Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- What's farmland really worth?
Ask a farmer raising a crop, and you'll get one answer. A developer hoping to build a new subdivision might have a different price. Visitors who savor scenic views or residents who treasure locally grown tomatoes and other produce may have still other responses.
Leah Greden Mathews wants to come up with hard numbers that might lead to the preservation of more western North Carolina farmland, which has been disappearing at a rate that alarms many observers.
"What I try to do is put a price on things that aren't exchanged in markets," said Mathews, an environmental economist at UNC Asheville.
Backed by a $390,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mathews and others are halfway through the three-year Farmland Values Project, which is looking at the full value of farms in Buncombe, Haywood, Madison and Henderson counties.
Daniel O'Leary, a sociologist who now teaches at Old Dominion University in Virginia, conducted 17 focus groups with 133 farmers and other residents in the four counties.
"We asked what are the ways you value farmland in your life and community. Invariably, people touched on the cultural value and the natural beauty," O'Leary said.
Even developers seemed aware of the tension between farmland's scenic beauty and how the rural setting draws ever more people to settle in western North Carolina.
"What is really clear is that people value farmland for things other than the crops they grow," Mathews said.
For some, the scenic beauty is a reminder of a rural way of life or a sense of heritage. But as more people seek to live amid that beauty, the beauty may be in danger of disappearing.
The study comes none too soon. North Carolina leads the nation in the rate of lost farmland, with the state shedding more than 6,000 farms and 300,000 acres of farmland since 2002. Between 1987 and 2002, Haywood County lost 18.9 percent of its farmland, with Henderson, Madison and Buncombe following at 17.9 percent, 17.1 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively, according to USDA statistics.
The project is personal to Mathews.
"I live in Candler, so I really appreciate those low-lying parcels along Hominy Creek that protect my property from flooding," she said.
In follow-up surveys, Mathews is attempting to quantify those sentiments. About 3,200 surveys have gone out in the mail, and the UNCA team has already gotten back hundreds of responses.
In addition, the survey will be distributed at local festivals, the WNC Farmers Market, the N.C. Arboretum, the Pisgah Inn and Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and regional visitors centers and chambers of commerce.
The payoff could be a better understanding of the economic value of rural settings. When it's completed in the next year, the study will put new mapping software tools in the hands of policymakers, environmentalists, developers and others to see how fast farmland is being swallowed by development, Mathews said.
Kenneth Reeves, the director of the Buncombe County office of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service, is optimistic that Mathews' study and other programs are helping stem the loss of farmland. As farmers diversify their crops, many are finding new customers for organic or local produce at tailgate markets or restaurants, Reeves said.
Bill Yarborough, a regional agronomist with the N.C. Department of Agriculture, pointed to the success of the state's revamped Farmland Preservation Trust Fund, which contributed toward a conservation easement on a farm in northern Buncombe County.
"There are more tolls available and more options. We're starting to see counties finance conservation funds and easements, and that's very encouraging."
Rather than sell out to developers, Bill Duckett was able to put part of his scenic farm on the ridgeline in Sandy Mush under permanent protection.
"I'm a native, and I want to see the views preserved," he said.
The study may help matters, but many challenges lie ahead, O'Leary pointed out. Although he is encouraged by the responses so far, he said, "the cynic in me says people say they value this, but how are we going to pay for it? There's a challenging discussion ahead -- do we want to pay more taxes for farmland
preservation?"
