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| Project Mission | ||||||
| While both farmers and consumers value farmland as a source of income and agricultural productivity, additional farmland benefits accrue primarily to non-farmers as economic, social, and environmental benefits. This project develops a quantitative assessment tool to help rural populations in Western North Carolina better understand the forces and opportunities that affect them by identifying the multiple types of benefits that farmland provides in our region. This tool will help communities recognize the spatial interplay among the economic, social, and environmental factors in their region and thus assist them and policy makers in directing farmland preservation and rural development efforts in a manner that is both socially desirable and economically efficient. | ||||||
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Project Goals Conduct a nonmarket valuation study and a series of community focus groups to value the non-agricultural benefits of farmland including those that accrue to residents, non-farmers and visitors. These will include: Cultural Heritage: Farming is part of our cultural history. What is the value of ensuring this way of life is continued? Scenic Beauty: What is the value of farmland as an aesthetic component of our landscape? Ecological: What is the value of the services such as flood control and wildlife habitat that are provided by farmland? Farm profitability: What is the value of farmers’ ability to make a livelihood from farming? |
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