A horse arrives at a breeding farm in Rehoboth. (Photo courtesy of Donna Pereira)

WHEN THE HEALEY administration recently announced an initiative to help preserve open space and farmland, it recognized the alarming trend in Massachusetts where development pressure is gobbling up eight acres of open space and farmland every day.

The Massachusetts Farmland Action Plan, however, was soon followed by the governor’s recent fiscal 2025 budget proposal that wipes out the Race Horse Development Fund, which was enacted as part of the 2011 casino law. But the fund isn’t just about horse racing; it has also helped protect our breeding farms, hay farms, and the local businesses in these rural communities that rely on that activity for their own survival.

The Race Horse Development Fund – backed with casino revenues – also supports trainers at the end of their career with minimal health benefits. It supports and promotes a more robust breeding program that keeps these farms active and intact as part of our agricultural ecosystem.

These programs may be unimportant to some, but the people who will feel this loss the most live in rural communities. This is where our farms are. This is where horse breeders and hay farmers live and where they struggle to make a living.

The Farmland Action Plan is important and long overdue, but the subsequent budget language that puts even more pressure on farms is working at cross purposes against that initiative. Massachusetts ranks 47th in the country for agricultural production, so there isn’t very far to go to hit rock bottom.

The Farmland Action Plan would expand the state’s Agricultural Preservation Restriction program, which pays farmers for land in exchange for a permanent restriction on selling their land for non-agricultural use. The 12 farms that benefitted from this year’s $4.7 million in funding raise vegetables, fruit, cattle, hay, and more. What you won’t find on the state’s list are horse breeding farms where stallions, mares, and foals create economic activity that could be the difference between an active farm and one that may soon have a for sale sign on it.

If the long-range plan for agriculture in Massachusetts is to open markets for the sale and export of agricultural products, we are part of that story. We are part of a farming culture in Massachusetts that is under relentless development pressure.

According to a study buttressing the administration’s plan, Massachusetts now ranks third in the country for the highest percentage of farmland that will be lost by 2040. More than 60,000 acres of farmland were lost between 1997 and 2017.

Rural Massachusetts can’t lean on a high-tech or pharma economy to support its communities; it has farms and open spaces. Budget language that effectively wipes out incentives for breeding and racing needlessly targets these farms for what amounts to pennies on the state budget.

Donna Pereira is chair of the Massachusetts Thoroughbred Breeders Association. She and her husband live on a farm in Rehoboth, where they also raise livestock and produce.