Working Farms & Forestland
Farmland and forests produce the necessities of life and provide essential natural services. In PEC's nine county area, over 180,000 acres of farmland and 140,000 acres of forests are protected through private, voluntary land conservation.
In February and March, The Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) invites you a two-day workshop that will help guide small and mid-sized private institutions toward including more local products in their food service menus.
This spring, PEC sent our 2011 Buy Fresh Buy Local food guides to every home in our nine counties. This year's guides list more businesses than ever -- over 500 markets, farms, orchards, wineries, restaurants and retailers.
When Will Richey bought Revolutionary Soup in downtown Charlottesville five years ago, he started working with local farmers to provide as many of the restaurant's ingredients as possible...
Gail Hobbs-Page was given her first pair of goats as a young child growing up on a farm in North Carolina. Her father gave her the animals because he wanted to try goat’s milk. Little did he know, that decision would mark his daughter’s life.
PEC’s nine-county region is now home to 26 farmers markets, including six that started within the last four years—not to mention the robust markets in northern Virginia, D.C., and Richmond.
Read interviews with Piedmont farmers who have helped improve water quality by integrating Best Management Practices into their land and farm management.
Jean Scott, 82, of Culpeper County placed her 118-acre tract of land on the Hazel River into a permanent conservation easement in 2010.
Kids can taste the difference on Local Foods Day, when all the cafeterias in the Rappahannock County Public Schools serve food that was grown in the county. Read more about how PEC has helped the Farm to Table Program bring local food to students.
If you’ve ever thought about starting a farming operation or have land you’d like someone else to farm, learn more and connect with others at one of PEC’s Small Farm Dream courses.
Conservation can help working farmers achieve their goals. Read how a conservation easement was a win-win decision for one local dairy farmer in this article from the Spring 2010 Piedmont View.
The Piedmont Farm and Food Connection helps bring a new vitality to local agriculture. Read more about it in this article from the Summer 2009 Piedmont View.
Two farms in Rappahannock County are growing local food & protecting farmland--by placing land in conservation easements in 2008. Read more about Muskrat Haven Farm & Sunnyside Farm in this article from the Spring 2009 Piedmont View.
Learn where to find and enjoy local foods in our Buy Fresh Buy Local guides --produced by PEC for the Charlottesville area, Loudoun County and Northern Piedmont, with partner guides throughout the state.
Piedmont farmland is some of the richest in the nation, producing essential food and fibers that people need to live.
Forests, which cover about 58% of PEC's nine county region, supply essential products and play a major role in keeping water supplies plentiful and clean.
The University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center study found that farming and forestry had a total economic impact of $79 billion in 2006 and supported more than a half-million jobs in the Commonwealth.
The Virginia Piedmont's rural landscape is integral to three of Virginia's leading economic generators- agriculture, forestry, and tourism.
Many tools are available to preserve rural land, from private land conservation to Purchase of Development Rights programs, land use taxation, zoning provisions and more.
Alumni of PEC's Exploring the Small Farm Dream courses are breaking ground this growing season--with a new vegetable farm in Rapidan, innovative partnerships with landowners, fields growing local grains and more.
Newspaper, TV, and radio reports on issues affecting working farms and forestland in the Piedmont.
