The Farmland Preservation Board this week added 49 farms and 4,989 acres to the roll of farmland permanently preserved in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania leads the nation in the number of farms and acres preserved with 2,883 farms and 328,355 acres since the program began in 1988.

The latest preserved farms – in Berks, Carbon, Centre, Chester, Cumberland, Columbia, Dauphin, Franklin, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Lycoming, Montgomery, Northampton, Schuylkill, Tioga, Union, Westmoreland and York counties – consist of cropping, livestock and replacement heifer operations, dairies, an orchard and a layer poultry facility.

The Pennsylvania Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program was developed 18 years ago 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.

Pennsylvania has 7.7 million acres of farmland, representing 27 percent of the state’s land base.

For more information, visit the Farmland Preservation Programs webpage.

6/9/2006