It is sometimes called a farmer's last crop.
For decades the land has been good to him, providing hay, soybeans, wheat and corn.
When he gets to a certain age, the farmer discovers that the land can provide even more. People begin showing up at his door. They want 10 acres, 5 or even 1 so they can live in the country. The money is good, the deals are done, and the farmer harvests his last crop—the land itself.
It's his right to sell his land. But is it right?
That's a hard question, one Dwight Hess of Lancaster County, Penn., told me he struggled with when a neighboring farmer sold his farm for development. Today, Hess farms to the very edge of a major subdivision. "It was difficult for me to see that happen, but that was his right to develop it rather than keep it as a farm."
It's quite tempting to sell off a farm in parcels for $20,000 an acre, sometimes much more if an entire farm is being developed. For most landowners, property rights are a priority; farmland preservation less so. As for someone who wants to cash out, it's rare to find anyone willing to leave money on the table.
But the evidence that urban sprawl is a problem continues to mount. Among the many considerations:
- More than 6 million acres—an area the size of Maryland—were taken out of agriculture and developed between 1992 and 1997, according to American Farmland Trust, an organization whose goal is to protect farmland.
- Within the next 32 years, this country will add 100 million people to its population, bringing the total to 400 million. How we use land in that growth will only become more of an issue.
- The argument that people have to live somewhere is easily countered by proof we are planning our spaces poorly. From 1982 to 1997, the U.S. population grew by 17%, but land development grew by 47%, according to American Farmland Trust. Since 1994, 55% of developed land went into 10-plus-acre lots.
- When the editor of this magazine asked readers about their biggest problems, the concern that outweighed all others was newcomers moving to the country.
For most of the past century, we have grown our living and business spaces by developing outward and with little thought to the future. Communities, it seems, are giving less thought to the heritage, source of income and food security that local farms bring.
The attitude is, "There's always more farmland out there somewhere."
Urban encroachment might seem to be a nonissue to the wheat farmer in middle Kansas or the rice farmer in eastern Arkansas. The Great Plains and Mississippi Delta have been losing population for decades.
But most other rural counties are growing in population, often as a result of becoming bedroom communities. In some places, the rate of farmland losses can be alarming, especially wherever an interstate connects two major cities, such as from Cincinnati to Columbus, or Milwaukee to Madison.
This issue is not about whether this country can grow enough food. "For many areas, it's not about how much land there is in the country," says Ralph Grossi, president of the land preservation group American Farmland Trust. "It's about what's happening in my community. People are asking, 'Do I want my community to still have agriculture to have an economic base?' "
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Preserving farmland might seem like a "no-growth" mind-set. County governments generally like to see new houses built because of additional tax revenue.
However, studies show that the costs of the extra infrastructure—more schools, more roads and road maintenance, more law enforcement, more utility maintenance—can easily match or cost more than the extra revenue. When trying to decide between farms or new houses, the community of Dunn, Wis., (see "Citizens Think 200 Years Ahead," page 4) discovered that in residential areas, it was paying $1.06 in services for each tax dollar it collected. Further development would cost the town money.
What can be done? For farmers, landowners and communities that decide the issue is worth considering, a good place to start is the list of groups in the sidebar. They can provide plenty of ideas to get started.
Everyone I talked with who has experience in land-use planning said success requires that everyone—farmers and nonfarmers—be in on the discussions. Kent County, Md., the No. 1 county in our Best Places to Live in Rural America (Feb. 2008), has a farmer advisory board that county commissioners rely on for advice.
The big mistake most communities make is assuming zoning alone will work. It won't, and for a very simple reason: Landowners lose. They easily see through the unfairness of losing their development rights and bearing the burden they believe should be shared by everyone. "Zoning" is not a word with which to begin a discussion about keeping land in farms.
What is working in a growing number of areas is the concept of purchasing development rights from farmers.
The big mistake most communities make is assuming zoning alone
will work. It won't, and for a very simple reason: Landowners lose.
Surveys show that even people who do not live on farms like the idea of keeping their areas in farmland. And, in many cases, they are willing to pay for it.
