PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island has been awarded $6.355 million in federal money to help farmland owners protect their land from development, the state Department of Environmental Management said Friday.

The grant comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service through its Regional Conservation Partnership Program. Rhode Island's project was one of 42 selected nationwide, according to the department.

The money will go to the Rhode Island Farmland Legacy Partnership, a new program that will pay farmland owners for conservation easements on agricultural land and neighboring forest, the department said. The easements, which focus on keeping farms in production as they pass to new owners, will be held by the federal conservation service, working with the state environmental department, the Northern Rhode Island Conservation District and the Rhode Island Center for Mediation and Collaboration.

The state's Agricultural Land Preservation Commission, a quasi-public agency that works with the environmental department, keeps a list of farms whose owners want to protect their land from development but often have no way to do so because too few eligible groups have the money and capacity to conserve it, the department said. The department and the commission will help choose suitable projects.

"Protecting Rhode Island's working farms makes them much more resistant to development," said Terry Gray, the department's director. Gray said the state has more than 1,000 farms and, according to the USDA's latest Census of Agriculture, the highest percentage of beginning farmers in the nation.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said Rhode Island farmers can apply for the funding. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Reps. Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo, and Gov. Dan McKee also issued statements welcoming the award.

This brief was drafted by AI from a public agency or political press release and published by The New England Signal. Why we use AI for stories like this one.