Conservation Benefits Local Farms

The bumper sticker from American Farmland Trust makes the case for farmland preservation succinctly: “No Farms, No Food.”

It’s a premise that is hard to dispute, and as America begins to get serious about local food production, farmland protection has risen in importance on the national agenda. Conservation of all types of land has increased dramatically in recent years; the Land Trust Alliance found that acres protected had grown by 54 percent, to 37 million acres, from 2000 to 2005. The trend is likely to continue in response to provisions in the 2008 Farm Bill that make conservation much more attractive financially. And it’s not just wealthy landowners.

Read more >>