HARRISBURG, Pa. — Three Lehigh Valley farms have been preserved as part of a $10 million statewide effort to ward off development and protect open spaces.
“Saving farmland for producing food, rather than losing it to warehouses and sprawl is an investment we can’t afford not to make,” state Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said, in a news release. “Farmers face fierce competition from developers seeking to buy their land.
“The Shapiro administration is committed to joining farm families and county and local government to protect our valuable land as an investment that will feed our families and economy in the future.”
The farms, all in Lehigh County, were the latest to be included in the commonwealth’s Farmland Preservation Program, along with more than two dozen others across the state.
Through the program, farmers sell their development rights to the State Land Preservation Board, protecting the land from any future residential or commercial development.
Farms preserved include: Barbara A. Bollinger, a 72-acre crop farm in Lynn Township; Terry C. Muth, a 77-acre crop farm in North Whitehall Township; and Mary Ann Wagner, a 60-acre crop farm in North Whitehall Township.
The total investment was just more than $1.31 million, divided between state, county and township funds.Pa. Agriculture officials
The total investment was just more than $1.31 million, divided between state, county and township funds.
Thirty-one farms across the state were preserved in this latest round, totaling 2,842 acres in 13 counties.
In 2024, 167 new farms and 13,847 prime acres of farmland across the state were preserved through the program, an investment of more than $50.6 million.
Since 1988, when the state’s Farmland Preservation Program was approved by voters, the commonwealth has protected 6,482 farms and 646,754 acres in 58 counties from future development, investing more than $1.7 billion in state, county and local funds.
