The Delaware Department of Agriculture and Gov. John Carney recently announced a new way to help Delawareans understand farmland preservation.
Delaware has launched a dashboard that features information on the state’s preservation efforts.
Jimmy Kroon is a GIS coordinator in the state Ag Department’s Aglands Section.
He says prior to releasing the dashboard, the agency announced its 22nd round of easement purchases for the Farmland Preservation Program.
“And the dashboard is an interactive, online map where people can go and see the properties that we are buying easements on in that round 22 purchase. So it’s about $4.8 million in easement purchases,” Kroon said.
Kroon says utilizing real-time data visualization, visitors to the dashboard can interact with data, see it visually, and gain insight on farmland preservation.
“There’s a list you can click on individual items and see exactly where the farms are and what size they are and how much cropland and forests there is. And you can also filter the properties in the round by factors like legislative district, or watershed, or county to see how much we’re preserving,” added Kroon.
Kroon says following this latest round of easement purchases, more than 127,000-acres of farmland has been preserved in Delaware.
The Delaware Agricultural Lands Preservation Foundation purchased the development rights of 41 farms in this latest round, totaling 3,534 acres, with one farm in New Castle County, 30 in Kent County, and 10 in Sussex County.
