The greater Shenandoah Valley region reigns as the Commonwealth’s agricultural powerhouse. Four of Virginia’s top five agricultural counties (Augusta, Page, Rockingham, and Shenandoah) are located in the Valley, and Rockingham and Augusta have some of the most productive local food systems in the state.

The Valley Conservation Council has a number of prominent farmers on its Board of Directors to help us work closely with agricultural and forestry groups to address the immense challenges of 21st-century farming. Farming must remain profitable if landowners are to keep their farms intact and then pass them to the next generations.

Our Agricultural Legacy

The greater Shenandoah Valley region has been an agricultural powerhouse for centuries, if not millennia. From the earliest human settlements in the region, the Valley landscape has been dotted with productive croplands, orchards, and thriving farmsteads. Because of the Shenandoah Valley’s naturally productive soils and plentiful water, it can easily support a wade variety of agricultural industries.

But, in these early decades of the 21st century, the region’s hallmark rural lifestyle and agricultural economy are now threatened.

Some farmers face extreme challenges to stay in business, and fewer and fewer of the next generation have the inclination or the capital to carry on the farming tradition. VCC views this as a ticking time bomb of farm sell-offs. In these early decades of the 21st century, the easier path seems to be the selling of the family farm to rampant development and urban sprawl.

For us, protecting our agricultural legacy means farming in the greater Shenandoah Valley region by using up-to-date ecological principles and best-management practices to ensure the long-term vitality of our farms and wild spaces alike.

VCC is dedicated to providing support for farmers to keep farmland affordable, assisting farmers with funding conservation projects, encouraging good land stewardship by protecting soil and water resources, and using land use policies, such as conservation easements, to protect our farmland.