Forging a new path for accelerating and scaling agricultural conservation is at the heart of a new public-private partnership announced today by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and Truterra, LLC, the sustainability business at Land O’Lakes, Inc.

Interest in finding local foods from nearby farm families continues to be strong. In April, Agri-Pulse wrote about “How to find local foods and local farms during the COVID-19 crisis” and included links to sites in almost every state.

Farmland is vital to this nation’s food security, yet it continues to be paved over, fragmented, or converted to poorly planned residential, commercial, and industrial uses. Between 2001 and 2016, 11 million acres of the nation’s irreplaceable agricultural land were lost or fragmented, equal to all the land in the U.S used to produce fruits, vegetables and nuts in 2017. Roughly 4.4 million of these acres were pegged as nationally significant—our best land for food and crop production, according to an AgDaily article.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture now has the authority under the Defense Production Act to help prevent supply interruptions at Food and Drug Administration-regulated food facilities, including farms, packinghouses and fresh-cut processing facilities.

New data from Purdue University and Microsoft shows food production hasn’t been an issue, even during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 illnesses at the farm level are less than 1%. Purdue University teamed up with Microsoft to create an online Food and Ag Vulnerability map.