The highest honor in the Lancaster County agriculture industry was presented to Luke Brubaker at the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry's agriculture industry banquet at Shady Maple Banquet & Conference Center Thursday night.Brubaker is an owner of Brubaker Farms in East ......

Lancaster County commissioners on Tuesday voted 2-1 to join 14 Pennsylvania counties to buy health insurance for county employees for the next three years.The move will save taxpayers a projected $5 million without changing employees' medical coverage, because the county's current ......

Attendees of Lancaster Farmland Trust's annual fall dinner last month ponied up enough donations to preserve an 85-acre farm in Leacock Township.The Acres for Auction event at the Trust's Oct. 21 dinner at Eden Resort netted $54,750 in contributions. That sum will be matched, dolla......

Dan Sweigart is not opposed to growth in Lancaster County. He's just opposed to what he considers to be bad growth.A member of the Lancaster Farmland Trust, Sweigart, 54, believes the way to maintain Lancaster County's farming tradition is to channel growth where it belongs, and aw......

Lancaster County Commissioners on Wednesday voted to preserve four farms, totaling about 360 acres.The county's Agricultural Preserve Board had recommended the commissioners buy perpetual conservation easements on the farms.The preserved farms are:• ......

A $1.1 million program will try to get more Amish and Mennonite farmers in Lancaster and Chester counties involved in conservation measures to reduce pollution in local streams and the Chesapeake Bay. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to the Chesapeake Bay F......

In what lawyers say is a precedent-setting case, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has ruled that 12 farmers in East Lampeter Township can include their farms in an agricultural-security area. But the more than decade-long fight between the farmers — most of whom are Old Order Amis......

Then there were three. In what's being called a win for farmers and preservationists, Upper Leacock Township Supervisors Thursday night created a 388-acre agricultural security area. That leaves just three townships in Lancaster County without the designation designed to protect farmin......

Lancaster County is getting less state money this year to help preserve local farms, so officials here are hoping to stretch those dollars further. For 2009, the county will receive $2.4 million from the state Bureau of Farmland Preservation, down from $3.1 million in 2008, Matt Knepper, direct......

Four townships in Lancaster County do not have an agricultural security area. Soon, it could be three, or even fewer. Leacock Township supervisors tonight will receive a petition from five farmers requesting that a 369-acre ag security area be formed in the largely rural township. Fra......

Lancaster County commissioners on Wednesday committed just more than $7 million to the county's farmland-preservation program for this year.That's down from the $8 million dedicated last year — the most by any county in Pennsylvania.Despite the $1 million reduction, of......

In 2003, the Lancaster Farmland Trust held easements on 160 farms and 10,000 acres and embarked on an ambitious five-year strategic plan that called for doubling its number of preserved acres in the county. "I think we all felt it was unrealistic at that point," Jeff Swinehart, of the trust, sa......

The Lancaster County Conservancy and the Lancaster Farmland Trust are seeking accreditation through a national credentialing organization. Both groups have submitted applications to the Land Trust Accreditation Commission, an independent program of the nonprofit Land Trust Alliance in Washingto......

The county's 2009 budget plan had its coming out party today. This morning, county administrator Charlie Douts formally proposed the budget plan or, using the county's budgetspeak, "put it on the table." But for many county departments, the spending plan for next year is no cause for celeb......

In the early 1980s, nine people sat around a table with no funding, plenty of criticism and a skeptical public — but also a common dream. The county-appointed Agricultural Preserve Board wanted to somehow ensure the rapid building of new homes and businesses didn't swallow up too m......

Twenty years ago, Ryan Meck's father gave his son a couple packs of vegetable seeds, a section of the family farm and the chance to get his hands dirty.Meck managed to coax a few radishes and zucchinis from the soil, but they weren't pretty."It didn't start out too ......

A historic milestone is fast approaching.When the Lancaster County commissioners meet this morning, they are expected to authorize the preservation of a 124-acre crop-and-dairy farm in Bart and Colerain townships owned by Bart Township supervisors chairman Calvin Keene and his wife, Valeri......

The court decision early this month favoring Amish farmers who want to establish an agricultural security area in East Lampeter Township will reverberate across the county and state, local preservation advocates said today. Two judges from the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas on July 11 r......

An East Hempfield Township resident who opposed Independence, the high-density, 3,000-home development blocked by supervisors early this year, posed a question. "Where's the tradeoff?" she asked. "Where's the farmland being preserved?" Promoters of "smar......

Taxpayers for two decades have paid millions of dollars to preserve farms — nowhere more than in Lancaster County, the nation's leader in farmland saved from development. The rich farmland is preserved forever. In perpetuity. Or is it? Most don't know that farmers &mdash......

With the recent preservation of three farms in West Lampeter Township totaling 150 acres, Lancaster Farmland Trust has wrapped up the most successful of its 19 years. The trust closes out 2007 with 35 farms and 2,252 acres preserved, exceeding its 2007 goal by 252 acres. "This year th......

Conservationists are applauding a state Supreme Court ruling Thursday that said county officials have the right to a voice in the use of preserved farmland. In its opinion, the justices overturned an earlier, lower-court decision that gave the Ephrata School District permission to build a 50-fo......

Lancaster Farmland Trust announced Thursday that 2007 has been its most successful year to date, thanks to the recent preservation of three farms in West Lampeter Township.In total, the trust managed to preserve 35 farms and 2,252 acres in 2007 — exceeding its goal by 252 acres....

