Four farms in the Lehigh Valley have been kept intact as part of a $9.9 million state-wide initiative to prevent development and save open spaces.
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The secretary of the state Department of Agriculture, Russell Redding, declared in a news release on Monday that Pennsylvania is an excellent environment to conduct business. Developers are vying for farmers' land because of our proximity to ports, interstates, railroads, and 40% of the country's population. "The Shapiro Administration, in partnership with farm families, county and local governments, is making a critical investment to save fertile farmland for producing food, rather than losing it to warehouses and suburban sprawl to feed our families, our economy, and our future together."
Along with almost two dozen other farms throughout the state, the farms—two in each of the counties of Lehigh and Northampton—were the most recent to be added to the Commonwealth's Farmland Preservation Program.
In order to shield the property from any future residential or commercial development, farmers sell their development rights to the state's State Property Preservation Board under the scheme. Two farms in Lower Milford Township have been protected in Lehigh County: the 20-acre crop farm owned by Alan P. and Donna M. Behnke, and the 43-acre crop farm owned by Matthew J. Urffer and Jessica J. Bales.
According to the news release, the state, county, and township money made up the total investment of little over $403,000. Two farms in Northampton County were Charles B., Natalie J., and Zachary B. Rush's 48-acre crop farm in Moore Township, and 358 Menahan Street, a 56-acre crop farm in Lower Mount Bethel Township. The state and county funds made up the little under $435,000 overall investment.
In this most recent round, thirty farms totaling 2,654 acres in 14 counties were conserved around the state.
The commonwealth has invested more than $1.7 billion in state, county, and municipal funding to preserve 6,422 farms and 641,908 acres in 58 counties since voters adopted the state's Farmland Preservation Program in 1988.