Lynn Prior, who is with the Greater LV Buy Fresh, Buy Local program, presented the findings of an unsettling study concerning the area's local agricultural industry to a Northampton County Council Committee recently. Its basic conclusion? Not only is farmland disappearing; but so is the farmer.

But is it really true. This report is based on 2007 census data, before the Great Recession hit. That turned the real estate industry upside down, to the point where developers are now offering subdivided land to County officials for farmland preservation.

According to Prior's study, the Lehigh Valley lost 80 percent of its farms between 1930, when there were 5,032 farms, and 2007, when only 1,002 farms remained. The acres of land devoted to farmland has dropped 53 percent, from 323,000 acres in 1930 to 153,000 in 2007.

Since Americans require an average of one acre of farmland per person every year, 153,000 acres will only sustain about 25 percent the Lehigh Valley's population of 647,232.

In addition to the loss of farmland and farmers, the farmer is disappearing as well. The number of farmers under the age of 35 dropped by 37 percent between 1997 and 2007. Only 17 percent of farmers actually own the land they farm because land values are prohibitive.

To reverse this process, Prior's organization encourages:

Ÿ educating consumers about locally grown foods;

Ÿ including a farm to school program that introduces children to the farmers who grow their food;

Ÿ marketing assistance to local farmers;

Ÿ improving food access in low income neighborhoods;

Ÿ and a Lehigh Valley Food Hub to increase the amount of local food sold in local restaurants and grocers.

These solutions, which also include rooftop gardens, appear to be utopian.

The best way to preserve farmland is by preserving the farmer. Repealing the death tax would help. So would changing open space grants that reward realtors and preserve swampland while farmers go broke.