Agricultural land owners in Florida encouraged to apply for protection

Apr 17, 2015

Deadline for applications is Saturday, May 30th

In an effort to protect agricultural lands, their natural resources and ensuring the lands are only used for agricultural purposes, Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture Adam H. Putnam is encouraging landowners to apply for the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program.

“The Rural and Family Lands Protection Program offers a unique opportunity for Florida's land owners to preserve agricultural land use while helping to protect our state's precious natural resources,” said Putnam.

Some of the program’s objectives include:

Protecting valuable agricultural lands
Sparking conservation easements to sustain current agricultural practices
Preventing land in rural Florida from converting to non-agricultural uses
Helping with the protection of natural resources

Parties interested in applying for the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program are required to fill out an application form and must submit it by Saturday, May 30^th, 2015.

Since the Rural and Family Lands Protection Act passed in 2011, seven agricultural operations have been developed and the Florida Forest Service is currently working on easements on additional agricultural lands. The ranches, farms and other agricultural lands under protection equals close to 8,765 acres.

Florida’s agricultural economic impact is estimated around $120 billion annually – the second largest industry in the Sunshine State. Agriculture is responsible for employing more than two million people in the state.

Earlier this month Florida announced their agricultural exports reached an all-time high.

Join the conversation and tell us if you’re thinking about applying for the protection program.

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.