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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Report: NC is a 'Biggest Loser' When it Comes to Farms

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Monday, June 7, 2010   

RALEIGH, N.C. - According to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture report, farms are being displaced and replaced by development at an accelerated pace nationwide. North Carolina is one of the "biggest losers," with 766,000 acres less farmland since 1982. Much of that land has been used for development, although some is no longer farmed because of erosion.

Nationwide, more than 41 million acres of agricultural lands have gone out of production within the last three decades. Jennifer Morrill with the American Farmland Trust puts this loss in perspective.

"We are losing just under 1 million acres of land a year now - that's almost two acres per minute."

Morrill has advice for consumers interested in helping slow this pace.

"One thing you can do is support your farmers' markets. Shop at your farm stands, so you help keep those farms and ranches viable."

While loss of food production is a top concern, Morrill points out that farmland supplies much more than dinner for the table. Well-managed farmland shelters wildlife, facilitates critter migration, supplies open space and helps filter impurities from the air and water.

Texas and California are the other states losing the largest amounts of farmland.

The full report is at www.nrcs.usda.gov.




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