Charleston’s Lowcountry Farmland Crisis

Before taking this class I had no idea about the effects on agriculture, especially in Charleston. Chapter nine in the reading, A Delicate Balance : Constructing a Conservation Culture in the South Carolina Low country, was very enlightening in my opinion. I did not know a lot of Charleston’s agriculture was affected daily. I found it quite surprising learning that “South Carolina has been losing about thirty five acres of farmland daily to residential and commercial development, and the low country has experienced the greatest of those losses”. That little piece of information was the most shocking to me because I know Charleston has a lot of construction and stuff going on, but I did not know that it was that drastic. Saving farmland is very important because farmland is not just for raising up animals to produce meat, it is much more than that. Having a sufficient amount of farmland is vitally important because you need land to produce the locally grown vegetables and fruits that we consume. Also in the chapter I found it reassuring to know that organizations like the Charleston County Greenbelt Bank Board is taking initiative to purchase rural land just to help protect it from companies trying to use it for development. If more organizations like this step up and participate to preserve the Low country’s farmlands more acres of land can be saved from development. Another aspect of this paper I was inspired by was Margaret Fabri, she stated that if “we don’t have many rural spaces left, and if we don’t protect them now, we will have none left”. This statement means so much because she is promoting taking action, which is what needs to be done to make changes so that more land can be saved. Just this statement alone signifies that action needs to be taking now before it is too late.

3 thoughts on “Charleston’s Lowcountry Farmland Crisis

  1. I wrote about the Halfacre’s book as well and was shocked by all of the new statistics I was learning. 35 acres a day is an extremely high number to be taking away from agriculture in just one geographical region. We need to get more awareness about the issue and bring our generation in to help these organizations! Great blog post too by the way!

  2. Yea I agree the stats. were very shocking! Without land, we will not be able to survive or prosper within the low country. I think more people need to start being educated on starting their own gardens on their land, or in their backyard if possible. I fear that in the future we will have a shortage of fruits and veggies in SC.

Leave a Reply to prof.saunders Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *