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The Conservation Trust for North Carolina recently received a new $150,000 grant from the Tobacco Trust Fund Commission to help protect more current or former tobacco farms, or farms owned by tobacco buyout participants.
Much of the funding will be used as grants to individual local land trusts and Soil and Water Conservation Districts to cover transaction costs to place conservation easements on the farms. The money also will provide training and legal assistance to Soil and Water Conservation Districts interested in participating in agricultural conservation agreements.
A TTFC grant received by the Conservation Trust in 2005 was used to help eight land trusts protect more than 3,350 acres of working farmland on 26 current or former tobacco farms in 14 counties across the state. The projects leveraged more than $14 million in federal and state funds, private contributions and donated easement value.
Land trusts that participated in the 2006-08 project were the Conservation Trust for North Carolina, Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust, Land Trust for the Little Tennessee, LandTrust for Central North Carolina, North Carolina Coastal Land Trust, Piedmont Land Conservancy, Sandhills Area Land Trust, Tar River Land Conservancy, and Triangle Land Conservancy.
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