© 2025
Local NPR for the Cape, Coast & Islands 90.1 91.1 94.3
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

One of Cape Cod's largest farms, now sold, will have a new life

The Country Farm Road entrance to Gopal Farm Cape Cod in Sandwich, August 2024.
Google Street View
The Country Farm Road entrance to Gopal Farm Cape Cod in Sandwich, August 2024.

The former Windstar Farm in Sandwich — one of the largest agricultural properties on Cape Cod — has been sold.

The nearly 240-acre farm has been mostly inactive for decades, though it operated in the last few years as Gopal Farm Cape Cod.

The buyers are Joseph Arruda, of Raynham, and his son, Brandon Arruda.

The father said the parcel they bought a few months ago totals 238 acres. They plan to build about 50 acres of new cranberry bogs and grow hay and silage corn for animals he keeps at another farm property off-Cape.

“If we get the permit, we would like to do, like, 50 acres at a time and see how it goes,” he said. “We’re kind of open to ideas of the current market.”

This map shows the recently sold Gopal Farm Cape Cod property, just north of the aircraft runways at Joint Base Cape Cod.
Imagery ©2024 Airbus, CNES / Airbus, Landsat / Copernicus, Maxar Technologies, Map data ©2024 Google
This map shows the recently sold Gopal Farm Cape Cod property, just north of the aircraft runways at Joint Base Cape Cod.

Use of the Sandwich property is limited by an agricultural preservation restriction, which is a permanent deed restriction to keep the land in farming.

“We want to have a variety of different things there, because one crop is very difficult, today, to survive with,” he said. “You got to be kind of spread out when the market goes up or down with cranberries, or hay, or vegetables.”

The farm is at the southern end of Sandwich, just north of the airfield at Joint Base Cape Cod.

Sandwich Town Manager Bud Dunham said installing new bogs will probably require local zoning review, and because of the size of the property, an additional review by the Cape Cod Commission.

“I think one of the things that the town staff thought was positive is to get an active agricultural use going up there,” he said. “None of us are experts on how you convert … upland to cranberry bogs. But Mr. Arruda and his son explained a little bit about how that happens.”

Dunham said he first learned of Arruda’s interest in the property from the town manager in Middleborough, where Arruda recently donated materials and labor to build new baseball fields.

The Arruda family has owned cranberry bogs for 30 years and hires land managers to take care of them, Arruda said. He owns and operates a sand and gravel business in Bridgewater.

He said he does not intend to put a sand pit on the Sandwich farm.

Jennette Barnes is a reporter and producer. Named a Master Reporter by the New England Society of News Editors, she brings more than 20 years of news experience to CAI.