news-record.com

GIBSONVILLE - The Piedmont Land Conservancy is stepping up to help Guilford County's threatened farm economy after the county government declined to assist.

The conservancy, a nonprofit that works to preserve land under development pressure, recently received $252,000 from state government to buy a conservation easement from the Larry Gerringer dairy farm - one of just eight such farms that remain in a county once rife with productive milk herds.

"It's good to see something positive come of this," said Kevin Redding, PLC director. "They take as good care of the land as any farm family you will ever meet."

PLC is assuming county government's place in the transaction worth roughly $1 million, a deal that also is expected to fetch more than $500,000 from the federal government's farm- and ranchland protection program.

PLC will use its resources to fill any gap between the purchase price that is eventually negotiated and the state and federal contributions. County officials declined to fill that role several months ago

The state and federal programs buy conservation easements from farms to protect them from urban sprawl and other development. In exchange for the money, a farmer forfeits forever the right to develop his land for any use other than agriculture.

Larry Gerringer and his wife, Jackie, have farmed what is now a 306-acre farm along High Rock Road in eastern Guilford County for decades. In recent years, they developed a strong business making and selling specialty cheeses to the Hispanic market.

With government red tape involved, it could be six months to a year before the transaction actually takes place, Gerringer said. When it does, he hopes to use some of the money to expand his farm by buying adjoining acreage he leases.

"I have that in mind if it will work out," Gerringer said. "I hadn't done anything on it lately because I didn't know how this program was going to turn out."

Gerringer's farm originally was targeted by Guilford County's open-space committee, an advisory board that hoped to use some of the county's

$10 million open-space bond program to protect farms.

But conservation easements are the established tool for such efforts, and the Guilford Board of Commissioners balked at using the bond money that way.

PLC stepped in to take the county's place and keep the deal alive. The U.S. Department of Agriculture then selected it for funding, which triggered the state's recent action.

"It's a great property. Good land," said Dewitt Hardee of the state farm office in Raleigh.

The Gerringer transaction is one of 41 such projects approved recently by the N.C. Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund, which allotted a total $7.6 million in state matching money for easements and other farm-related projects.

It was the only such farm project in Guilford, but the trust also awarded PLC another $256,000 for two similar farm-easement deals in Randolph County.

The trust also awarded $235,000 directly to Alamance County government, which plans to buy a conservation easement to protect a 120-acre livestock and poultry farm in that county.

PLC officials hope that buying the easement at the Gerringer farm will be a first step toward creating a protected farming area in that part of eastern Guilford County.

Nearby farmers who own a total of more than 1,000 acres have expressed general interest in the concept, Redding said.

Increasingly, residents of urban areas see the wisdom of preserving farming districts on their suburban outskirts, said Greg Messinger, PLC land specialist.

"I think the gas prices and a few other things are getting people to realize that locally grown is a very good thing," Messinger said.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com