For 30 years, a farmland conservation program in Long Island was able to keep farmers farming land that was becoming increasingly valuable and sought by developers. But now, the land is being bought by developers and is not being farmed.
"But because land in eastern Long Island is so valuable - in some places, developable land sells for as much as $5 million per acre - even land that cannot be developed has increased in price. An acre of farmland that must stay in its natural state now commands as much as $100,000 an acre."
Increasinlgy, "developers buy the land as an amenity for the housing subdivisions they put up around the farmland. The open grassland or fallow parcels raise the prices of homes around them on the East End."
"A homeowners' association or an adjacent homeowner ends up owning the agricultural reserve, neither of which is very likely to lease that land to a farmer, whose pesticides and noisy tractors and farm equipment might spoil an open vista on a tranquil summer afternoon."
Read the full story: Preserving Land, but Not for Farmers
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