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7oot)s of tie 7rade AFT services help communities build a frameworb for local farmland protection. By Jill Schwartz The conversation was inevitable. With homes replacing barns and silos, cyclists becoming a more common site than tractors on backcountry roads, and tourists taking the seats once "reserved" for farmers in local diners, it was just a matter of time before Connie Wood and her friends began talking about the need to save farmland in Saratoga County, New York. Talking about it was the easy part. Wood and her compan- ions have either grown up on a Saratoga County farm, are cur- rently farming there or are working for a farming organization. They are intimately familiar with the myriad benefits —eco- nomic, environmental and cultural —of farming. The hard part was figuring out what to do about it. They knew they needed to get non - farmers on their side and to con- vince the county's elected officials to create a farmland protec- tion program. Their main interest was creating a program that paid farmers to permanently protect their land, such as a pur- chase of development rights (PDR) program to acquire agri- 18 cultural conservation easements. But since lobbying for issues is not part of their daily routine, the process seemed intimidat- ing and overwhelming. Fortunately, there are "tools" available to help communities protect their farmland; tools such as surveys, maps, workshops and research reports, just to name a few. And American Farmland Trust is where they can be found. AFT is continual- ly creating new services that help communities raise awareness about land protection and develop well- rounded land protec- tion programs. AFT also helps individuals develop farm man- agement and land stewardship strategies. With 20 years of experience working with farmers and ranchers, elected offi- cials, land trusts and others, AFT knows which tools are most effective. "Even though land use issues vary so much from one region of the country to the next, there are tried and true methods for saving and managing agricultural land that can be customized AMERICAN FARMLAND FALL 2001