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PA Preserves 1,434 More Acres Of Prime Farmland
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Pennsylvania's nation-leading Farmland Preservation Program this week permanently safeguarded an additional 1,434 acres on 17 farms for production, Agriculture Secretary Russell C. Redding announced.
Pennsylvania's program has now preserved 442,731 acres on more than 4,000 farms. Both figures are the highest of any state.
"The commitment to farmland preservation shown by Pennsylvania farmers is one that no other state can match," said Secretary Redding. "Our 4,073 preserved farms are critical to ensuring that agriculture will remain a strong, productive part of our state's future."
The farms approved this week by the Pennsylvania Agricultural Land Preservation board are located in Adams, Berks, Bucks, Chester, Fayette, Lancaster, Lebanon, Northampton, Union and Westmoreland counties.
The state's farmland preservation program works through the Pennsylvania Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program, which was developed in 1988 to help curb 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.
With this purchase of development rights, farm owners create an agreement under which the land will forever remain in production agriculture, regardless of who may later own or work the land.
The easement purchases approved represent a $6.7 million total investment of state, county and township funds.
Since the program's inception, state, county and local governments have invested more than $1 billion to preserve farms.
For more information, visit Agriculture's Farmland Preservation webpage.
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10/11/2010 |
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