Pennsylvania has added 1,470 additional acres of land to its nationally recognized farmland preservation program under action by the Pennsylvania Agricultural Land Preservation Board at its meeting on Thursday, February 16, 2012, in Harrisburg.
"We've preserved nearly 15,000 acres of farmland across the state in just the past year alone," said Agriculture Secretary George Greig. "This speaks volumes to the value our farm families place on ensuring the future viability of Pennsylvania agriculture, [which is] our state's number-one industry."
Pennsylvania has been recognized as one of the nation's leaders in farmland preservation. Since the program started in 1988, state, county and local governments have invested more than $1.1 billion to safeguard 459,007 acres on 4,243 farms.
"Our producers know the importance of preserving farms so our next generation of agriculturalists can keep Pennsylvania growing far into the future, and I thank them for that foresight," Greig said.
The 14 newly preserved farms are located in Beaver, Berks, Bucks, Butler, Cambria, Cumberland, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Northampton and Somerset counties and are as follows:
- Beaver - The Thomas Brenckle farm, a 102-acre crop and livestock operation
- Berks - The Mark, Nancy, David and Cindy Wolfskill farm #1, a 112-acre crop and livestock operation
- Bucks - The Kenneth Bowman farm, a 135-acre crop farm
- Butler - The Kenneth and Ann Moniot farm, an 88-acre crop farm
- Cambria - The David and John Shoemaker farm #2, a 128-acre crop and livestock operation
- Cumberland - The James Deitch farm, an 83-acre crop and livestock operation
- Juniata - The Richard Rhine farm #1, a 169-acre crop and livestock operation
- Lackawanna - The Richard Weise and Rosemary Sachse farm #1, a 42-acre crop farm
- Lancaster - The Craig, Cynthia, Joel and Jaclyn Frey and Anthony and Judy Haverstick farm, a 29-acre crop and livestock operation and The Charles and Debra Smithgall farm, a 244-acre crop and dairy operation
- Lebanon - The Curtis and Keturah Zimmerman farm, a 111-acre crop and livestock operation
- Northampton - The Gerald Brinker farm, a 61-acre crop farm and The George Milander farm, a 40-acre crop farm
- Somerset - The Mildred Berkebile farm, a 125-acre crop and livestock operation
Pennsylvania's farmland preservation efforts work through the Pennsylvania Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program. The program was developed to slow the loss of prime farmland to non-agricultural uses. It enables state, county and local governments to purchase conservation easements, also called development rights, from owners of quality farmland.
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