BETHEL – As a bald eagle glided around a wooded corner of the Androscoggin River on Wednesday morning in Bethel, farmer John Carter stood on the opposite bank.

Pointing to the river near where the eagle skimmed the surface seeking a meal, he said that as a youngster, he used to mow hay near there for his parents.

Since then, the river ate into his prime 201-acre Middle Intervale Farm until one of his many agricultural conservation projects stopped the assault with riprap.

Now, he’s trying to solve a bigger problem, that of rapid-scale development. He hopes to secure an agricultural conservation easement and preserve the working farm into perpetuity.

Three years ago, Carter, who is in his late 30s, sought help from the Mahoosuc Land Trust and U.S. Department of Agriculture to preserve the family legacy.

It includes the Middle Intervale Meeting House, which was built in 1816. Directly across from the farmstead, it served as Bethel’s social, business and political center in the early 1800s. Carter said Brigham Young once preached from its pulpit.

This summer, Carter and the trust’s work paid off when the Land For Maine’s Future granted $651,000 toward the estimated $1.027 million project to buy

From 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 6, Carter and the trust will celebrate the farm and the easement project while recognizing the significance of dairy farming, produce gathering and agricultural management at the Meeting House.

That’s because it was the highest-scoring LMF project this year, according to trust spokeswoman Ginger Kelly and Executive Director James Mitchell.

“We’re excited about the project, because part of our mission statement is to protect and conserve land and traditional land uses including farming,” Kelly said on Wednesday at the farm.

With its 4,700 feet of frontage along the river and panoramic views of the Mahoosuc Mountain Range, including Sunday River, the seventh-generation Carter farm and farmstead from 1791 is fast becoming an island in a sea of seasonal, high-end second homes off Middle Intervale Road.

One of three active dairy farms in Bethel, Middle Intervale Farm is located within a 2-mile area where a total of 90 subdivision lots have been created.

“I realize that it’s not going to go on forever as I struggle to keep the farm, but I don’t want to ever see it turn into houses,” Carter said. “Sooner or later, this country is going to regret turning farmland into houses. People need to think about where food comes from. My family worked and sacrificed more than 200 years to keep this as a farm.”

For the past three generations, John Carter said the Carter family has operated a dairy farm. John Carter bought it off his parents in 1995 and today, Middle Intervale Farm is the largest milk producer in Oxford County.

He and his partner, Cynthia Flores, run the diversified operation. Carter handles the dairy end from his herd of more than 240 Holsteins and a budding beef business from a small Angus herd. Each Holstein averages about 18,000 pounds of milk shipped annually to markets as far away as New York.

Flores manages the vegetable and flower operation, including product sales at the farm stand, the Bethel Farmers Market and local restaurants.