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i '-.September 2WO ' Page 5 farmland preservation report national awards for excellence and innovation in financial management. Until the finance program was arranged, Pennsylvania counties were only able to offer five - year installment plans for farmers seeking to defer capital gains tax, and, counties had to encumber principal and interest at closini. Under the new program, state grants can be invested in U.S. Treasury obligations, called zeros, that mature at the right time and in amounts that cover the principal of the IPA. Semi - annual inter- est is then paid from county general revenues, but arrangements can also be made to cover both principal and interest on the IPA. Far greater savings are realized, however, from investing only to pay the principal, O'Connell said. O'Connell told his audience of about 15, including representatives from Montgomery County, that Pickering's office has offered to pay for the first easement deal as an incentive for counties to use IPAs. "The idea was to lure you into this program by making it cheap and easy to do," he said. "We don't want to just get you to the closing table, we want to help you with the process afterwards." Pickering said educating elected officials about the finance plan is only half of the job. "We'll come back to meet with farmers next month." Contact: Ray Pickering, (717) 783 -3167; Pat O'Connell, (609) 279 -0068. Federal funds tied up, but USDA hosts farmland protection listening forums WASHINGTON, D.C. — Agriculture. officials say they don't know when $10 million in funding for the Farmland Protection Program will be an- nounced and a request for proposals (RFP) pub- lished, but according to Rich Pazdalski, acting director of the budget division in the Farm Service Agency, the funds cannot be dispersed until the new fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1. An RFP may not come before November, he said. The Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000 contained a provision that transferred $10 million from the budget of the Commodity Credit Corpo- ration, but the bill also states the money "shall obligate expenditure of funds only during FY 2001;' Pazdalski said. Another problem with the appropriation was that no "technical assistance language" was _included in the legislation, something Lloyd Wright, a consultant to the Farmland Protection Program, said makes the program technically unable to use the funds. "Usually, technical assistance funds are stated as a percentage of the allocation," he said. "In some cases you can't subsidize one program from another without administrative costs." Since last June when the act was passed, farmland preservation administrators have waited for an RFP to arrive, with information that it would come by the end of July. Meanwhile, staff additions at the Farmland Protection and Urban Community Assistance branch of the Natural Resource Conservation Service will strengthen its ability to administer the Farmland Protection Program and other programs that assist communities in developing farmland protection data, according to Lloyd Wright. A new director for the Farmland Protection Program will be announced soon, he said. Wright, formerly team leader of the section, was hired to help reorganize it, and to coordinate a series of "listening forums" across the country designed to hear citizens' views on how agricul- ture in urbanizing regions can best be assisted. Farmland protection forums At one such forum in Morristown, N.J., speak- ers consistently told a listeners panel that included Agriculture Under Secretary Jim Lyons, that federal funds for farmland preservation should be increased. Liz Thompson of the New Jersey Farm Bureau said the economic and social benefits of farms are well known, and that in urbanizing areas "farms subsidize residential development ... we need to increase funding for PDR. The federal govern- please turn to page 6