HARRISBURG, Pa. — Another Lehigh Valley farm has been preserved as part of a $6.6 million statewide effort to ward off development and protect open spaces.
“Food security is national security,” Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said, in a Thursday news release. “Farmers face fierce competition from developers seeking to buy their land, and saving that land to produce food is one of the most important things we can do to ensure that we can keep feeding Pennsylvania and the world.
“The Shapiro Administration is committed to investing, along with these farm families, to protect our valuable land to feed our families and economy in the future.”
A 140-acre crop farm in Bushkill Township, Northampton County, owned by Susan J. and Charles F. Forney, was one of the latest to be included in the commonwealth's Farmland Preservation Program, along with more than a 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.
"The total investment for the Forney farm was just more than $1.73 million in state funds."Pa. Agriculture officials
The total investment for the Forney farm was just more than $1.73 million in state funds.
Nineteen farms across the state were preserved in this latest round, totaling 1,837 acres in 16 counties.
Between 2023 and 2024, 333 new farms and 27,510 prime acres of farmland across the state were preserved through the program, an investment of more than $96.9 million.
Since 1988, when the state’s Farmland Preservation Program was approved by voters, the Commonwealth has protected 6,500 farms and 648,692 acres in 58 counties from future development, investing more than $1.7 billion in state, county, and local funds.
