A primer for Penna. farmers (and city slickers as well)

Pennsylvania has three programs designed to protect agricultural producers from nuisance lawsuits, to ease their tax burden, or to preserve farmland from future development.  

The Agricultural Security Area

When a farm is enrolled in an Agricultural Security Area, the farmer cannot be sued for normal farming operations.  For example, if the farmer is spreading manure on her field and her neighbor objects to the smell, she is protected.  An Ag Security Area designation also protects the farmer against most condemnation proceedings.

Clean and Green

The Clean and Green program (also known as the Act 319 program) is designed to ease the tax burden on agricultural producers.  A similar program exists for forest land.  To enroll in this program the farmer must pick up an application from the his or her county assessor.  The application will ask what crops are grown and their approximate value.  

If the  application is accepted, the property tax bill is reduced in the following year.  The Clean and Green program does have penalties involving the payment of back taxes if a farmer subdivides the farm.

The Farmland Preservation Program

This is the most complicated of the three programs, but the one with the most potential impact.  Designed to preserve farmland from development, the program pays farmers the difference between the value of their land as farmland and the value of the land if it were used for development.  In return a deed restriction is put on the land, so even if it is sold it cannot be developed by the new owner.

To join this program, a farmer must own at least 50 acres of active farmland unless the land adjoins a farm already in the program, in which case only ten acres is required. Application for the farmland preservation program does not mean a farmer will get the funds--farms are ranked according to a number of criteria and the amount of money in the program varies from year to year.  

I hope you got all that.  There will be a quiz later.

Tomorrow:  A report on the labor demonstration at the Pocono Medical Center in East Stroudsburg.