Growing Something That Lasts in Lancaster County, PA

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania has some of the most productive farmland in the country. For centuries it has fed families, built communities, and defined this county. Drive a mile or two outside downtown and you'll see it—rolling fields, working farms, and a landscape that has fed this country for generations.

The question the community is asking right now is how to make sure it stays that way.

Lancaster County has roughly 300,000 acres of unprotected farmland and is projected to grow by 6.3% over the next 20 years. The question is whether the working landscape that has defined this county for centuries will still be here for the next generation.

The community is working on the answer to that question—driven not by policy, but by a farming family and a community organization deciding together what this land should become.

A Family's Land, A Community's Legacy

Lancaster Farmland Trust has spent decades building trust with the county's farming families.

When a local farming family approached the organization about their property, they weren't looking to sell. They wanted to preserve what they'd built. The land sat in a designated urban growth area, outside the Trust's typical preservation channels, but that location turned out to be the perfect site for something new, close to the city, and accessible to more people.

The family agreed to place a permanent conservation easement on the property, giving up the right to develop the land and accepting a significantly lower market value in exchange for protecting it for agriculture. They also agreed that the Trust would eventually acquire the farm and turn it into an educational space.

"We wondered how this farm family would feel about potentially making a different kind of commitment—where we would both preserve it but then have the opportunity to own it and create this space," said Amy Baumann, vice president of strategic priorities at Lancaster Farmland Trust. "A legacy to their family, but also an incredible asset for the community."

Community Grows Here

The vision is broad by design: an educational gathering place where students, families, and farmers come together around the land that connects them all.

Lancaster Farmland Trust has long been a bridge between the county's farming families and the broader community. This farm extends that work, bringing the story of Lancaster's agricultural heritage directly to residents across the county.

"We want this to be a place where anyone in the community can come and really get a sense and an understanding of what agriculture is in Lancaster County," Baumann said, "and walk away with this understanding that what we have here is so, so very special and worth protecting."

Investing in What Lasts

The Lancaster County Community Foundation supported this work before it had a completion date, a finished plan or a single shovel in the ground. That's the point—investing early, in ideas worth seeing through.

It's the same spirit that drove the farming family to preserve their land rather than sell it. Decisions made today, for generations you may never meet.

Image credit to the Lancaster Farmland Trust. 

Generosity Builds is a storytelling initiative from the Council on Foundations highlighting the ways charitable foundations show up as a nonpartisan force for good in our communities — from scientific breakthroughs to community childcare, veterans support, and disaster relief.