County helps preserve two more farms

Action by County Commissioners will help keep 200 Johnston acres in farmland forever.

 

With help from the County, another 203 acres in Johnston will remain in farming forever.

The Johnston County Board of Commissioners on Nov. 17 agreed to spend $783,985 to purchase conservation easements on two farms.

“It’s good to know there’ll be some fields still producing instead of growing houses,” said Commissioner Ted Godwin.

One farm, near Selma, is 108 acres. The other, in northern Johnston County, is 95.

Under a conservation easement, a landowner, in exchange for a one-time payment, agrees to keep his land in farming in perpetuity. The legally binding agreement stays with the land, meaning subsequent owners, whether heirs or a buyer, must keep the land in agricultural production.

In both Johnston cases, money from the county will provide required matches for other funding sources, namely federal and state grant dollars.

Near Selma, $379,593 from the county will match $1.1 million to pay the landowner $1.448 million to keep the land in farming. In northern Johnston, $391,092 from the County will bolster $1.022 million from elsewhere to pay $1.414 million for the conservation easement.

Greg Walker is head of the Johnston Soil and Water Conservation District, the agency that will purchase the easements. He told Commissioners that his office had other easements in the hopper.

“We also have three that we’ve been sitting on for six months waiting on USDA,” Walker said, referring to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a major funding source. “They could close tomorrow.”

But with funding cuts and the government shutdown, “it’s been a tough year for the feds,” Walker said.

Also, state dollars that could have gone to conservation easements have gone instead to ongoing Hurricane Helene relief, he noted.

Walker said the state this year funded only the top four or five applications for conservation easement funding. “We had six applications, and all of them were in the top 18," he said.

Walker introduced commissioners to Annette Adams, now the full-time conservation easement specialist in his office.

She said Johnston farmers are asking about easements. “The ones who have come in are very interested,” Adams said. “They would sign right now if we had the funding.” “The farmers who are coming in, they’re planning their succession,” she said. “They’re planning for the future, and that’s what the conservation easement helps them do."

Page last updated on:  December 15, 2025