SAVING THE FARMS
State marks 600,000 acres preserved at Berks farm in the program
Dignitaries, legislators and farm advocates gathered Thursday at the 50-acre crop and poultry farm of Jeremy and Cindy Martin in Bethel Township to celebrate a milestone in farmland preservation in Pennsylvania and Berks County.
The state agriculture preservation board approved its 600,000th acre of farmland. Since the program began in 1988, federal, state, county, and local governments have purchased permanent easements on 5,928 Pennsylvania farms totaling 601,647 acres.
The Martins’ farm was among 29 approved for funding by the board to push the total over 600,000.
The other farms are in Berks, Butler, Centre, Chester, Cumberland, Dauphin, Erie, Lancaster, Lehigh, Mercer, Montgomery, Northampton, Schuylkill and York counties.
The 29 farms include a vineyard but are mostly crop and livestock operations.
They represent 2,515 acres and more than $7.5 million investment in the future of agriculture, officials said.
In Berks, the cost to preserve six farms on Thursday was $375,651 from the state and $207,200 from the county.
For the Martins, the ceremony marked the second farm they have preserved.
In 2012, the Martins’ nearby 125-head Holstein dairy farm, Mountain View Holsteins LLC, was preserved through the program.
The Martins’ farms are not far from Interstate 78, a highway that has become a corridor for warehouses in the last decade, especially in Bethel Township.
Jeremy Martin, 39, said he’s lost land he rented to grow crops to warehouses and that was one reason why he decided to preserve his farm, which he purchased in 2017.
Martin raises about 50,000 broilers in contract with organic chicken processor Bell and Evans, which is based a few miles away in Lebanon County.
Martin said he was not only preserving a family legacy — his is the third generation to farm — but a way of life in his community.
He said he hoped a few of his five children would follow him into farming and noted that the preservation of the farm did not decrease the value of his land. That’s because he said there are “so many people who want to farm and not enough farms here.”
Martin said the money he received for the easement would go toward improving his farms, particularly erosion and sediment controls.
Speaking to the crowd of about 50 at the event being broadcast on Facebook and recorded for a state website, Martin said he was grateful.
“I’m grateful to God for this opportunity and for the people He has put in my life,” Martin said.
The celebration was held in Berks County because the county reached a milestone of 75,000 preserved acres last year, making it the top county in the state to preserve through the program. Lancaster, which also preserves land through a private trust, has preserved more acres.
Berks has nearly 1,809 farms and more than 224,000 acres, according to the 2017 agriculture census.
It is ranked third in the United States for farmland preserved.
“In just 34 years, Pennsylvania has preserved more than 600,000 acres of the most productive, nonirrigated farmland in the United States,” said Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding. “As climate change and our growing population place increased demand on land use, this program becomes even more critical to the resilience of agriculture. The acreage preserved over the past 34 years, and what we look forward to preserving tomorrow, is an investment in the future needs of Pennsylvania, the nation and the world.”
Redding said preservation will ensure the availability and accessibility of food and availability of land to serve Pennsylvania’s $132.5 billion agriculture industry.
In 2019, an agriculture research study funded by the state agriculture department and conducted through the University of Pennsylvania, found the total economic impact of farmland preservation in Pennsylvania to be valued from $1.8 billion to $2.9 billion annually. The report also estimated environmental benefits of farmland preservation to be an additional $1.9 billion annually.
Redding credited the partnership of counties, the USDA, land trusts and others in Pennsylvania’s farm preservation efforts.
The background
Suburban sprawl gave birth to a vigorous preservation program in Berks.
In the 1970s and 1980s, developments began to consume open land around Philadelphia, Reading and Lancaster.
In 1987, a proposal for a $100 million bond issue that would fund the purchase of development rights to farms across the state appeared on the ballot. It passed easily.
The following year, legislators established the Pennsylvania program. It was structured so county-level entities would work closely with a state-level board.
Through the program, Pennsylvania buys an easement deed restriction on a farm.
The farm owners voluntarily sell the right to use the land for anything other than farming. If the land is sold, the easement stays with it, assuring it will stay farmland.
Like any other real estate transaction, the land’s background must be thoroughly vetted. Once paperwork is done, the 17-member State Agricultural Land Preservation Board reviews and approves a farm for preservation. County boards recommend
farms for preservation based on a strict criteria.
Berks adopted its farmland preservation program in 1989. It is one of the earliest adopters.
Lancaster started paying farmers to preserve farmland in 1985, three years before the state got started.
The Berks County Board of Agricultural Land Preservation was established in August 1989 the county commissioners.
The original members included Frederick Eyrich, Warren Lamm, Lawrence Kieffer, Vickie Kintzer, Ernest Miller, Sheila Miller, George Moyer, Dwight Stoltzfus and Dr. Robert Ziegenfus.
The following year about $725,000 in county and state funds was spent for easements on three farms.
At the county level, two big rounds of borrowing pumped money into preservation: a $33 million bond issue in 1999 and a $24 million line of credit in 2006. About a decade ago, when that line of credit was exhausted, the commissioners committed to an annual $1 million for preservation.
Other Berks farms
In addition to the Martins’ farm, these Berks farms were also preserved:
• The Benjamin and Karah Davies farm, Hereford Township, a 20-acre livestock operation.
• The Kenneth and Elizabeth Ehst farm, Washington Township, a 27-acre crop farm.
• The Curtis and Dorothy Huber farm, Brecknock Township, a 20-acre crop farm.
• The Dennis and Donna Kunkle farm, Tilden Township, a 61-acre crop and livestock operation.
• The Warren and Bonnie Wessner farm, Maxatawny Township, a 76-acre crop farm.