Protecting farmers and farmland will be the focus of a Feb. 25 workshop at the Loyalhanna Watershed Association’s Nimick Family Education Center, along Old Lincoln Highway just west of Ligonier.
Scheduled for 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the workshop is being organized by the watershed group with the Westmoreland County Agricultural Land Preservation Program and the Farm and Environmental Renewal Network of Ligonier.
“Keeping Farmers on the Land” is the theme and goal of the gathering. According to the association, pursuing that goal means keeping land affordable for prospective farmers and providing landowners information on programs that can help keep existing farms viable.
Workshop topics will include the 2020 Pennsylvania Farm Bill, solar energy farming, the Westmoreland County Agricultural Land Preservation Program and procedures for creating and participating in agricultural security areas.
More than 1,000 landowners are enrolled in agricultural security areas in the county, and Cook Township is poised to become the 21st Westmoreland municipality to create such an area, according to Betty J. Reefer, who is the director of the Westmoreland County Agricultural Land Preservation Program and is slated to speak at the workshop.
In a security area, the local municipality is expected to refrain from adopting laws that would restrict normal farming practices. Also, government officials are limited in their ability to condemn land there for development projects.
Owners of farmland within a security area are eligible to apply to sell a conservation easement on their property to the county Land Preservation Program.
According to Reefer, 13,911 acres on 115 county farms have been protected from development through conservation easement sales. The easement purchase price, she explained, is determined through an appraisal process and an assessment of soil quality and other factors with a bearing on the land’s agricultural use.
She noted the money paid for an easement “can be a big help when it comes to estate planning for a farm family. Many times, it has helped to provide a kind of retirement plan for an older farmer who may want to pass the farm on to a family member or sell it to a new, younger farmer.”
Other workshop presenters will include Doug Wolfgang, director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Farmland Preservation Easement Purchase Program; Andrea Reiner of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Business Development Center; Jane Menchyk, Laurel Highlands land protection manager with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy; Ed Johnstonbaugh, a Penn State Extension specialist in renewable energy development; and Henry McKay, Pennsylvania program director for Solar United Neighbors.
The $5 fee to attend the workshop includes a continental breakfast and buffet lunch. To register or for additional information, contact Susan Huba at the Loyalhanna Watershed Association, at 724-238-7560, ext. 1# or susan@loyalwater.com.
Officials are hoping to schedule additional farmland preservation workshops in the area.
