On January 20, 2023 the Jefferson County Farmland Protection Board welcomed its first protected farm of the year when Conrad Lotze and Kristina Maciunas signed their Deed of Conservation Easement with the Board. The addition of the 45-acre Lotze-Maciunas farm brings the Board’s total protected farmland to 6,361 acres on 55 farms.
Located at the corner of Old Leetown Road and Wiltshire Road, the protected farm is surrounded by active farmland. Conrad Lotze and his wife Kristina Maciunas purchased their property in 2001, with Lotze’s parents, who live on the adjacent 30 acres. Lotze remarked, “We created a small family homestead, to be better able to care for our elders.”
Conrad Lotze’s’s parents Christian and Evie Lotze run Roxley Farms, which for the past 22 years has produced grass-fed Black Angus beef cattle. Together the family also grows and sells hay, without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers, choosing to remain as natural as possible.
Lotze said, “Our experience with the Farmland Protection Program’s office was very positive, and we greatly appreciated their patient assistance as we navigated our way through the many details required to finalize the sale of our easement. It seemed daunting at first, but everything came together in the end.
We are especially grateful to the Farmland Protection Board for founding this wonderful program, which will allow us to keep our beautiful piece of Almost Heaven undeveloped in perpetuity. We strongly believe in farmland preservation, and we urge anyone considering it to apply.”
For more information about the Jefferson County Farmland Protection Board, contact the Board at: 304/724-1414 or jefferson@wvfp.org.