Eastern Region gets grant to bolster farmlands

The Military Growth Task Force and farmland preservation efforts may seem like an unlikely match but not according to the latest round of grant funds from the N.C. Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund.

North Carolina’s Eastern Region, of which the task force is a part, has been awarded $100,000 to support development of farmland protection plans in Onslow, Jones, Lenoir and Greene counties.

The trust fund grants are intended to help communities protect farmland and promote agricultural enterprises, a goal that benefits the military as well as the agriculture community, said Dewitt Hardee, environmental programs manager at the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

“Farms and agriculture enterprises are compatible with military operations, and it’s a mutual benefit to military and agribusiness in that both benefit from the farmland remaining as open space for agriculture and forestry activities,” he said.

Hardee said North Carolina loses an estimated 125,000 acres annually to development.

Colleen Maloney, director of communications for the Military Growth Task Force, said agriculture and the military go hand in hand, with the rural environment more conducive for facilities and training operations that take place in a community.

“The military is interested in preserving that rural atmosphere and is also benefit to agribusiness, the farmers and the quality of life in eastern North Carolina,” she said.

A second project in the area could also mean mutual agricultural and military benefits, potentially conserving farmland near Bogue Field in Carteret County.

The N.C. Coastal Land Trust received a $270,000 to help purchase a proposed conservation easement on 50 acres of Guthrie Farm in the Bogue community along N.C. 24. A conservation easement would ensure use of the property remained for agriculture and forestry purposes.

Deputy Director Janice Allen said the grant award is a first step in efforts to get a conservation easement but more funds will be needed to make it happen.

“At this point we’re trying to seek out other funds,” she said.