The Farm Prosperity Project was built on the belief that more farmers would protect their land if their farms were profitable. Our approach was to provide farmers with tools to help them make decisions about their farms and futures and identify the new crops and farm protection tools best suited to their situations. This four year project, led by Jeanine Davis at N.C. State University, was a collaborative effort involving faculty and staff from Land of Sky Regional Council, American Farmland Trust, Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy, Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, Warren Wilson College, and the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project. It was focused on five counties in western North Carolina. The project was funded by a grant from the National Research Initiative of the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, USDA, Grant #2005-35618-15645. This webpage is the repository for the decision tools, survey results, and information developed through that project. We hope you find them useful.

Project participants were Jeanine Davis, North Carolina State University; Tom Elmore, Land of Sky Regional Council; Susan Kask and Laura Lengnick, Warren Wilson College; William Hamilton, Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy; John Bonham, Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy; Gerry Cohn, American Farmland Trust; and Charlie Jackson, Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project.

We are in the process of adding additional tools and documents.

Decision Tools

• New Agricultural Enterprise Decision Tool
• What Growers Can Expect from Farmland Protection Tools
• Farm Prosperity Project_ Final Report of the Modeling Team

New Crop Opportunities

• How to Pick a High-Value Crop: Evaluating Your Resources and Personal Considerations
• Opportunities with Organic and Heirloom Tomatoes
• Fall Opportunities for Direct Marketing Produce

Surveys

• A Survey of Commercial Farms in North Carolina

Presentations

• Improved Farm Profit with Farmland Protection and High Crop Values
  2009 report to farmers
• Farmland Values and Farm Prosperity: Results from Your Community
  2009 report to the community
• Some New Crop Opportunities
  2009 meeting with farmers

Brochures

• Working to Preserve North Carolina Mountain Farmland
  Farmland Prosperity Project brochure
• Keeping the Farm in the Family
  Farmland Protection Tools for North Carolina Landowners

Posters

• The Farm Prosperity Project: An Integrative Project to Improve Farm Profit with Farmland Protection and High Value Crops 
• The Farm Prosperity Project: Improved Farm Profit with Farmland Protection & High Value Crops