Last week, SAGA and our partners celebrated a landmark new community asset: The Pilgrim’s Sanford Agricultural Marketplace. More than just the new home for the Sanford Farmers’ Market, it’s a place for residents to connect with the local producers carrying on our area’s agricultural tradition. Long before either Sanford or Lee County existed, this was a farming community, and that legacy continues today. 31,204 acres of land were dedicated to agriculture and forestry use in Lee County 2022, the last year with publicly available data. To put that in perspective, that’s larger than some small countries. Agriculture isn’t just an important industry: it is a defining feature of our landscape and cultural heritage. We at SAGA often call Sanford and Lee County a “Community of Makers,” celebrating our area’s manufacturing prowess. But we can just as accurately be called a “Community of Growers.”
However, our farmland is under increasing pressure. As Sanford and Lee County have grown in prosperity, demand has increased for housing, commercial space, and industrial real estate. Building on virtually untouched farmland is an inviting prospect for developers wanting to fill that demand, so many have begun making lucrative offers to farmers for their land. While these agreements benefit developers, who get open space to build, and farmers, who get more for their land than it would go for based solely on its agricultural value, they do decrease the amount of open farmland in the community. Between 2017 and 2022, according to U.S. Census data, farmland in Lee County fell by 11%. But rather than disrupt this ongoing trend by restricting the rights of property owners, our local leaders have instead created new options and tools for farmers to help strike a balance between development and conservation.
One important part of this balance, adopted last year by the Lee County Commission, is the Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Fund. Using the back taxes paid when agricultural land is sold for development, losing its preferred tax status, this fund offers support for farmers who want to see their land remain in agricultural use through the establishment of a Conservation Easement. These are agreements between a farmer and another organization (frequently, in Lee County, the Triangle Land Conservancy) to sell an easement that ensures the land remains in agricultural use, even if sold or inherited. The County’s program aids in this process by allocating funds to cover the costs of establishing an easement, lowering the barriers for farmers who want to see their land remain in agricultural use long after they’re gone. Rather than try to strike the perfect balance from the top down, tools like the agricultural easement put individual farmers in the driver’s seat, empowering them to make decisions right for them, their families, and their community.
By providing options to conserve agricultural land in its current use, Lee County is making a commitment to keeping our quality of place and community character intact. Programs like this easement are investments to ensure future generations benefit from our agricultural heritage in much the same way as those that came before.
We look forward to enjoying some of that agricultural heritage this Saturday, April 4th at the first farmer’s market of the year, and the first in our new marketplace. See you there!