12/16/24 - 110 New Stories - REAL Environmental & Conservation Leadership In PA: http://tinyurl.com/3ubmzu7a
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State Board Preserves Additional 1,469 Acres Of Prime Farmland
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An additional 1,469 acres of prime farmland on 16 farms have been protected through Pennsylvania’s nationally recognized farmland preservation program this week.
“Pennsylvania is the national leader in farmland preservation, and today 16 more families protected their land from development, ensuring it will continue to be farmed for many generations,” said Agriculture Secretary George Greig. “I thank these families for their commitment to keeping our agriculture industry and economy growing.”
The farms approved by the State Agricultural Land Preservation Board today are in Adams, Beaver, Bucks, Columbia, Cumberland, Huntingdon, Lancaster, Lehigh, Luzerne and Susquehanna counties.
During the program’s 23-year history, 451,994 acres on 4,173 farms have been safeguarded for future generations.
The state’s farmland preservation efforts work 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.
Since the program’s inception, state, county and local governments have invested more than $1.1 billion to preserve farms.
Greig added that farm succession planning is essential to ensuring producers are available to farm preserved land, and the Center for Farm Transitions can offer assistance to find the next generation of farmers. A number of resources are available at the Center’s website.
For more information, visit the Department of Agriculture's Farmland Preservation webpage.
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6/20/2011 |
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