LOWER MILFORD TWP., Pa. — More than 30 years ago, a 54-acre township farm was preserved from future development — a first for Lehigh County.
On Tuesday, county officials celebrated a new milestone. In the years since that first farm, officials have preserved 28,000 acres and 400 farms.
“Economic development is important, but once we lose a farm, it's lost forever,” said county Executive Phillips Armstrong in a news release. “It’s important that we do this for our children, and for our children’s children, so that we may preserve Lehigh County’s agricultural heritage for them.”
Armstrong, along with the members of the county’s Department of Farmland Preservation, this week celebrated the milestone at an event on the farmland that the county first preserved, the Graber farm, now owned by the Barringer family.
The farm, 9411 Kings Highway South, was preserved in 1991, two years after the county created its Farmland Preservation Program to participate in the statewide efforts. It's rented to a local farmer, and the farmhouse is the headquarters for Logan’s Heroes, a pet/farm animal rescue organization.
Through the program, farmers sell their development rights to the state’s State Land Preservation Board, protecting the land from any future residential or commercial development. Often, state money is matched by county and municipal funding.
“This milestone is not an end, but we hope that it’s the beginning of another 28,000 acres and another 400 farms that we will preserve in the coming years."Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong
“This milestone is not an end, but we hope that it’s the beginning of another 28,000 acres and another 400 farms that we will preserve in the coming years,” Armstrong said.
Several farms have been preserved so far this year in the Valley, both in Lehigh and Northampton Counties.
Earlier this month, officials announced one farm in Lehigh County and two in Northampton County were the latest to be included in the Commonwealth’s Farmland Preservation Program, along with more than two dozen others across the state.
In Lehigh County, the Kyle L. Henninger and Beth A. Kramer Farm, a 19-acre crop farm in Weisenberg Township, was preserved.
“Kyle Henninger and Beth Kramer’s Farm in Lehigh County’s Weisenberg Township is the seventh the family has preserved in an area where land is highly sought after for development,” officials said. “More than 477 acres of high-quality land on the family’s farms will continue to be dedicated to feeding future generations of Pennsylvanians.”
Since 1988, when the state’s Farmland Preservation Program was approved by voters, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has protected 6,392 farms and 639,254 acres in 58 counties from future development, investing more than $1.7 billion in state, county, and local funds.
Residents can view preserved farmland across the state using the nonprofit We Conserve PA’s Pennsylvania Conserved Land, or PACL, a spatial database that tracks protected lands.
