Pennsylvania Farmer Rejects $15 Million Offer From Major Tech Developers For His Property
A Pennsylvania farmer turned down a chance to become a multi-millionaire to save his land.
When a data center developer wanted to hire an 86-year-old Mervin Raudabaugh261 acres on two farms in Mechanicsburg, it dangled $15 million in front of the farmer for the rest of his life.
But Raudabaugh calmed down, choosing to transfer the land for a fraction of the given value to a land trust.
“It was my life,” Raudabaugh told Fox 43 News of the land he has farmed for 50 years. “I said [the data center company] no, I was not interested in destroying my farms.
“That’s what really mattered,” he continued. “The economy didn’t end that much. I didn’t want to see these two farms destroyed.
“Only the land saved here will be here. The rest will be built on every square inch.”
Rather than see that happen, he sold the development rights to a trust that will make sure the land is used only for agriculture.
The Lancaster Farmland Trust (LTF), a nonprofit land conservancy in Cumberland County, compensated the farmer nearly $2 million—a tiny percentage of what he would have earned if he had turned over his acres of green land to be developed as a data center.
The land can be sold in the future, but only to the person who will use it for farming.
Pennsylvania and data centers
The region is a prime choice for data center development, due to its large areas of open farmland and proximity to transportation corridors and major power companies.
Last year, residents of the Valley View Estates community park in Archbald, PA, received news that the owner of their community had entered into a binding sale agreement and that the new owners were connected to Project Gravity, a planned data center development that will be at least six buildings and 1.62 million square feet.
In Lackawanna County, there are at least 11 data center campuses proposed by developers, six of which are in Archbald. Commissioner Bill Gaughan asked Gov. Josh Shapiro and the Pennsylvania General Assembly for a three-year statewide moratorium on new large data center authorizations to study their impact.
“I know Pennsylvanians have real concerns about these data centers and the impact they could have on our communities, our utility bills, and our environment,” Shapiro said in his Feb. budget speech. 3. “Me too.”
Saving land from development
Founded in 1988, the Lancaster Farmland Trust has since saved more than 38,310 acres through 618 conservation areas.
LTF can do so because of a voter-approved referendum passed in 2013, which allowed for a small increase in Silver Spring Township’s income tax to fund conservation of farms, forests, and open space.
The cost to taxpayers is only about $120 per year, according to Lancaster Farming.
Once the easement is in place, LTF “makes sure the farmland stays farmland forever,” CEO Jeff Swinehart he tells Realtor.com®.
While large tracts of open world have long made business developers salivate, the risk of losing farmland to information levels is new and growing rapidly due to the rise of AI.
Data center builders—which can include deep-pocketed companies like Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), and Apple—can offer unprecedented payback dates.
A conservation group like LTF can compensate a landowner for only about 20% of what the land is worth to the developer, Swinehart said, making it very difficult to compete in this market.
“Unfortunately, the community considers agricultural land as not available at a high level and does not use it well,” he said. “It’s ‘idle land’ waiting for a better use. So it becomes an easy target for any kind of development.”
As the older generations of farmers have aged out of the agricultural life, it is an important time for the future of the agricultural land.
“In many cases, what we see is a conflict between siblings when they are left with a farm, and they want to raise money from that property,” said Swinehart.
“We have encountered many cases where there are four, five, six children, and one may want to save. [the land] and others do not. So the default reaction is ‘We’ll just sell it.’ What does that mean for landscape?”
Raudabaugh told the media that the data center builder (he didn’t give his name) who came to him was motionless.
“These people wanted some sunshine for me,” Raudabaugh told Lancaster Farming. Realtor.com has contacted Raudabaugh for comment.
The farmer’s deep connection to his land—he told one outlet that his mother died in his arms inside the barn—meant he had no interest in handing it over to a data center.
“In his opinion, they were harassing him until his lawyer came and thought of taking them to court,” said his lawyer. Laura Brownvice chairman of Silver Spring’s board of trustees, told WHTM. Brown then approached the township’s land trust partner, LTF, for help.
Swinehart tells Realtor.com that he doesn’t know the exact details of how the data center developer approached the elderly farmer, but his understanding of the developers’ methods is that they “walk the farm roads and knock on doors, and if they get no, they come back again.”
The trust cannot compete with developers with big pockets from a financial perspective, he says. “But where we can compete is to support the importance of these farmers with the land.
“There is a legacy that farm families want to leave behind, but it goes deeper than an individual legacy. It is a love of the land itself, and a desire to ensure that the land can provide for future generations.”
And, as a result, he says, passionate farmers like Raudabaugh “are willing to give up a lot of money.”
