 Urban encroachment is a yet another growing problem that some farmers in the region are encountering with greater frequency as the population dynamics of New England change. Land from farms that sell out or go under is often too expensive for surrounding farmers to purchase. Developers or urban dwellers looking to move to the countryside or build a second home will usually pay more than farmers are willing or able to put up, resulting in land being permanently removed from agricultural. The Hinton farm, despite its remote location, has encountered such problems. While eating his noon breakfast, Burton points out the window to a medium-sized home on the other side of Hinton Hill Road. He said that when his uncle died he and his father tried to purchase the land from a relative but a competing offer made for it was far beyond what they could afford to match. The land, which had been part of the family farm since the 1800s, is now residential and no longer used for farming. The disappearance and rising price of farmland is not the only urban challenge that farmers face.
Another scenario adding to farmers worries is that of urban residents moving to the country who end up living on land near farms without an understanding of what that entails. Scott Bartlett has had to deal with this problem first hand. "You get somebody that moves out into the country from the city and they say ‘Gee that’s kind of nice, there’ll be a farm next door.’ But then the cows get out one night and walk through their flower garden and they're not so keen on having that farm next door." The Bartletts, whose farm is located on the outskirts of the New Hampshire’s capital, are in an area of the city that is quickly changing from rural to urban and with this development comes other problems. "Where your biggest worry in this area comes is that, as that development gets around you you’ll get more people. You know it only takes one person that starts complaining about the smell of the farm…..one person starts making some noise like that and they get it into two, and that’s where your problem comes in…that’s why we try to keep everything around here cleaned right up nice and keep the barns in good shape." While these concerns may seem minor, failure to take them seriously can lead to ordinance changes and having to adjust the way things are done on the farm. It can create more work and expenses for people that have plenty to do already and have little cash to spare.
 Equipment purchases and maintenance costs are yet another part of the equation leading to the demise of many farms. Unlike milk prices these have gone up, significantly. On the Bartlett farm, Alan and Scott, while walking quickly from cow to cow preparing one for milking and then removing the milking cluster from another, half laughingly describe what they would face if they had to replace their baler. "That baler, when Grandpa bought it, (30 years ago) was $3,500 and now it’s almost $15,000 to replace it. The issue that comes into play there is that as much as that bailer increased in price in that time frame the price of milk that we get paid is still the same as when we bought the bailer for $3,500." The effect of equipment costs upon the family farm is confirmed by Reg Lussier, an auctioneer from Lyndonville, Vermont, who deals with farmers throughout Northern New England. "You blow an engine on a tractor and if you got forty cows or 1400 in the barn the motor job is $6,000 regardless of the size of your farm. You divide that by the number of cows you’ve got and there’s your debt load. It’s killing the those little farms. The equipment is eating them alive."
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