Orange County has received a $150,000 grant from the N.C. Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation (ADFP) Trust Fund to help the county protect 153 acres of farmland in the Schley community.
The county hopes to conserve another portion of the Breeze family farm with an agricultural conservation easement, which will enable farm activities to continue but prohibit most other non-agricultural uses of the land, including residential subdivisions.
The conservation easement completes a two-phased project that began in 2008 with the easement on the adjoining 141 acres on the Breeze farm. The farm is adjacent to the state-owned W.C. Breeze Family Farm Agricultural Extension & Research Center, which the Breeze family donated to N.C. State University. The completion of the second conservation easement will complete 564 acres of contiguous protected farmland along Schley Road.