Climate Now - for our future

Local Knowledge About Farmland Preservation

Rapid growth in western North Carolina in recent years has brought benefits, but it has also brought challenges; these include sprawl, habitat loss and a scarcity of affordable farmland. Today, residents and planners are beginning to rethink the mountain area's relationship to land use, and to ask important questions about how to respond to accelerating change. To support this process, Sustainable Now hosted the Four Futures for Mountain Farmland Symposium at Warren-Wilson College. A diverse group of regional thought leaders spoke on sensitive issues related to agriculture, development, innovation and conservation. The Old Coggins Farm, which adjoins the Warren-Wilson land, provided a classic case study. Each of these presentations has been edited into a video series designed to provide the tools to help prospective buyers, land owners, planners, farmers, neighborhoods, developers and others think carefully about mountain farmland and other land-use issues that are essential to building a sustainable, resilient community.