Celebrating two decades of preserving agricultural land in North Carolina

Source: NC Farm Bureau

by Jamey Cross

The concern was real and the idea was simple. As North Carolina’s population grew, the state’s prime farmland was being lost to residential and commercial development. Farmers were being approached by developers with tempting offers to buy their farmland, and North Carolina’s agricultural footprint was shrinking. North Carolina landowners needed a way to keep their farmland, and the ADFP Trust Fund looked to provide that.

In 2005, newly elected Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler presented “Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Strategy” as a state priority. On Sept. 13 of that year, then-Gov. Mike Easley signed House Bill 607, establishing the ADFP Trust Fund. The trust fund would grant farmland conservation easements across North Carolina, allowing farmers the financial break they needed to keep their properties as open, working lands rather than selling it to developers.

In September 2005, North Carolina took a major step toward preserving its agricultural future by establishing the Agricultural Development & Farmland Preservation Trust Fund. Image credit - NC Farm Bureau

“Farmland Preservation has been a priority of mine since my first day in office in 2005,” said Troxler. “As our state continues to welcome more people that require more infrastructure, land and resources – it is vitally important that we conserve our farmlands for farming.”

Troxler tapped Dewitt Hardee – a veteran member of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services who was then serving as the director of Ag Policy and Analysis – to run the program.

“He told me to take it and run with it,” Hardee said. Today, the Farmland Preservation Division has a team of 19, which includes eight full-time positions. But, “it didn’t come easy,” Hardee said.

He helped build the program from the ground up – literally, by sneaking desks and leftover office supplies from other divisions. He went to work writing the rules, policy and criteria the program would run by. He navigated those early growing pains by “borrowing” staff from across the department and hiring only temporary employees to get things rolling.

Eventually came more funding and full-time staff for the division. With time, funding grew, as did partnerships with local and federal government agencies.

The first year, the program got just $40,000 in appropriations. By the time Hardee retired in 2021, the fund managed some $24 million in active grants.

Over the past 20 years, the fund has worked to provide funding for the purchase of agricultural conservation easements on farm, forest and horticulture lands; support programs that promote family farms and agribusinesses; and fund conservation agreements on active working lands.

“The goal was to preserve farmland—we were losing so much,” Hardee said. “I called it the ‘mold theory’: put a little water on bread and the mold comes up. Before you know it, it’s covered. Prime farmland was being gobbled up.”

North Carolina’s population continues to grow, largely due to migration to the state. To meet the demand for housing, commercial services and added traffic, development has boomed as well. It’s a solution for the increase in population, but it’s also created problems of its own.

The loss of vital farmland to development has impacts on our state’s No. 1 industry – agriculture – and our food supply. And it’s pretty irreversible.

“You don’t pour asphalt and build buildings and then put it back into a farm,” Hardee said. “We’ve got to use our land resources wisely. Once it’s changed, you’re not going back.”

Hardee describes the ADFP Trust Fund as a tool to help foster the growth and sustainability of family farms by preserving working farms and forests in the state.

“This Trust Fund—it’s like someone handing you a hoe to help chop weeds,” Hardee said. “One tool in the toolbox. And if you use it wisely, you can do a lot of good.”

The ADFP Trust Fund provides funding to county governments and nonprofit organizations for conservation easements, agricultural development projects and agricultural plans. Most of the grants awarded through the program are for agricultural conservation easements, which remove development rights from private land to protect its agricultural production capabilities.

Just ahead of its 20th anniversary, the ADFP Trust Fund hit a major milestone: reaching 40,000 acres of land conserved. The program has proven that with partnership, creativity and persistence, preservation is possible.

While the ADFP Trust Fund has seen major successes over the past two decades, the demand for farmland preservation remains at an all-time high. Pressures on farmland are growing: population growth, development, infrastructure, land conversion and others. This issue needs sustained investment and attention.

“We’ve got to look out for the next generation,” Hardee said. “If we take and use everything today, there’s nothing left for them.”

For more information, contact our Farmland Preservation Division at www.ncagr.gov/divisions/farmland-preservation/team.