Written by Katharine Richter
At an August meeting, 29 farms were added to the
Pennsylvania Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program by the
Pennsylvania Agricultural Land Preservation Board, contributing 2,857
additional acres of farmland for agricultural preservation.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
website, the Easement Purchase Program began back 1988. The program “was formed by amending Act 43 of
1998 to include Section 914.1.”
According to the PA Department of Agriculture website, a county
participating in the program have their own agricultural land preservation
board and the Pennsylvania Agricultural Land Preservation Board oversees the
county decisions.
According to a press release from the Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture, “federal, state, county and local governments have
invested nearly $1.3 billion to preserve 511,221 acres on 4,830 farms in 57
counties for future agricultural production” under the program. The goal of the program is to protect prime
farmland which is at risk of development and from uses which are
non-agricultural.
The added farmland
comes from farms in 16 different counties and the press release includes a list
of each farm and their acreage added to the program.
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