FREEPORT – Royal River Conservation Trust will host an Octoberfest Harvest Dinner from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, at the Community Hall at Merriconeag Waldorf School on Desert Road to raise funds to preserve the former Harry Davis Farm on Davis Road, Durham.

The trust will buy an agricultural conservation easement to ensure that the farm’s rolling fields permanently remain farmland.

Chefs from Fore Street Restaurant in Portland, Henry and Marty’s Restaurant in Brunswick and the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport will cook the dinner, with much of the food coming from New Leaf Farm.

Tickets are $40 a person and $75 a couple, and can be purchased at Royal River Natural Foods in Freeport.

For more information, call 846-4458 or e-mail [email protected].

The trust has been working with Steve Sinisi and his parents-in-law, Dave and Chris Colson, who own New Leaf Farm, to protect Davis Farm.

Sinisi and his wife, Robin, will purchase Davis Farm and sell an easement to the land trust.

The easement will allow Sinisi and his family to build a house and barns on five acres and permanently limits the use of the other 65 acres to agriculture.

Sinisi plans to raise livestock on the farm.

The trust recently received a grant from the state’s Land for Maine’s Future to help purchase the agricultural conservation easement.

The dinner fundraiser will help raise the remaining funds it needs to purchase the easement, which will help protect farmland in Durham and help local farmers continue to produce food for local markets.