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Greenbrier County Farmland Protection Board

Protecting Farmland Through Conservation Easements

Farmland ProTection

Nationwide, America is losing Farmland. According to the American Farmland Trust, the United States is losing 2.2 million acres of rural lands to urban sprawl every year. This means that, across the United States, over 4 acres of rural lands are consumed every single second.

In an effort to address the loss of farmland, over 20 states have implemented Farmland protection programs. In 1996, the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded a farmland protection effort with a 6-year goal of protecting between 170,000 and 340,000 acres of farmland.

West Virginia has not escaped the loss of farmland. From 1964 to 1997, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-reports that West Virginia lost an incredible 7,732 farms and 1,823,060 acres of Farmland. From 1982 through 1997, 25 of the most productive counties in West Virginia had a combined loss of 103,519 acres of productive farmland.

Greenbrier County, the second largest land mass county, continues to lose farmland. In the 1972 soil survey of Greenbrier, the county had 228,969 acres of farmland, and by 1997 that number had been reduced to 184,359 acres, a loss of 44,610 acres. Also, according to the Soil Survey of the Greenbrier County Soil Conservation Service, in 1972 the county had 1,237 farms with an average acreage of 185 acres, and according to the 1997 Census of Agriculture, this number had faIlen to 727, a loss of 51 0 farms. With the loss of farmland, there is a loss of agricultural industry, which has been the heartbeat of the county's economy for over 200 years.

Agriculture is a unique life support industry, providing sources of agricultural products for the citizens of the state. Because West Virginia's farmland is so much less than other states, it is even more important to take steps to protect is, as it is some of the best soil suited to agricultural production in the raising of cattle, sheep, poultry and dairy animals, according to the 1997 Agricultural Census.

Further, the Homeland Security Act, which the Congress passed as a protection measure following the attack of September 11,2000, specifies that America's farms should be protected as a means of making us self-sustaining in the event of attacks which would prevent the importation of foodstuffs from foreign countries. Because of the enormous loss of farmland nationwide during the last 25 years, the United States is no longer self-sustaining according to statistics provided by the American Farmland Trust.

In an effort to create a local program to provide farm owners a voluntary land conservation option, the Greenbrier County Commission on July 17, 2002 created the Greenbrier County Farmland Protection Board. The Farmland Protection Board is charged with creating a document proposing a farmland protection program consistent with the Legislature's intent and to seek funding to implement such a program.

This program establishes uniform standards and guidelines for the eligibility of properties and the ranking criteria utilized to prioritize funds allocation to purchase conservation easements, or to pay associated costs for the purchased or donated easements. The guidelines established by this program outline the various methods of farmland protection available to prospective participating property owners, and the procedures to be followed in applying for program consideration.