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Why Save Farmland

Preserving farmland and promoting farmland best management practices have direct, positive effects on local economies through product sales, job creation, the use of support services and businesses, and the supply of lucrative secondary markets such as food processing. Conversion of farmland to residential lots puts a burden on local government budgets for the provision of services. Distinctive agricultural landscapes bring tourism dollars into communities and farmland preservation paired with sustainable management practices protects the provision of ecosystem services, without which governments would have to pay to artificially replace.
  • Preserving farmland and promoting farmland best management practices has benefits both on the world market scale and for local economies. Ensuring food supply and continuing the preeminence of American agricultural products in a rapidly changing world market requires a careful strategy of farmland preservation.
  • Agriculture has direct, positive effects on local economies through product sales, job creation, the use of support services and businesses, and the supply of lucrative secondary markets such as food processing.
  • Conversion of farmland to residential lots puts a burden on local government budgets. Farmlands pay more in taxes then they require in services, while residential lands require more in services than they pay in taxes.
  • Distinctive agricultural landscapes bring tourism dollars into communities.
  • Farmland preservation paired with sustainable management practices protects the provision of ecosystem services. Without this protection, governments would have to pay to artificially replace the services naturally provided by the farmland.
  • Farms create identifiable and unique community character that continue to represent an integral part of our heritage and our identity as a people.