From Harford Land Trust:
On Saturday, October 27, hundreds of supporters filled the Bel Air Armory for the Harford Land Trust’s (HLT) first annual Harvest Moon Dinner and Auction, raising more than $30,000 for the non-profit that helps protect farms and forests and create community parks in Harford County.
According to Harry Webster, Jr., president of the board for the organization, all funds raised from the event will go to support HLT’s mission to protect in perpetuity unique and important ecosystems of farmland, forests, marsh and coastal land for future generations to enjoy.
The Harvest Moon Dinner and Auction featured a silent auction of 31 donated items and a live auction of 15 donated items, including a 2012 “Wilderness 125” series kayak, four club-level Ravens tickets, custom tailored clothing from Tom James, vacation getaways to Maine, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Vermont, a Madison Mitchell decoy, fishing and hunting trips, horse-riding lessons, jewelry from Saxon’s Diamond Centers and a Chesapeake Bay Trawler Cruise, among others. Live auction items were auctioned courtesy of Jeffrey Vaughn and Ben and Liz Rigdon.
Guests enjoyed drinks, hors d’oeuvres, entrees, and desserts consisting of local and seasonal produce, cheeses and meats provided by MacGregor’s Restaurant, Broom’s Bloom Dairy, and Deer Creek Beef. Entrees were cooked-to-order and included a pasta station, carving station and seafood station. Entertainment for the evening was provided by The Wallis Brothers Band with Dar Coomes.
“The many attendees, donors, sponsors, volunteers and others who supported this event reflect the conservation values held by the community and others across Maryland,” says Webster. “On behalf of the HLT Board, Executive Director Peg Niland and the entire HLT staff, we want to extend a special thanks to everyone who helped put this event together.”
Webster says the event would not have been possible without the support of sponsors including MacGregor’s Restaurant and Catering, Lassen, Marine & Webster, Inc., Autumn Sky Outfitters, Jeff Vaughn Auctions, Rigdon Farms, Bob Ward Companies, Greene Construction Company, Vision Associates, Tom James of Baltimore, H. P. White Laboratory, Country Life Farm, Park Beach Systems, The Mill, Adams Chevrolet, Adams Jeep, Boyle Buick GMC Truck, Atlantic Tractor, Harford County Executive’s Division of Agriculture, SAIC, Plaza Ford, Mid Atlantic Farm Credit, Kinsley Construction, McComas Funeral Home, Papa John’s, Saxon’s Diamond Centers, Christopher and Adrienne Reutershan.
To learn more about the HLT, please visit www.harfordlandtrust.org.
good for the sponsors, the providers and the Harford Land Trust in general. I was fortunate to attend and was gratified to learn a tidy sum was raised.
Congratulations on the successful event!
Maybe this means we will be able to stop using Tax Payer dollars to buy farmer’s development rights.
And then we can further save money because we won’t have to pay county crews remove fallen trees or pick up road-killed wildlife, when there are no longer any left in Harford County.
Separating Farmer’s Development rights from their property rights is problematic– and government shouldn’t be encouraging it.
When farmers get in a bind, they are quick to take this money as they have other options, but then they are faced with permanent easements that are supremely difficult to remove.
Patrick you demonstrate time and again that you do not understand Ag preservation. I challenge you to find one farmer in Harford County who regrets selling their development rights. The purchase of development rights is a voluntary, non-coercive, free-market method of preserving Ag lands, concentrating development, and saving taxpayers countless millions of dollars by preventing the extension of costly services out into rural areas.
As the chair of the county’s GOP, you would be well-advised to educate yourself on the topic, which has universal support among the conservatives of northern Harford County, where countywide GOP primaries are won and lost.
You just walked into his trap!
Patrick found a Baltimore Sun story wherein one Howard County farmer laments not being able to double dip – take govt money to preserve land and then not be able to develop the land later, after they change their mind.
Clearly, we disagree, and that’s OK. But there are plenty of independent farmers that realize that the price of doing business with the government is not worth the money they give you not to develop.
Right Patrick. And those farmers will not apply to be considered for Ag preservation. That’s how it works.
Indeed. As a conservative I abhor the idea that the government mandates anything but at the same time in the few cases where government has an important role to play one of them must be long term developmental planning. We can’t gobble up all the available forests and fields and put a row of townhouses on them each time a farmer retires…it ill serves our futures and that of our children. A free-for-all might have been acceptable when we had a total countywide population of 10,000 but with hundreds of thousands there must be some controls or they’ll be nothing left to enjoy in terms of wildlands. Better to be left as forested land and concentrate development in carefully prescribed areas than put at risk a livable and enjoyable way of life our children deserve to inherit. Wildlife and migratory birds shouldn’t be postcards of the past; that end up studied as unfortunate extinctions resulting from our own greed and waste. Conservative sounds a lot like “conserve” for a reason – it means to not waste.
Not to mention it creates a future zoning and rezoning nightmare for adjacent and nearby property owners.
It prevents sensible land use and management. And many times the farmlands preserved are unfarmed fields.
Don’t pretend to be a farmer, whatever your name is. And it is not the case that many times preserved farmland is unfarmed. In fact, the waiting list to enroll in the program has dozens of farms, and the criteria used to weight farms looks heavily at things like soil quality and farmability. If you we’re really a farmer, you would know that farmland rents are running around $100 per acre and going up as corn prices are on the rise. There is very little unfarmed farmland in Harford County. And if there is, the owner is a fool.
I fail to understand your point about the affect of Ag preservation on the zoning of nearby properties. Virtually all land enrolled in the Ag preservation program is zoned AG, as are all of the properties around them, including the residential properties (except for some VB).
What a horse’s behind you are.
Read “Equity Issues in Farmland Preservation” by Greg S. Halich
Oh and agricultural zoning often changes to other categories over time.
Furthermore for last 150 years farming has been moving to the west where large tract farming is far more productive and efficient. From Maine to the Carolinas much farmland has gone back to forest land.
Yeah I get it, you don’t like, too bad.
Well said TR. You hit the nail right on the head.
Another thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that a large chunk (probably just over half) of the cropland in Harford County is farmed by around five different local operations, all of which farm thousands of acres and are able to take advantage of economies of scale. Some farming families who are in preservation have decided to step back from farming themselves, so they lease their ground to others. They still get to keep the farm in the family and get to benefit from the property tax breaks of preservation. The free market allows them to rent their land to the highest bidder. And of course, the citizens of Harford County benefit from keeping land in agriculture.
The ag preservation programs in this county are highly successful and are a model for counties around the nation.
Brian –
The east coast is covered in forests and just about every animal has made a terrific comeback except for mountain lions, but we can work on bringing them back too.
Plenty of deer for them mountain lions to eat.
I know it won’t be exactly like the eastern cougar, but their western cousins are pretty close relatives.
False. Not every animal lives in the forest.
We’re losing species at an exponential rate.
Bog Turtle, Baltimore Checkerspot, Maryland Darter, Hellbender – and that’s just in Harford County in the last few decades.
And that’s just the stuff we see/can track.
And that’s not even counting plants/trees/vegetation.
There is absolutely no downside to protecting as much land as possible.
And a point you seem to be missing is that the land is still useable as a for-profit, money-making venture.
The farmer can continue to farm, as the family has done for generations.
The farmer can start a CSA, open a produce stand, open a creamery, plant Christmas trees, buy and sell livestock – plus he/she can invest the money received for extinguishing the development rights, plus he/she will have reduced property taxes forever.