PA Preservation Board Protect Add’l 4,682 Acres Of Prime Farmland From Develpment
HARRISBURG (Feb. 23) — The Pennsylvania Agricultural Preservation Board recently approved the preservation of an additional 4,682 acres on 48 farms through the state’s nationally recognized Farmland Preservation Program. Since 1988, 411,892 acres on 3,745 farms have been safeguarded from development and will remain viable for future agricultural production.
“Pennsylvania is committed to maintaining our excellence in production agriculture today while securing prime lands for future generations to farm tomorrow,” said Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff. “It is critical that we continue to be the national leader in the protection of our productive farmland so that Pennsylvania’s $5.8 billion agriculture industry may continue to provide citizens with locally produced food and fiber and drive the state’s economy.”
The latest preserved farms are in the following 20 counties: Adams, Allegheny, Beaver, Berks, Bucks, Butler, Chester, Cumberland, Dauphin, Erie, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lebanon, Lancaster, Lehigh, Luzerne, Montgomery, Perry, Westmoreland and York.
The state’s farmland preservation program works through the Pennsylvania Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program, which was developed in 1988 to help slow the loss of prime farmland to non-agricultural uses. The program enables state, county, and local governments to purchase conservation easements, also called development rights, from owners of quality farmland.
At the Feb. 19 meeting, the state board approved a funding threshold of $23 million to be used for farmland preservation during the 2009-10 fiscal year. Counties certified an additional $27.7 million, bringing to more than $50 million the program total for 2009.
Since the program’s inception, state, county and local governments have invested more than $1 billion in the preservation of farms.
For more information about Pennsylvania’s nationally recognized farmland preservation program, visit www.agriculture.state.pa.us and click on “Producers.”