Wearmanyhats, this is for you

In your post about the family farm and how big farms keep sucking up more and more land, you will appreciate this article i spied in today's Columbus Dispatch. 

In Fairfield County which is in the southeast part of Ohio there already is a group of 25 farmers who have applied to the state preservation program which pays land owners to keep thie property permanently agricultural.    Many are taking this avenue as a way to make some extra income while preserving the farming way of life in perpetuity for the land they have put in trust.   

The idea is doing this is to protect farmland against the onslaught of developers who want to change the quiet peaceful countryside and good earth into a paved heavily forested (houses so thick and close together that a fire could easily ignite the whole neighborhood) housing development.     Ohio farmland shrank by 618,000 acres in five years.  205 farmers have applied this year but it is competititve.   Judges score and rank farmland on the soil type, historic value, proximity to other protected land and a host of other criteria.   

The easements are legal agreements that restrict development and assurance that the land will remain agricultural permanently.  The land stays on the tax rolls and the landowners can sell it or pass it along as a gift, BUT the land is safe - it can never be sold to a developer, it will always be a farm.