By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

REILY TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Ann Geddes believes there is a real need to preserve green space and farmland. She owns two farms along Indian Creek, and both are protected by the Three Valley Conservation Trust.
“I am really keen on having food where people live and on eating locally,” Geddes said. “We’re now importing more food than we’re growing; there really needs to be farmers still on the land around where people live.”
Geddes and two neighboring farmers have applied for an agricultural security area (ASA).
The Ohio ASA program is a new farmland preservation tool that farmers, county commissioners and township trustees can use to protect blocs of farmland in their communities.
“In essence, it is a contract with the county commissioners and the township trustees that if we agree that the land will stay agricultural, they will do whatever they can to assist in that,” Geddes explained.
“They won’t put in sewers, they won’t put in new roads and they’ll leave us alone ... it draws a line in the sand that says ‘this area is interested in farming.’
“We’re having a public hearing on this the end of May and I hope it will pass. It will be the first one in Butler County.”
Part of her land is farmed but her passion is wildlife and diversity. Since retiring from Proctor and Gamble eight years ago, Geddes, a biologist, is restoring the habitat on the part of the land that is not in crops.
As part of that restoration she did a plant survey a few years ago.
While doing the survey she discovered a half-acre of shooting stars, a spring blooming wildflower, on a hill not too far from her house.
“Having lived here for 30 some years, for some reason I had never been on that hill at the time and when we came across it, I was as surprised as anyone,” she said. “We found over 300 species of plants that day doing the survey.”
She has worked with the Ohio Division of Wildlife to install an 11-acre prairie and four wetland ponds on her property. Her goal is to eventually make the farms an educational center.
Already, many school and other groups visit. Sometimes Geddes does the programs; sometimes the groups come with a planned program.
She likes the idea of combining agriculture and wildlife.
“But the real thing to me is if land gets developed, it never goes back again,” she said. “We’ve got to keep it before it goes under the wrecking ball, so to speak. I really believe in trying to leave the best you can for the next generation. I think once land is developed around here, these places are going to be extra special.”
Larry Frimerman, executive director of the Three Valley Conservation Trust, added, “Ann Geddes’ farms are two special places. They both protect sections of Indian Creek so that it doesn’t have additional erosion, storm water discharge and other normal results of urbanization.
“Her property is part of a two-mile stretch that buffers Indian creek MetroPark and helps to retain the water quality, ambience and the habitat that make Indian creek such a special place.”