What places do you treasure in the mountains? The Farmland Values Project, a UNC Asheville initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, is seeking input on this question from residents of Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties.

Information received from residents about the places they treasure will be used with other data gathered by the Farmland Values Project, including focus groups and surveys collected earlier in the study, in order to get a complete picture of the values that people have for farmland in our region. Leah Greden Mathews, UNC Asheville environmental economist, is directing the project.

Mathews, who earlier conducted research on the monetary value visitors place on Blue Ridge Parkway views, launched the Farmland Values Project in May 2005. Her research team consists of UNC Asheville staff and students, an artist, and faculty from Appalachian State University in Boone and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. The team will create an assessment tool that can help county commissioners, policymakers and land owners to make the best possible decisions as the four-county study area faces continued growth.

While a part of the team is working on collecting information from residents about the places they treasure locally, other researchers continue to compile data on population, land use and the distribution of forest, agriculture and horticulture in the four counties. They are building a database which will identify the rural-urban edge of the area, or places where conversion of farmland is most active.

"We want to be able to link maps of farmland with what people value about that land," said Anne Lancaster, UNC Asheville project manager.

The research team is seeking residents of Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties to help document local treasured places. Interested residents will be invited to attend a 90-minute session in their home county in February. For more information or to participate, contact the Farmland Values Project at 828/251-6562 or farmland@unca.edu or click on www.unca.edu/farmlandvalues.