Population growth and many economic forces combine to drive the loss of farmland in Centre County, a large county with a wide variety of communities and land uses.
As farmland, open land and woodland are converted from a semi-natural to a developed and paved state, this threatens vital natural resources and the quality of life in central Pennsylvania’s Ridge and Valley region.
The good news: We can do more together to protect and conserve our land, natural resources and the quality of life that makes our region a great place to live and visit.
Growth Pressures & Land Use Conflicts
You are likely to see growth pressures and land use conflicts no matter where you live, work or visit in Centre County.
The Centre Region is seeing population growth and related development. The Centre Region comprises six municipalities (State College Borough, and the townships of Patton, Harris, Halfmoon, Ferguson and College) and four villages (Pine Grove Mills, Boalsburg, Lemont and Stormstown.)
In the Penns Valley and Nittany Valley regions, transportation and infrastructure impacts are increasing. Mining and timbering are likely to expand in the Moshannon Valley, Mountain Top and Lower Bald Eagle region.
Since 2007, Centre County has lost 17.6 percent of its farmland, threatening the vital natural resources that provide excellent quality of life here in central Pennsylvania’s Ridge and Valley region.
Losing Quality of Life
Here are a few ways in which losing farmland (and open land and forest) diminishes our quality of life:
- Less food security. When the COVID pandemic affected food supply chains, we learned anew about the value of local farmers, local food, farmers’ markets and local food hubs.
- Fewer safeguards to help protect our drinking water and air quality. Forested land, for example, filters groundwater and about 70 percent of the county’s public water source wells are in forested areas.
- Less scenic beauty of the uplifting and pastoral landscapes that define the central Pennsylvania Ridge and Valley region.
- Fewer of the economic, cultural and agritourism contributions of a vibrant agriculture industry to our community. Centre County’s farms sold agricultural products valued at more than $91 million, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture.
What would Centre County be without country experiences like picking strawberries fresh from the field in June? Or the family fun of taking the kids on a hayride to pick a pumpkin from the patch or run wild through a corn maze in October?
Read more about how preserving farmland benefits us all.
Community Support for Farmland Preservation
When asked, our community wants to keep the farmland that gives us a wonderful quality of life in Centre County and makes this region a beautiful place to live, work, study and visit.
- Centre Region residents in a 2021 sustainability survey gave their highest support to a strategy to identify high-priority conservation lands. Read more here.
- Community planning has identified compact development and limiting sprawl as priorities for land use planning. One name for this is “smart growth.”
- More than 80 percent of survey respondents in preparation of the Centre Region’s 2013 Comprehensive Plan expressed support for preservation of prime farmland for agricultural uses.
We are growing.
Yet — we can protect and preserve our farmland, open land and woodlands here in Centre County.
Tools to Protect & Preserve
Conservation Easements
Comprehensive planning documents county-wide and in the Centre Region encourage use of Agricultural Security Area Programs and agricultural conservation easements as tools to support preservation of agricultural land and soils, natural resources and the region’s agricultural heritage and industry.
- The Centre County Farmland Trust works with landowners willing to donate development rights to their land by establishing a conservation easement that prohibits development. The purpose of conservation easement is to protect the land’s natural resources and the land’s contribution to protecting surrounding natural resources.
- Learn more about conservation easements and how they work.
- Centre County’s Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement PACE program — part of a statewide farmland preservation program — scores and ranks applicant farms based on soil quality, development pressure, productivity and proximity to other preserved land. PACE programs compensate owners of high-scoring lands for enacting agricultural conservation easements. Pennsylvania leads the nation in preserving farmland with more than 6,364 farms approved for easement purchase, totalling 636,625 acres. Read the latest here.
The Centre County Farmland Trust is honored to work with landowners to preserve and steward their land — and to be part of a community of conservation organizations and planners working hard to prevent our farmland from slipping away.
Learn more about how CCFT preserves farmland, open land and woodlands.
Regional Growth Boundary
In 2000, the six municipalities and four villages comprising the Centre Region formally established a growth management strategy known as the Regional Growth Boundary to steer growth to areas already served by infrastructure such as sewer services. The boundary supports the Region’s goals to promote a compact development pattern, protect natural resources and preserve the rural, surrounding agricultural hinterland, according to a Centre Region Land Consumption Study.
How we grow matters! Read more about how to help preserve farmland in your community.
