Disappearing Farmland

According to American Farmland Trust, 175 acres of farmland are being lost every HOUR. That’s over 1.5 million acres every year. From 1992 to 2012, the United States lost 3.2 percent of it’s farmland or almost 31 million acres. Thirty-three percent of that farmland, or 11 million acres, was prime farmland - land with exceptional soil quality and weather conditions.

In 1988, Pennsylvania recognized the importance of preserving viable farmland and signed into law Act 149, which created the Pennsylvania Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program. This program is dedicated to slowing the loss of prime farmland to non-agricultural uses.

Pennsylvania now leads the nation in farmland preservation, with over 550,000 acres permanently preserved, since 1988. Wayne County’s Agricultural Land Preservation Program has just over 6,000 acres protected under conservation easements to help safeguard the farmland from encroaching development and protect it for future generations.