“The need for farmland preservation in North Carolina is at an all-time high as we continue to attract new businesses and new residents to the state,” said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. “As development pressure continues to build, we have an opportunity to help farmers who wish to stay on their land through farmland preservation grants like these.”

The Three Rivers Land trust, based in Salisbury, was one of the grant recipients, receiving $1.5 million to protect 308 acres of farmland on four farms in Cabarrus and Rowan counties.

“Our mission is to conserve the natural areas, rural landscapes and family farms in the central Piedmont and sandhills of North Carolina,” the group’s executive director, Travis Morehead, told The Center Square.

The group expands publicly-owned lands, saves family farms and protects public water supplies, Morehead said. As North Carolina grows in population, the need continues to outstrip available funding, he added.

“We’ve got a list of 40 or more farmers right now,” Moorehead said. “We could preserve almost 6,000 acres tomorrow if the funding was available.”

Preservation is a good investment of taxpayer dollars, he said.

A study by the American Farmland Trust found that North Carolina had the second-highest amount of threatened farmland in America, Morehead said.

“We lost farmland at the rate of five and a half acres for 15 years,” he said.

When farmland is replaced by residential subdivisions, the costs of services such as fire, police and schools soars, Morehead said. Property taxes often do not cover the full cost of those services, he said.

“Residential growth is the most expensive growth you have,” he said. “Farming is an industry, but it doesn’t have a parking lot, it doesn’t require services, it doesn’t impact schools. It’s an industry that builds wealth locally.”

Residential developers, “don’t have a vested interest in tomorrow but farmers do,” said Moorehead said.

The state received 124 grant applications this year, a record number.

“We will continue to push for more funding to ensure we have the natural resources available to sustain ourselves in the future,” Troxler said in a statement.