Four Lehigh Valley farms, totaling 183 acres, will be preserved under a state investment program that protects them from future residential or commercial development.<\/p>\n
Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2019s office announced Thursday that more than 2,645 acres on 31 farms in 20 counties were part of a $10.2 million investment in state, county and local funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cPennsylvania leads the nation in preserved farmland, thanks to the unwavering commitment of our farm families and strong support at every level of government,\u201d Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said. \u201cMany of these farmers have been offered the opportunity to sell their land for development, but they\u2019ve chosen instead to stay committed to feeding our commonwealth and carrying on their families\u2019 farming traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two Lehigh County farms received an investment of $493,400 from the state. They are:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Lehigh County No. 1 25-acre crop farm in Upper Milford Township.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Willard A. and Lucille C. Snyder\u2019s 54-acre crop farm in Lynn Township.<\/p>\n
Two Northampton County farms received an investment of $739,800 from the state. They are:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Richard R. Becker Jr. and Carol J. Becker and John E. and Debra K. Becker\u2019s 61-acre crop farm in Lehigh Township.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Shane M. Bollinger\u2019s 43-acre crop farm in East Allen Township.<\/p>\n
According to its website, Lehigh County has 413 preserved farms covering more than 28,000 acres. Northampton County has a similar program that has preserved 270 farms covering more than 20,000 acres since 1989.<\/p>\n
In Carbon County, the Amended and Restarted Revocable Agreement of Trust of Janet M. Degenhart, a 42-acre crop farm in Packer Township received $123,600 from the state and $101,200 from the county.<\/p>\n
In upper Bucks County, Gary G. and Linda K. Bender\u2019s 17-acre crop farm in Milford Township received $572,800 from the state and $28,600 from the county.<\/p>\n
In Monroe County, two farms received a combined $896,500 from the state and $14,000 from the county: Russell A. and Denise E. Gould\u2019s 25-acre fruit and vegetable farm in Chestnuthill Township, and Jason M. Green\u2019s 106-acre crop farm in Eldred Township.<\/p>\n
The state partners with county and sometimes local governments and nonprofits to buy development rights. By selling development rights, property owners ensure that their properties will remain productive farms and never be sold to developers.<\/p>\n
Since 1988, Pennsylvania has protected 6,704 farms and 665,585 acres in 58 counties from development, investing more than $1.8 billion in state, county and local funds.<\/p>\n
Outside of the Lehigh Valley, farmland was also preserved in Berks, Butler, Chester, Cumberland, Franklin, Lancaster, Lawrence, Luzerne, Mercer, Montgomery, Northumberland, Schuylkill, Washington, Westmoreland and York counties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four Lehigh Valley farms, totaling 183 acres, will be preserved under a state investment program that protects them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,197,5523,63700,433,20758,157,182,72926,29158,2941,139,434,28,432,49667],"class_list":{"0":"post-161708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-bucks-county","12":"tag-carbon-county","13":"tag-east-allen-township","14":"tag-lehigh-county","15":"tag-lehigh-township","16":"tag-lehigh-valley","17":"tag-local-news","18":"tag-lynn-township","19":"tag-milford-township","20":"tag-monroe-county","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-northampton-county","23":"tag-pennsylvania","24":"tag-top-stories-tmc","25":"tag-upper-milford-township"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}