BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Five Lehigh Valley farms have been preserved as part of a $5.8 million statewide effort to ward off development and protect open spaces. “In the simplest terms, without farms, we don’t eat,” said Russell Redding, the commonwealth’s agriculture secretary, in a Thursday news release. “Pennsylvania has some of the richest soil in the nation and is situated near ports, railways, interstate highways and 40% of the nation’s population – the very people we need to feed.