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51 <br />Conclusion <br />Voluntary Agricultural Districts can be one of many tools that a community employs to <br />Protect its rapidly vanishing farmland. However, preservation of farmland in North <br />Carolina will require exceptional cooperation between farmers, urban and suburban <br />residents, and local government agencies. It will also require a broad - ranging mix of <br />incentive -based voluntary and regulatory techniques to protect the most significant <br />farmland resources. Such techniques could include greater public financing to purchase <br />conservation easements, incentives to donate development rights, agricultural <br />conservation zoning, open space subdivision zoning, establishing agricultural economic <br />development programs, or other innovative practices such as transfer of development <br />rights programs, which use development incentives to acquire conservation easements. <br />New initiatives and potential funding at the State and Federal level offer hope that <br />preservation will become a possibility for farmers who desire to remain on their land and <br />continue the agricultural way of life. When this is achieved, both .the farmer and the <br />community benefit from conserving open space, preserving our rural heritage, and <br />maintaining a strong and diversified economy. <br />By providing a variety of options for farmland owners, citizens, local governments, land <br />trusts, and other conservation organizations can help keep farmers farming — the best <br />preservation technique of all. <br />The author of this CTNC publication, Donald Belk, is a member of the American Institute of <br />Certified. Planners. He served as staff for the Orange County Farmland Preservation <br />Board from 19941999. <br />References: <br />North Carolina Farmland Preservation Enabling Act; establishment of Farmland Preservation Trust Fund. North <br />Carolina General Statutes, Chapter 106, Section 735 -744. <br />hftp://www.ncga.state.ne.us/statutes/Statutes—in_html/chpl 060.html <br />American Farmland Trust. Saving American Fart land.• What Works, Northampton, MA: American Farmland Trust, <br />1997. http: //www.farmland.org <br />American Farmland Trust Farmland Information Center. Agricultural District Programs - Fact Sheet. <br />Northampton, MA: American Farmland Trust, 1998. http:// www .farmlandinfo.org /fiicttas/tafs- adp.html <br />North Carolina Farm Bureau. "Counties can adopt ordinances to protect farmland." North Carolina Farm Bureau <br />News, October 1999, pp. 18 -19. <br />Tom Daniels and Deborah Bowers. Holding Our Ground., Protecting America's Farms and Farmland. Washington <br />DC: Island Press, 1997. <br />