Soil and Water Conservation Purchases 78 Acres to Remain Farmland Forever

With the County’s support, another 78 acres in Johnston will remain in farming forever.

The  Johnston Soil and Water Conservation District, on Wednesday, purchased two conservation easements — one for 52.66 acres and another for 25.31 acres, both along Johnsons Chapel Road north of Benson.

Dewitt Hardee and his wife, Lynn, own the land, which has been in the Hardee family since before the Civil War. “I began farming this land myself after my father became disabled following an automobile wreck in 1974,” Dewitt Hardee said. “I was 14 and a freshman at South Johnston High School.”

The family raised hogs and grew tobacco, sweet potatoes, corn, soybeans, wheat, rye and vegetables. Today, they lease the land to another farming operation while using some of the acreage for timber management and nursery crops. “It is important to me and the family to keep the land in farming and forestry so future generations will have the ability to produce food and fiber,” Hardee said.

Like many Johnston farm families, the Hardees have received calls from developers asking them to sell their land. “We tell them it is family inheritance and we like the land better than money,” Hardee said. “It is not for sale. It is for future generations to enjoy.”

The Hardees have two adult children, Melanie, a doctor, and Jonathan, a conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Both have plans to come back to the farm and live,” Hardee said, noting that Jonathan and his fiancée are already developing a site for a house.

Under a conservation easement, a landowner essentially sells his development rights, keeping the land in farming in perpetuity. The amount paid is the difference between the land’s value as a farm and its value if sold for development.

Greg Walker, head of the Johnston Soil and Water Conservation District, welcomed the opportunity to preserve more farmland in the County. “We are most happy to close these two easements for the Hardee family,” he said. “These are some of the first ones to come in our door.”

More easements are on the way, Walker said, noting strong interest among Johnston farm owners. “We have four more parcels fully funded and are making plans to finalize them over the next three to five months. After those four parcels, we have four more with partial funding.”

Soil and Water relies on federal, state and, often, local dollars to purchase conservation easements, which are a one-time payment to the landowner. The Hardees received a total of $813,000 — $552,000 for the larger tract and $261,000 for the smaller one. In this case, the funding came from the state’s Agricultural Development Farmland Preservation Trust Fund and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Land Easement Program. Walker’s office helped prepare the grant applications and due-diligence documents, and it secured funding for the survey, title search and closing costs.

For more information about conservation easements, call 919-934-7156, Ext. 3, or email soilwater@johnstonnc.gov.