by the Marsh Family, Little Goat Farm on the Lake
We are a family owned 25 acre farm in the Rural Crescent area of Prince William County. We offer to our community a small Agritourism and organically grown vegetables, fruits, and flowers.
Our family farm has long supported stronger land use planning tools at the local level. For example, local zoning and general plan processes should be strengthened to improve the effectiveness and quality of mitigation programs that protect farmland. We support adoption and enforcement of stronger ag elements in County General Plans.
Prince William County supervisors unanimously approved a purchase of development rights program last Month, ending a 5 year conflict between residents and politicians, which finally ended to preserve our rural land. This PDR (Purchase Development Rights) is similar to Fauquier County, landowners can sell their property development rights to the county to permanently shield their land from future development. However, unlike Fauquier County, there's no tax levy funding of the PDR.With this PDR passing, it's a perfect opportunity to support local efforts to establish agricultural conservation easements and land improvement projects for the purpose of preserving important agricultural land resources and enhancing sustainable agricultural uses.
• Encourage voluntary, long-term private stewardship of agricultural lands
• Protect farming and ranching operations in agricultural areas from nonfarm or nonranch land uses that may hinder or curtail such operations
• Encourage long-term conservation of productive agricultural lands in order to protect the agricultural economy of rural communities, as well as that of the state, for future generations
• Encourage local land use planning for orderly and efficient urban growth and conservation of agricultural land
• Encourage local land use planning decisions that are consistent with the state's agricultural land conservation policies
• Encourage improvements to enhance long-term sustainable agricultural uses
PDR’s are a small but significant step to incentivize land owners.
Overall, our food comes from farmland, and we are losing farmland fast. Virginia has lost more than half a million acres of farmland since the 1980s, the equivalent of nearly 5,000 farms.
More than 80 percent of the fruits, vegetables, and dairy products produced in Virginia are grown on farmland directly in the path of suburban sprawl. We are holding dearly to our farm but taxes have doubled in just 5 short years. Thus, many farming neighbors feel the county is taxing them out. Let's not let this happen.
We have to stop losing farmland now. We can’t let data centers and concrete be the last crop.
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My neighbor moved from our wooded community back to her family's farm which is divided among siblings in the Rural Crescent, she is on 10 acres. She said they pay taxes on their home and yard, but if their land is used for agriculture, that that acreage is taxed at a lower rate. They have their pastures leased for hay and cattle. That's a win-win for the property owner and our farming community. The sunsets are amazing!!
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