Conserving Our Working Farms and Forests
Pennsylvania’s Productive Lands
Pennsylvania holds some of the Earth’s most naturally productive farmlands, where fertile soils that do not require irrigation yield dairy products, meat, grain, vegetables and fruit within convenient reach of major cities. The state’s forests produce some of the world’s highest quality hardwoods—oak, cherry and maple for furniture, flooring and quality construction. Pennsylvania’s forests also protect water supplies and water quality, provide habitat for wildlife and outdoor recreation for state residents and visitors alike.
The Problem
Loss of Our Productive Farms and Forests
Every day in Pennsylvania, 300 acres (450 football fields) of farmland and forest are destroyed to make way for development. This loss of productive farm and forest nearly adds up each year to the total area of Delaware County. Much of the lost land is prime farmland.
Sprawling development is urbanizing rural Pennsylvania at rates that exceed nearly anywhere else in the United States. Pennsylvania ranks 48th in population growth yet, only four other states lose more open land every year to development. If present practices continue, by mid-century, Pennsylvania will be as densely developed as the New Jersey of today.
Pennsylvania uses up farm and forestland at a rate that is disproportionate to its population growth. In recent years, our state’s population grew by only about 1.5 percent annually, compared to 16 percent nationwide. Still, we develop rural lands much faster than other states. Over the past 50 years, Pennsylvania ranks second only to West Virginia in consuming the most land for the least population growth.
Loss of Farms Means Loss of Food Security
Non-farm development of Pennsylvania’s productive rural lands close to eastern population centers requires the import of more food from distant sources. Energy costs for transportation and refrigeration are passed on to consumers for food that could be obtained less expensively and in fresher condition if locally produced. A centralized food production system that concentrates production in distant states and countries is vulnerable to increased costs or unavailability of fuel, crop pests, climate disruption and the decisions of foreign governments.
Land Loss Means Loss of Rural Economies
Productive farm soils and farmers make up important agricultural economies across the Commonwealth. Likewise our forests and the people who make up our forest products industry are a major part of Pennsylvania’s economic base. When our productive farms and forests are haphazardly consumed by development, the agricultural and forest product industries that depend on these lands are hurt. The workers in these industries are hurt and the people who provide goods and services to these workers are hurt. If enough farmland in an area is converted to non-farm use (likewise for forestlands), the farming communities lose to critical mass necessary to keep local farm-related businesses and hence the whole farm economy alive.
Helping Farmers Protect their Productive Farms
Many farm and forest landowners under pressure to sell their land for development would prefer to remain in active production. The Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program, managed by county-based farmland preservation boards in cooperation with the PA Department of Agriculture, enables farmers to do so.
The county farm preservation boards purchase “agricultural conservation easements” from landowners, providing families with needed capital in exchange for permanent commitments to keep farms as farms. With the easements, the farmers continue to enjoy all the rights and privileges of land ownership, including agricultural and forest production, but the land can no longer be converted to non-farm or forest use.
Right now, about 2,000 farm families wait on backlog lists to protect their farms with their local farm preservation boards. At an average of 120 acres a farm, these properties represent 240,000 acres of privately owned and productive farmland that could be protected from development immediately if funds for conservation easements were available. Conserving these working lands, the family enterprises they support and the land-based products Pennsylvanians need will require an investment of about $3,000 per acre, or about $720 million.
Growing Greener has helped county farm preservation boards conserve more than 400,000 acres of Pennsylvania’s most productive farmlands. This is a great and nationally recognized start. However, much more will need to be done to strengthen and protect Pennsylvania’s food security and rural economies. Growing Greener, by continuing its investments in agricultural conservation easements, can make a huge difference.