Source: NCSU COOPERATIVE EXTENSION, 5/11/21


The NC General Assembly introduced legislation to refine Voluntary Agricultural District (VAD) administration as part of the 2021 Farm Act (SB 605). (“Farm Acts” have been introduced almost annually since 2017 to make changes to legislation related to agriculture and forestry.) The 2021 Farm Act makes several important changes to the VAD and EVAD statute (N.C.G.S. §106-735). Following are several of the changes:
1. Use of property for qualification. The proposed language now links the required land use directly to the Bona Fide Farm exemption in N.C.G.S. §160D-903, which offers four objective “safe-harbors” whereby zoning officials determine whether a parcel of land is used for farming.
2. Simply the Voluntary Agricultural District. The new language now qualifies land for establishment of a VAD as a single parcel under conservation agreement, as defined in N.C.G.S. §121-35. This clarifies the vague authorization of the previous statute whereby the county was free to geographically define a VAD, which theoretically could have included land not qualified or enrolled in the VAD program. This change is also important to better implement the “GIS buffer” that warns purchasers of neighboring tracts that a farm is nearby.
3. Membership of VAD Board. The new language strikes a troublesome requirement that VAD Boards include a member from each district. This proved unwieldy as counties struggled to include a member from each district, when districts in practice were tied to enrollment of individual parcels (meaning: did each owner of each enrolled parcel have to be on the board?). The new language is silent on who must sit on the board, only that it is appointed by the county commissioners. The new language reads: The members of the agricultural advisory board shall be chosen to provide the broadest possible representation of the geographical regions of the local government and to represent, to the extent possible, all segments of agricultural production existing within the local government. A majority of the members of the agricultural advisory board shall be actively engaged in agriculture.

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