Everybody needs fresh and healthy local foods. That’s why in August we made grants totaling almost $110,000 to eight local land trusts – to conserve eleven working family farms. It’s the first round of grants from CTNC’s “Farmland Forever Fund.” The CTNC Board created the fund with partial proceeds from a recent bequest and a generous individual donation. Land trusts will use the funds to pay the costs of completing the farmland preservation transactions. Often, finding funding to cover these transaction costs (survey, appraisal, legal fees, etc.) is a major barrier to completing farm preservation projects.
The eleven projects will conserve 2071 acres of working lands and will leverage almost $6 million in landowner donations and matching funds (for every dollar invested through the FFF, $55 of working land value will be preserved).
The farms are in the following counties: Anson (LandTrust for Central NC), Buncombe (Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy), Chatham (Triangle Land Conservancy), Cleveland (Foothills Conservancy of NC), Davidson (LandTrust for Central NC), Surry (Piedmont Land Conservancy), Transylvania (Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy), Union (Catawba Lands Conservancy) and Warren (Tar River Land Conservancy).