In a region once known for its booming tobacco industry, Durham County has lost more than 40,000 acres of farmland since 1974—a 71% reduction—as new housing developments make headway and farmers struggle to afford rising costs. More than 16,000 of those acres have been lost since 2007, and farmers are hardly making the profits they used to, with annual net incomes averaging less than $1,000—down more than 80% since 2007.
On Tuesday, consultants presented the 2026 Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Plan—the first of its kind since 2009—to Durham County commissioners. The 97-page report details past efforts to preserve farmland, the challenges farmers are facing, and recommendations for the county to work toward protecting more open land.
“Durham County is a great place to farm,” said farmer Gerry Cohn, a consultant on the plan. “It has the land, it has the leadership, and it has the market opportunities.”
The county has made strides to protect open space with conservation easements, which are legal agreements with farmers to permanently limit future development on a property. The Open Space Program has protected more than 4,300 acres of farmland since its inception in the early 1990s.
But even with these measures, the cost of land and equipment is steadily increasing: Average annual farm production expenses soared past $60,000 in 2022, compared to about $40,000 in 2007, as net profits have declined from $5,155 to $928 in that same time period, according to the report.
“The bottom line is that our land values are getting so high, and there’s so much development pressure, that people can’t afford to keep farming unless we put them under a conservation easement,” County Commissioner Wendy Jacobs said.
The report found that Durham’s farmland loss between 2007 and 2022—38%—outpaces the state’s loss of 4% and the Piedmont region’s of 18%. The drastic amount of lost farmland is driven by population pressure and rising land values, the report states. But Durham’s total number of farms decreased by only 12% during that time period, and the loss of acreage relative to the number of farms signals that massive areas of farmland are transitioning out of agricultural use. North Carolina and the Piedmont region have seen the number of farms decline by 19% and 27%, respectively.
Durham is seeing a shift from large operations to smaller farms, which the report states is common in suburban edges where new development converts farmland piece by piece. While total farmland has decreased in recent decades, smaller farms have become a growing share of the local economy. Farms between 1 and 9 acres jumped from 25 to 50 between 2007 and 2022, the report found.
The county and city implemented an urban growth boundary in 2023, which is intended to concentrate public infrastructure investments within a defined urban area. Recent water and sewer extensions in southeast Durham have driven suburban development, leading to farms and forests being developed for residential land use, the report states. By limiting the extension of urban services, farms in northern and eastern Durham County have less pressure from developers who would buy up their land.
Other farm-friendly initiatives from the county since the 2009 plan include offering economic development grants to farms, introducing agricultural programs in Durham Public Schools, and opening a new farming education site. On Tuesday, the county commissioners approved $35,000 for the Durham County Cooperative Extension to strengthen Durham’s community gardens and promote nutrition education.
The county also funds the Double Bucks program, which enables low-income residents to purchase local, fresh produce and helps generate income for local farmers. For people eligible for food assistance, such as the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the county will match purchases dollar for dollar at participating farmers markets. At Tuesday’s meeting, County Commissioner Nida Allam noted that the federal funding (from the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA) used to pay for Double Bucks is coming to an end in December, and that the county needs a plan to sustain the program.
“With all the SNAP and WIC [Women, Infants, and Children] benefit cuts that we’re seeing at the federal level, that money is needed even more,” Allam said. In Durham, 1 in 7 people is food insecure; the county is working on a 10-year food security plan..
Programs like Double Bucks are just a piece of local funding aimed to help sustain Durham farmers, who are struggling to achieve economic self-sufficiency solely from their farms, according to surveys conducted for the farmland preservation plan. Among 65 farmers surveyed between August 2024 and April 2025, 77% said farming accounts for less than a quarter of their household income.
Interviews with farmers for the plan found that development pressure is a primary concern, as developers buy up farmland and suburban expansion has hurt farm ecosystems.
The report recommends that the county continue funding conservation easements, in addition to offering Durham’s Farmland Preservation Advisory Board a formal way to give input on new development projects.
“What is happening on the fringe of the urban growth boundary is causing problems for farmers,” Jacobs said. “I don’t feel like the city government necessarily understands that, and I feel like the voice of our farmers is not being heard around development issues.”
Recommendations include bolstering food security programs that support local farmers, such as Double Bucks.
The plan also recommends that the county should establish an annual celebration of local food and agriculture, continue to encourage purchasing local food in DPS school meals, and develop a cold-storage warehouse facility for food distribution.
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