About the Henderson County Farmland Bond
This page includes FAQs (below) about the 2026 Henderson County Farmland Bond and information about the campaign asking you to vote yes. “Vote Yes on the Farmland Bond” is a committee made up of Henderson County residents.
We are a non-partisan group of farmers, conservation advocates, business leaders, and community organizers. Our Honorary Chair is Bub Hyder. Our Co-Chairs are Jeff Chandler, Executive Director, Agribusiness Henderson County, and Ken Shelton, retired physician and land conservationist. You will see and hear from our chairs at community events and forums this fall.
We seek to preserve Henderson County’s agricultural heritage for future generations. By doing so we will also protect our drinking water, forests, and farms from runaway development. We can do this! Vote Yes on the Farmland Bond on November 3, 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
Q: What is this bond?
A: This Henderson County Farmland Bond is a local investment in protecting the farms, forests, and land we love.
This bond gives Henderson County the tools to keep our working lands working for the farmers who feed us and enable us to enjoy the rural scenery that is part of our identity.
Q: Why is this needed now?
A: Henderson County is growing fast and losing farmland even faster. Between 2017 and 2022, we lost nearly 20% of our working farms and forests.
Every acre we lose puts our water quality, our scenery, and our rural way of life at risk.
Though we have a voluntary program to help farmers preserve their land while maintaining their rights to farm, inherit, sell, lease, hunt, fish, manage timber, or just enjoy living on the land, that program is underfunded.
The Henderson County Farmland Bond gives us a much needed local funding source for farmland protection. With this bond, we can protect what’s left, and helps us compete for state and federal dollars to do even more.
Q. What type of bond is this and how will it work?
A: This is a 20-year General Obligation bond, which is a common tool counties use to fund big, long-term projects.
This kind of bond is backed by the County’s full faith and credit, which is why voters have to approve it.
Once approved, the County draws down money as needed for approved land projects, and often pays it back faster than 20 years.
Preservation projects will be voluntary, much like our existing farmland preservation program that keeps farms in the hands of landowners who wish to protect them from non-agricultural development.
For a home valued at $450,000, this bond costs about $38 a year in property taxes. That’s a little more than $3 per month to preserve farmland and forests and protect our water quality.
Q. Why is this a good path for tempering runaway development?
A: Farmers and landowners who lease their lands to farmers are under financial pressure to sell their land to highest bidder. Through the Farmland Bond, our county can better fund voluntary conservation programs that pay landowners modest sums to extinguish non-agricultural development rights and maintain Henderson County’s agricultural heritage for future generations.
Q. How is a bond a useful tool for financing land conservation?
A: General Obligation bonds come with the lowest interest rates, making them the most affordable way to fund programs to ensure we have working farms forever in Henderson County.
Counties across North Carolina have used this same tool for decades to effectively finance land conservation. In fact, NC voters have approved 48 similar conservation bonds over the past 30 years.
Q. What accountability is there for the taxpayers?
A: The money can only go toward protecting working farms, forests, and scenic land. Nothing else. That limitation is set by the law that enables the bonds to be issued.
County Commissioners oversee every dollar, and the County will build on its existing farmland preservation program to bring landowners and land trusts into the process.
The County will run a public audit every year, so taxpayers can see exactly how the money is spent.
Q: Do other North Carolina counties have dedicated funding for land conservation?
A: Yes.
Over the past 30 years, NC voters have approved 48 similar bonds, raising more than $1 billion for conservation.
Buncombe County passed its own $30 million bond in 2022. It has already protected 2,598 acres of farms and forest. This has also improved the water quality of rivers, lakes, and creeks, protecting wildlife habitat and natural areas from development. We can achieve similar results in Henderson County through our $25 million bond.
Q: What will happen if the bond does not pass?
A: If this Henderson County Farmland Bond doesn’t pass, more farms and forests will be lost to development.
The County won’t have the money to protect working land.
The County won’t have the money to match and leverage state and federal grants. That makes us uncompetitive for grants, which are tax dollars we have already paid to the state and federal governments.
All photos are of Henderson County farms and landscapes. All photos were supplied by Henderson County farmers and conservationists. Used with permission. Information on the threats posed by unchecked development and our community’s priorities for conservation are included in the Henderson County 2045 Comprehensive Plan adopted by our County Commission.