DEERFIELD — A protest march against a proposed natural gas pipeline that began Sunday in Richmond, Mass., will stop at Clarkdale Fruit Farms in Deerfield for a planned rally featuring live music and speakers including State Rep. Stephen Kulik (D-Worthington).

The pipeline, an extension of energy giant Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline system, would run from the New York border to Dracut, Mass., cutting a swath through properties in dozens of communities, including Clarkdale’s orchards.

Friday’s rally runs from noon to 5 p.m., with Rep. Kulik scheduled to speak at 2:30 p.m. and a question-and-answer session with the Massachusetts Pipeline Awareness Network scheduled for 3:30 p.m.

“Farmers, citizens, musicians and legislators unite with the common goal of stopping the proposed TNG pipeline,” reads a description of the event posted to Facebook. “Clarkdale is directly impacted, with the route bisecting and destroying prime peach and apple orchards.” The rally will also feature tours of the proposed route through the farm’s peach orchard.

On Thursday, the march — which is tracing the approximate route of the pipeline from Richmond to Dracut — traveled through Ashfield. Around noon, opponents of the project, many of them town residents and abutters, carried signs along Main Street, with a pickup truck towing a trailer full of hay bales leading the way.

Harry Keramidas of Ashfield sat on one of the bales, holding a prop meant to represent a section of the pipeline. Large chartreuse letters spelled out “NO PIPELINE” on one side of the cylinder; another side listed communities potentially impacted by the project, including Lenox, Pittsfield, Dalton, Windsor and Cummington.

Ashfield resident Jennie Markens said she learned of the project in February, when Kinder Morgan sought permission to survey her property, which is in the proposed path of the pipeline. Markens said she is concerned that if the project is ultimately approved the company will seek an eminent domain seizure on her land.

“The process as I understand it seems to favor these entities over the rights of citizens to safety and to property rights,” she said.

According to a New York Times article about the project published Thursday, Kinder Morgan plans to file for an initial permit with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission later this year. If approved, the pipeline could be operational by the end of 2018.

Kinder Morgan spokesman Richard Wheatley told the Times large sections of the pipeline could be buried in existing electricity transmission corridors, or along existing pipelines. But, he told the newspaper, some options proposed by opponents, such as running the pipeline along the Massachusetts Turnpike, are impractical.

“Routing along a highway or interstate corridor can present a higher degree of land disturbance than other, more remote areas, especially if there is a high population density,” he told the newspaper.

When — or, if — complete, the pipeline would deliver 600 million to 2.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas to the region each day.

After today’s events in Deerfield, opponents plan to continue the relay-style march to Dracut. The effort is scheduled to culminate on July 30 at the State House in Boston, when members of the Massachusetts Pipeline Awareness Network plan to deliver a petition calling for Gov. Deval Patrick to work to halt the project.

According to the Berkshire Eagle, Patrick declined an invitation to attend the kickoff event for the March. The newspaper reported that the governor sent a letter to organizers that read, in part:

As you know the primary authority for siting a pipeline lies with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. While this Administration has not taken a position on this proposal, and will not unless and until the FERC process, I did want you to know that we intend to be involved in the event of such a process, and that we have called on FERC to assure that the process is robust and that all those interested have a chance to engage.

The letter continued:

I am personally aware that some of the concerns about the project involve impact to natural resources and sensitive environmental resources to both state-owned and other publicly and privately owned lands. Our environmental agencies are starting to examine available information about these potential routes and I fully expect that any process will need to include detailed environmental reviews.