ANNAPOLIS, M– The Maryland Board of Public Works approved 24 new Maryland Agricultural Preservation Foundation easements during their meeting today. The easements will permanently preserve 3,715 acres of prime farmland in Anne Arundel, Carroll, Charles, Harford, Montgomery, Queen Anne’s, St. Mary’s, Somerset, Talbot and Worcester counties for an investment of more than $17 million.
“Maryland has one of the strongest agricultural land preservation programs in the country. Each farmer that sells an easement to the state helps to keep farming a viable and profitable Maryland industry,” said Maryland Department of Agriculture Secretary Kevin Atticks. “Working together, we can protect the resources necessary for a strong agricultural economy and sustain our agricultural heritage.”
View a list of the Maryland Agricultural Preservation Foundation easements broken down by county above or here. The newly-approved easements will help the state meet its Chesapeake Bay goal of conserving and preserving over 1 million acres of productive agricultural land by 2030.
The Maryland Agricultural Preservation Foundation was established in 1977 as part of the Maryland Department of Agriculture. The foundation purchases agricultural preservation easements from willing farmers to forever protect prime farmland and woodland.
For more information, please contact the foundation’s Executive Director Michelle Cable at (410) 841-5860 or michelle.cable@maryland.gov.
I don’t understand why the maryland state government is paying a farmer to be a farmer. The state of maryland should take ownership of the land and put it in the forest conservation, not enrich and subsidized farmers for being farmers
Less than 2% of residents are farmers. To preserve state history of farming the costs need to be offset. Taxes alone are sinking a lot of these family farms. So by preserving a few it keeps land in active farming status. The state buys land for DNR and parks and recs too (Kinder farm park in AACo). Otherwise MD will have no farmers left in a few short decades.
Thank you.
Very scarry program, however the article is very unclear as to what is actually going on. Sounds like the government will give farmers a little money which may help in the short term, but in the long term they will need to find a job elsewhere… In The long term these farms will gone.
What area of Maryland are you from to base this opinion?
The state pays them to not farm it. That’s the point. The state has to offer them some sort of revenue, offset they were otherwise earn if they were to farm the land..
I don’t think people understand what farm conservation is it’s not paying them not to be a farmer it’s saying the land is like in a trust so it can’t be developed. I just want to know why there was no farms in Caroline county