After approving the third tax hike in four years, the county commissioners voted to set aside $9.3 million for farmland preservation.•••Lancaster County commissioners Wednesday approved a 7.1 percent tax hike for 2008.That means ......

Just as they have for the past 25 years, people are flocking to Elizabeth Farms to cut their own Christmas trees. On Wednesday, the Lancaster County commissioners made sure a large part of this popular Elizabeth Township destination — which is one of the largest Christmas-tree farms in th......

Lancaster County is a national role model in farmland preservation and a leader in agriculture. That lofty praise was delivered to more than 150 county residents and civic leaders by Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff on Tuesday, during an address sponsored by Lancast......

Rob Bowman clicks a remote, and the flat-screen television hanging on the wall of the conference room flickers. "Three thousand homes can look like this," he says; the image depicts a small town called "Independence." Built upon a 309-acre tract bordered by Route 283, State ......

An imposing chandelier supplied the lights. Ron Harper Jr., of Stevens, brought the camera. And a number of fathers, angry at the county's judicial system, brought the action to the county's public presentation of the 2008 budget Tuesday night at the Duke Street courthouse. Th......

The forklift didn't impress them much, but the thought of having their own locker did. On Wednesday, a small group of fourth- and fifth-graders from the Ephrata School District toured the construction site of their new school. "I think that's going to be really cool," ......

When Caroline Novak started consulting for the Lancaster Farmland Trust in 2004, she made some bold statements. The nonprofit farmland preservation group and the county's Agricultural Preserve Board could double the number of acres they save from development each year, she predicted. M......

The veto of a proposal for a 788-acre agricultural security area in East Lampeter Township will be appealed in Commonwealth Court in the upcoming weeks, said an attorney for the Conestoga Valley Coalition preservation group. "There's a statutory provision in the ag security act that provides fo......

A rare coalition of Amish and English farmers has vowed to keep pursuing a proposal for an ag security area axed last week by East Lampeter Township. In a near-replay of a 2004 scenerio, the township supervisors turned down the farmers' petition to establish a 788-acre zone encompassing 13 ......

Amos Funk always planned to sell the family farm for development. "We never put a deed restriction on the farm because I didn't think it should be preserved," he says. Funk, now 96, pioneered the farmland preservation movement in Lancaster County. So some observers ar......

Great art is original. But art programs can sometimes be copied. Pennsylvania College of Art & Design hopes to duplicate its achievements with helping plan and create murals in the city of Lancaster by launching a similar program to facilitate other forms of public art.......

Here's a scoop: Ice cream is helping to save a 63-acre Amish farm in Fulton Township. Turkey Hill Dairy in 2005 began giving a portion of the proceeds from sales of its All Natural Recipe ice cream to the nonprofit farmland preserver, Lancaster Farmland Trust. Through the end of 2006, that......

Some farmers in East Lampeter are hoping the third time's the charm. Thirteen farmers recently petitioned the township to create its first-ever agricultural security area. Township supervisors will hold a hearing on the proposal Tuesday. It's the third time in 11 years a group......

She was a Main Street, Ephrata, kid with city stars in her eyes. "I had to move to Philly immediately after graduating from high school" in the late 1980s, recounts Carol Parrish McCoy. Next on her list was Washington, D.C. Today, she lives in a bustling city still: Lancaster....

Lancaster County now has preserved more acres of farmland than any other county in the nation. After years of finishing second behind Maryland's Montgomery County in acres permanently saved from development, Lancaster has vaulted to the No. 1 spot, according to a report published Friday in ......

Ads in Philadelphia newspapers boast about new Lancaster County homes "35 minutes from King of Prussia." Four of every 10 employees at the Great Valley Corporate Center in Malvern live in Lancaster County or Berks. One developer plans to build a 12,000-home town a mile from Lanca......

The county commissioners are considering enacting a state tax benefit for preserved farms, one that would permanently freeze the rate at which those properties are taxed. They would need the consent of municipalities and school districts in order to institute the program. But first, the......

Strasburg Borough Council president Joe Coleman, during a July 10 meeting, said a Sunday News editorial about the borough and the right-to-know act offended him.Coleman and fellow council members shared their feelings after resident Chad Harnish of 310 Miller St. expressed concern about th......

Lancaster County commissioners Wednesday approved the hiring of a new deputy administrator for human services.Frank W. Koerber, 45, of East Hempfield Township, will start work July 23 at an annual salary of $86,000.He fills a position that has been occupied by James Laughman on an i......

Fearing a tight-fisted future, farmland preservationists are preparing to tell county officials that a retreat on funding "would have devastating consequences to the future of Lancaster County." And they are putting their plea for county money in writing before the next budget is writ......

A plan to rezone 26 acres of farmland to pave the way for 156 new homes in West Earl Township is gaining momentum. Upper Leacock Township Supervisors on Thursday night voted 3-0 to recommend that West Earl leaders approve the proposal, which includes expanding the designated urban growth area t......

In Penn Township, three is a magic number.Two farms in the township were permanently preserved from development Friday, thanks to a partnership of three entities — Lancaster Farmland Trust, Lancaster County Agricultural Preserve Board and Penn Township.Each member of the partn......

Three Old Order Amish farmers in Paradise Township were hesitant. Last year, each individually expressed interest in selling their farms' permanent land development rights to the Lancaster Farmland Trust. But none liked the idea of being the first or only one among their immediate neighbor......