MARLBOROUGH, Mass. — In recent years, the Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) program has been under fire from APR landowners. To explore the validity of these criticisms, Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation (MFBF) has developed a survey about the program for APR landowners to complete by Jan 15.
The survey is available at: goo.gl/bk6L8A.
Please note: you do not need to be a Farm Bureau member to participate in this survey.
“The complaints have largely focused on how the state deals with APR landowners,” said MFBF President Ed Davidian, who farms APR land in Northborough. “While the number of complaints compared to the number of owners involved in the APR program is small, they are not insignificant and cannot be ignored.”
The goal of this survey is to help identify if there are any problems with the APR program and what those may be.
“Identifying the presence, scope and nature of a problem is the first course of action in solving it,” Davidian said. “That said, we also welcome positive feedback on the APR program. We want a balanced opinion of the program and encourage all APR landowners to complete the survey by Jan. 15.”
The results of the survey will be shared broadly, however, it will keep the names of the respondents confidential. No one outside of MFBF will know who responded or will see the individual survey forms. Unfortunately, if you do not provide your contact information in this survey MFBF cannot consider the information in the survey results.
If you do not have access to a computer to complete this survey but are a landowner who would like to, please call MFBF’s office at 508-481-4766.
–Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation