50 acres of pasture and hay and 11 acres of cultivated crops. It also has 55 acres of deciduous forest, 13 acres of evergreen forest, 26 acres of mixed forest and four acres of grassland. When Biddle was 49, he and Claudia were preparing to buy a farm in Mifflin County. Jeff and Claudia took over the farm in 2002. In 2009, they received a permit from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to sell raw milk. It also sells about 10 types of cheese made from the farm’s milk by an off-site cheesemaker.
Because there’s no houses on it, which is true, “And that’s.
“And I said ‘Yes, I do,’ have a beautiful property,” Biddle said. And to see a bulldozer come in and take all those years of hard work and not care- no,” he said. Dan Guss, president of CCFT, said its fields and forests are also important to the headwaters of Spring Creek. “Bear Meadows Farm is a beautiful, well-run farm located on the edge of the ‘growth boundary’ for the Centre Region,” Guss said. “The fields and forests on the farm are an important groundwater resource for the Spring Creek headwaters,” he added. “Preserving the 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. “For some reason, ever since I was a kid I wanted to have a dairy farm,” Biddle said. A Baseline Documentation Report prepared by ClearWater as part of the conservation easement said water from the farm flows towards Spring Creek. “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,” the report said. Biddle calls his move into dairy farming his “mid-life crisis”.
He has raised cattle, grown crops and watched bears, turkeys, deer and waterfowl from the woods around his home. I mean, once you build houses and look at rooftops, it’s not beautiful anymore. It’s a nice development,” he added. For Biddle, the farm represents decades of work and memories. He remembers picking rocks from its fields as a child and did not want to see that work replaced by development. “Honestly, I have been picking rocks off this farm ever since I was a little kid. We grow a lot of rocks here. I don’t know how many tons and tons and tons of rocks I have picked off this farm. The farm is near the edge of the Centre Region’s ‘growth boundary’. The conservation agreement was made possible through a partnership between CCFT and ClearWater Conservancy. ClearWater helped with technical and legal work, easement documents, mapping and fieldwork. The property is also connected to the wider Spring Creek watershed. The watershed includes surface streams, groundwater and subsurface aquifers. It provides drinking water, habitat for wild trout and opportunities for outdoor recreation and tourism. Bear Meadows Farm contains a historic spring house from which the headwaters of an unnamed tributary to Spring Creek flow. The property also has two other unnamed tributaries and two ponds fed by seepage springs. Dairy farming, however, had always been an ambition. “I don’t know why. Instead, he and his father agreed to change the operation at Bear Meadows Farm. Three years later, they converted it to a grass-based dairy. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
Today, the farm raises grass-fed dairy cows and sells raw milk, ground beef and eggs.
Biddle’s connection to the property began with his father, Harold Biddle, who bought six acres in the woods for a hunting camp before purchasing the 175-acre property in 1959. He restored the barn, repaired outbuildings and raised beef cattle. Jeff grew up on the farm before leaving to become a cabinet-maker and run his own woodworking business. He continued helping his father with the beef operation while raising his family with his wife, Claudia.
Biddle had been thinking about preserving the farm for about 30 years. Its open fields will remain visible from Route 322 for residents and visitors to Centre County.
He rejected two offers from interested buyers, including one who told him he could make a lot of money from the property and pointed to its beauty. Biddle finalised a conservation easement with CCFT in July. The legally binding agreement prevents the land from being developed and is attached to the property deed, meaning the protection will remain even if the farm changes ownership in the future. The conservation easement will keep Bear Meadows Farm protected from development while allowing it to remain available for agriculture. The farm’s fields, forests and open land provide benefits for water quality and wildlife habitat. The land also contains trees and soil that store carbon.