Vermont Gets $1.7 Million In Farm Conservation Funds
Under Leahy’s Expanded Farmland Protection Program

(Fri., Sept. 6) -- Vermont will receive $1,733,600 in the first installment of funds under a conservation program authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy and expanded through his efforts in the newly enacted Farm Bill.  Leahy said USDA on Friday announced it is releasing the funds -- $48 million nationwide – under his Farmland Protection Program (FPP).

Leahy authored the program -- initially as a pilot effort only in Vermont -- and included in the 1990 Farm Bill.  Since then it has protected more than 80,000 acres of Vermont’s farmland from urban sprawl.  Because of the program’s success, Leahy expanded it to a national program in the 1996 Farm Bill and this year led in expanding its budget from the earlier level of $35 million to $985 million, over the next ten years, in the new Farm Bill.  Leahy is a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee and is also a former chairman of the panel.

Vermont also will receive $300,000 as the first installment of Wetlands Reserve Program funds, also from the new Farm Bill.

"Protecting working farmland helps our vital agricultural sector while preserving the open spaces that define Vermont’s character," said Leahy.  “These funds will help keep farms strong while protecting thousands of acres of farmland and open space from urban sprawl.”

As cities and towns grow, more than one million acres of farmland have been disappearing each year.  Leahy’s Farmland Protection Program helps communities preserve farmland and open space through the purchase of conservation easements, which limit or prohibit future development on the land.  Farmers who participate in this program are then compensated for keeping land in use as farmland or open space, instead of selling off their farms to developers.  USDA provides up to 50 percent of the appraised fair market values of the conservation easements.

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