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October 2001 farmland preservation report than the AZIP model. Auchenbach said sliding scale is a popular choice for ag zoning in Berks County because of the level of fragmenta- tion that has occurred, creating a wide mix of parcel sizes. Sliding scale can be de- signed to allow even the smallest parcels to divide at least once. The county provides municipalities with a model agricultural zoning ordinance. According to Meyers, an important and in- novative part of the model is its guidance in setting standards for animal agriculture that can be made compatible with a township's existing residential density. Meyer said the county was working to protect opportunities for large animal agri- culture that would protect communities by setting standards, such as a limit on animal units per acre based on farm size, buffer and site plan standards. Meyer said he believes the county can have both large confinement operations such as hog farms and still pro- tect the enviroiunent, quality of life in the county and the sustainability of agriculture. Berks County has 221,511 acres in farm use, and farm product sales of $247.8 million annually, ranking third in Pennsyl- vania and 901h in the nation. Mushrooms are the largest market value crop in the county, ,.but 52 percent of the market value of prod- ucts sold is livestock, including dairy, hogs and poultry. It ranks fifth in the state for hog production, a point on which Meyer and county officials are keenly aware. Berks began preserving farmland through easement purchase in 1989, with inauguration of the state program. In 1999, Berks County Commissioners gave the county's farmland preservation effort a huge boost by floating a $33 million, five - year bond issue, enabling its program, along with state funds, to protect 5,000 acres un- der easement each year, ranking it among the fastest growing programs in the nation. Page 5 Meyers said the county has recognized that agricultural zoning needs to accompany purchase of development rights. "The easement program and agricul- tural zoning really go hand in hand — we feel very strongly about that. We will only do easements in agriculturally zoned town- ships." The program currently has 21,766 acres protected, ranking it in the nation's top 12 counties, and projects that by the end of the bond monies in 2004, it will preserve about 43,000 acres. Private property, "public resource" In a talk on private property rights in connection with resource protection, Peggy Kirk Hall, director of Agricultural and Rural Law at The Ohio State University, said pri- vate property concepts are "very fluid, and affected by social preferences when consid- ering what is an acceptable level of in- fringement." Nationally, there are no perimeters by which to project a trend in property rights law, she said, and pointed out by example that in Ohio many localities exempt agricul- tural land from zoning, but that in many . other places "we are beginning to see farm- land as a public resource because of farm- land preservation programs." In addition to agricultural protection zoning, right -to -farm laws were a major topic at the conference. Right to farm in New Jersey Soji Adelaja, dean and director of re- search at the New Jersey Agricultural Ex- periment Station at Rutgers University, pre- sented the difficulties of implementing right -to -farm policies and laws in New Jer- sey, which saw two- thirds of its farmland vanish between 1950 and 2000. With 840,000 farm acres remaining, New Jer- (Continued on page 6) 35