What changes have you seen firsthand and why did farmland preservation become such an important issue for you personally?

I see that coming from a non-farming family.

My background was non-farming and I married into farming.

I have seen many years of just the loss of farmland playing such a role in the misunderstanding that people have about what we're doing.

And my family is unique in that I have multi-generations on this farm and also unique in the fact that we have families chosen to preserve land in a permanent way which is not typically the common way that we farm but i've seen a lot of changes in the drive for development as i said we live 30 minutes 45 minutes from downtown charlotte so the pressure for development is strong here and the only thing that has kept us in one piece here is the fact that we don't have water and sewer in our county we're one of those families that advocates for no water and sewer because we don't need the development But also, we've had a struggle educating our county municipalities about how valuable farmland is to preserve the whole community.

I have 1,300 acres, so you can imagine how many homes could be built on that 1,300 acres, which equates to how many elementary, middle and high schools, police departments, fire departments and so on.

So we've had to not only farm, but be the advocates to go and try to develop the policy and the understanding on local and state government about that land is not just easy come, easy go.

What do you wish more North Carolinians understood about the value of farmland and what happens when it disappears?