Wake County looks to launch new farmland preservation program to prevent developers from scooping up family farms

If the county keeps continues to grow at its current rate, all unprotected land will be developed in the next 25 to 50 years.

The owner of the family farm Meadows at Firefly Farm Preserve in a Wake County says he feels like he is "under siege" from developers, caught in between growth from both Raleigh and Cary.

"I’ve been living on this farm since I was 12 or so," said Eric Regensburger. "It’s a five generation farm. My family actually owned a farm through those woods over there, and this was owned by a family that had been here for generations."

His farm lies in a Voluntary Agricultural District, which is part of a state program that protects farms from developers.

"We used to have a lot more neighbors who were farmers," he said.

Subdivisions surround the rolling fields of prairie grass on Regensburger's 150-acre farm and nature preserve.

"This whole area is blowing up, so we get phone calls, texts, emails, people showing up, letters on gates – pretty much anything a developer can think of to kind of get in here," Regensburger said.

Wake County said it's lost nearly 23,000 acres of farmland, or 19% of the county's farmland, in the last 9 years.

Teresa Furr, director of Wake County Soil and Water Conservation District, is looking to hire a coordinator in her office to focus entirely on farmland preservation.

"It’s time to try to protect as much as we can now, because if we don’t as generations are lost that land may be lost as well," she said.

A new farmland preservation program will expand benefits for farmers who put their land into a voluntary agricultural district or conservation easement.

In exchange, farmers can tap into tax incentives or new benefits to boost their sales.

"They’ll be able to do that by either a 10 year commitment, or by entering into a permanent conservation easement to protect the farm forever," Furr said.