Joanna Green and Duncan Hilchey,
Community Food & Agriculture Program,
Cornell University
The following material is excerpted from the publication,
"Growing Home: A Guide to Reconnecting Agriculture, Food, and Communities".
Green and Hilchey (2002) Ithaca, NY: Community, Food, and Agriculture
Program, 151 pp. To order the complete publication, click
here and select "Publication Order Form".
Farmland Loss
One estimate puts the loss of farmland to nonagricultural development
in the United States at about 1 million acres per year. Some communities
are happy to trade some farmland for residential and commercial
development. For residents in these towns sprawl can mean more jobs
or a better way of life. For other communities, loss of farmland
not only involves loss of business, but also loss of a sense of
identity and quality of life. However, even where compromises must
be made, farmland can be preserved to continue to make important
economic and non-economic contributions to the community. The advent
of the concept of Smart Growth (www.smartgrowth.org)
came about in recent years as a way to balance these interests of
the community.
Working Landscapes
The best long-term strategy for preserving farmland is, of course,
a working landscape that is supported by a diversified and entrepreneurial
farm community. However, communities can tap a growing list of farmland
preservation strategies if the pace of non-farm growth is faster
than the pace of the community's establishment of a viable long-term
local food and agriculture system. These stop-gap measures can be
generally classified into three groups: (1) regulatory tools; (2)
market-based incentives; and (3) voluntary strategies. These differ
in how quickly and how permanently they preserve land and how expensive
they may be to taxpayers.
Regulatory Tools
Regulatory tools include property-tax relief, zoning, comprehensive
planning, urban-growth boundaries, and creating agricultural districts.
These rely on passage and enforcement of local laws to help farmers
and protect farmland. These tools are relatively quick to get in
place, but the politics of public control of private lands is almost
always a sticking point. Even farmers may have problems in supporting
such land regulation.
Market-based Incentives
Market-based incentives include the purchase or transfer of development
rights. These are strategies for compensating farmland owners for
the loss of their right to develop their properties. The costs to
preserve a viable core of farmland can be extraordinarily expensive,
and so this measure is typically only successful in wealthy communities
on the urban fringe.
Voluntary Strategies
Voluntary strategies include cluster developments and "planned-unit"
developments. These are the least controversial methods of farmland
preservation, but also the most difficult to implement because they
can reduce profits on the sale or development of land.
State-of-the-Art Farmland Preservation in
Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
The Agricultural Lands and Open Space Preservation Plan of Washtenaw
County, Michigan, was defeated in a 1998 election, but the county
government is keeping the report available for the public to view
on its Web site. This is a valuable model of local land-use planning
that includes community visioning, consensus-building, and state-of-the-art
farmland preservation strategies. While not for every growing community,
the report does provide a glimpse at the full range of farmland
preservation techniques.
Copies of the Agricultural Lands and Open Space Preservation
Plan of Washtenaw County, Michigan, are available for $15.00
plus $1.00 for shipping and handling from the Washtenaw County Metropolitan
Planning Commission, attn: Terry Brinkman, P.O. Box 8645, Ann Arbor,
MI 48107-8645
References and Resources for Farmland Preservation
American Farmland Trust
1920 N Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20036;
(202) 659-5170;
Website: http://www.farmlandinfo.org/.
Specific resources include:
Land Trust Alliance
1319 F Street NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC 20004;
(202) 638-4725
Web site http://www.lta.org.
Trust for Public Land
116 New Montgomery Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105; (415)
495-4014
Web site http://www.tpl.org/.
For more information, contact:
Community,
Food, and Agriculture Program (CFAP)
216 Warren Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
(607) 255-9832
gwg4@cornell.edu
Website:
http://www.cfap.org
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