The
State Agriculture Development Committee (SADC)
will host a special half-day workshop for farmland
owners from 9 a.m. to noon on Tuesday, April 11,
to explain new developments in the Farmland Preservation
Program that greatly expand opportunities for participation,
Agriculture Secretary Art Brown announced. The
workshop will be held at the National Conference
Center at the Ramada Inn in East Windsor, Mercer
County, in conjunction with American Farmland Trust's
annual national conference on the purchase of agricultural
conservation easements. "Thanks to the Garden State
Preservation Trust Act signed by Governor Whitman
last year, funding for farmland preservation has
increased nearly four-fold," said Brown, who chairs
the SADC. "This has enabled us not only to expand
our traditional programs, but to offer new ones
as well. As a result, there never has been a better
time for farmland owners to seriously consider
whether the program is the right choice for them." The
workshop will explain how the Farmland Preservation
Program works; the traditional and new preservation
options; how farms are evaluated and valued; the
benefits of entering the program; and how to get
started in the preservation process. American Farmland
Trust is the only private, nonprofit conservation
organization dedicated to protecting the nation's
strategic agricultural resources. Founded in 1980,
AFT works to stop the loss of productive farmland
and to promote farming practices that lead to a
healthy environment.
The
SADC administers New Jersey's Farmland Preservation
Program. To register for the free workshop, contact
the SADC at (609) 984-2504 by March 31. |