Preserve our farmlands! We're running out!

Friends of agriculture,


        Today I want to bring to your attention that we very plainly are running out of farmland. Between the years 1990 and 2002 we loss one million acres of farmland. Since 2002, we have roughly loss 600,000 acres of farmland and over 6,000 farms in North Carolina, making us the leading state in the nation for farm loss. Well since then, our great Agricultural Commissioner and his team have come up with a solution. The North Carolina Agricultural and Farmland Preservation Trust fund. This today is our topic of discussion.

The NC Ag and Farmland Preservation trust fund was passed in the general assembly in March, 2005. Its main purpose is to fund and aid the farming, forestry, and horticultural communities in the agriculture industry. Its main goals were,   1. To support the purchase of agriculture conservation easements.                                  2. Funding for public and private entrepreneurial programs that will promote profitable and sustainable family farms through assistance to farmers in developing and implementing plans for the production of food, fiber, value added products, agritourism activities, marketing and sales of agricultural products produced on the farm, and other agriculturally related business activities.                     3. Funding conservation easements targeted at the active production of food, fiber, and other agricultural commodities.



Now you may say, well what does this have to do with a regular citizen like me? Well let me give you a run down of numbers that may hit home a little bit.

Seventeen percent of North Carolina's workforce is enrolled in an agriculture or agribusiness related job. A little over twenty percent of the whole state's income comes from this number one industry with it bringing in $70 billion annually. Also, the state's forestry products industry is the largest manufacturing industry in North Carolina. We also have $8.6 billion contributed to the state's economy from the green industry.

So now you may have a little bit better understanding of just how farmland preservation affects you directly. It affects our state's economy big time, which ultimately affects YOUR bank account as a consumer living in our agriculturally rich state. Please look up the legislation and educate yourself on what we all can do as citizens in this great state to keep our farmlands and forests preserved for generations to come.