The Tioga County Department of Economic Development and Planning and the Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan Steering Committee announce an Open House for the public to attend and provide input on the draft Tioga County Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan update. The Open House will take place on Tuesday, March 24, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Candor Fire Department Community Hall, 74 Owego Rd. in Candor. The public may arrive at any time during the Open House hours. Visitors will be led through individual stations pertaining to different sections of the Plan update, and asked to provide feedback at each station.
The Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan Steering Committee, comprised of farmers, farm service agency representatives and a county legislator, has been working on the development of the Plan update for nearly two years, with the help of consultant Environmental Design and Research – Landscape Architecture and Engineering Services, D.P.C out of Syracuse, N.Y. Funding for the plan update is provided by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.
This plan is an update of Tioga County’s original Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan from 1998. This plan is different from the first plan in that one of the major tasks was to identify agricultural land or areas to be protected. The Steering Committee did this utilizing Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, to map out on a spatial basis attributes valuable to farmland including USDA prime agricultural soils and soils of statewide significance, natural resources buffers, areas of or potential areas of non-agricultural development, active agricultural and open space land, and areas that flood.
The Tioga County GIS Manager mapped these five attributes individually, and the Steering Committee assigned a weight and a score for each to result in a maximum numerical value. Finally, this maximum value was then thematically mapped to create the final Agricultural and Farmland Preservation Priority map. This map clearly illustrates that more important and viable farmland is located along the Susquehanna River and its tributaries in Tioga County.
Tioga County will use this tool in the future to see where agriculture is the most viable and promote non-agricultural development in a manner that minimizes impacts to these lands.
Also in the plan are common concerns, current and trending agricultural conditions from 1997 – 2012, goals, farmland protection strategies, and an implementation action matrix. Throughout plan development, farmers’ participation and their ideas were captured via several methods including a Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats (SWOT) activity, focus groups, and individual surveys, as well as from farmers on the Steering Committee. Tioga County’s Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board and Farm Bureau were also consulted multiple times for their respective contributions.
The draft version of Tioga County’s 2015 Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan update is now available for review on county website at www.tiogacountyny.com/whats-new/tioga-county/ag-and-farmland-protection.html, as well as more information on the Open House event. Please visit us and give us your input into this important plan.
If you have any questions or comments on the Tioga County Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan Update, contact Elaine Jardine, County planning director at (607) 687-8257, or by email to jardinee@co.tioga.ny.us.
