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Planning could lessen impact of urban sprawl

Pick any state and you are likely to find examples of urban sprawl, where farmland is being converted into subdivisions and industry.

And those examples are not just found around large metropolitan areas such as Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis and Des Moines. Ag land is disappearing around other growing cities throughout the Midwest.

A report written in 2022 from the American Farmland Trust suggests this trend is likely to continue. In the report, the organization said from 2001 to 2016, the U.S. lost or compromised 2,000 acres of farmland every day. If the trend continues, another 18.4 million acres will be converted between 2016 and 2040. That is roughly the size of the state of South Carolina.

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Drought, Floods & Rising Costs — Burke County's Idlewood Farms Is Rolling With the Punches

Video: Drought, Floods & Rising Costs — Burke County's Idlewood Farms Is Rolling With the Punches

For brothers Robert and Sid Prescott of Idlewood Farms in Burke County, 2026 hasn't felt like farming — it's felt like survival. Reporting from Waynesboro, John Holcomb visits the Prescott's 850-acre Bermuda grass and beef cattle operation to hear firsthand how one of the most unpredictable seasons in recent memory is testing everything they've built.