There are variations on the idea, but it generally works like this: A county government raises money and offers to purchase a farmer's development rights. A farmer bids to have his land considered and, if accepted, receives roughly the difference in value of his land as farmland and what it is worth if it were developed with housing. In return for the money, the farmer puts the land in a conservation easement that requires the land to remain agricultural.
Landowners generally view the idea with suspicion at first:
- They might perceive that the county is buying their land. It's not.
- They will be forced to sell their development rights. They won't.
- Once development rights are sold, the land becomes less valuable. Oddly, this hasn't been the case. Farmers I talked with who have been watching land values say they have seen plenty of examples of land worth $10,000 an acre, the development rights sold for $3,000; then the land goes on the market later as farmland and still brings $10,000.
Most of us keep an eye on our neighbors, in a friendly way, of course. We watch whenever someone tries something different, see how it works, then consider it for ourselves. Landowners I spoke with who sold their development rights said they saw the same happen with this idea. Neighbors viewed the process warily, even opposing it. Then, eventually, they sold their development rights too.
For Dwight Hess, the decision to sell development rights was never that hard.
After watching the housing development go in on his Pennsylvania farm, he sold the development rights on 60 of his acres.
"People ask me, 'But what about your kids? Are you not robbing your children of their inheritance by taking away their development rights?'
"My answer is, 'I have the opportunity to farm this farm because previous generations preserved it. What gives me the right to determine that this farm is not to be farmed by future generations?'"
See how some concerned citizens have chosen to preserve their farmland on the following pages.
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LANCASTER COUNTY, PENN.
Farming On the Edge of Town
For a great example of farmland preservation, you might start with Lancaster County, population 500,000. Being so close to Philadelphia, Baltimore and other major Eastern cities, the county has been on the front lines of the urban sprawl fight for years.
Lancaster County is a picturesque, Dutch farming community with a large Amish population. Farms are clean, well-kept and picture-perfect. That's why so many people want to live here.
The conundrum is that if all of those people could move here, it would destroy what attracted them in the first place.
County commissioners here began exploring the idea of farmland preservation back in 1978 and were purchasing development rights by 1984. So far, 715 farms have worked with the Lancaster Preserve Board to keep 60,542 acres in agriculture. Each year, farmers put in another 4,000 acres.
You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone more enthusiastic about the program than Luke Brubaker, who farms with his sons Mike and Tony. The homeplace—the house, barn and farmstead—lies less than 50 yards across the road from a packed subdivision in Mt. Joy. Luke was born in this house.
"I can look out the back door and see a lot of beauty in the lands that I've farmed, my father farmed and now my sons farm," says Luke. "Why would you want to put houses on land whose best use is agricultural?"
The Brubakers could have made a lot of money on this land—a million dollars or more if they had sold it to developers. And that once was a real possibility because the farm had been zoned residential. Luke requested it to be zoned back to agriculture, and now 330 acres are in conservation easements.
It's a family decision, says Mike. "We have some of the most fertile ground in the country, and it just kills me to see it covered over in houses. Once you remove that natural resource, you never get it back."
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DUNN, WIS.
Citizens Think 200 Years Ahead
The "town" of Dunn is a misnomer. There isn't much town here, mostly just farms. It was this way when Ed Minihan moved here 34 years ago, and it remains so today.
Within three months of arriving, Minihan watched 300 new lots formed in the county.
"We figured we were going one way or the other," says Minihan. They could allow the community to become just another suburb of burgeoning Madison next door (population now at 223,000), or they could begin preserving farms.
The people chose the farms over houses. It wasn't easy.
Shortly after the 300 lots opened, the town, as a stopgap measure, voted to limit development to one house per 35 acres owned, to which landowners said their property rights were being violated.
In 1996, citizens raised their property taxes 50 cents per $1,000 valuation so they could begin buying development rights from landowners. The next year, the town made its first purchase. Today, federal, state and county governments pay 55% of the cost; Dunn pays the other 45%.
Minihan, who for years has been the town chair, notes that while many communities might have 20-year plans, citizens here envision the town 200 years from now.
"Why not?" Minihan notes. "Somebody should be doing that."
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BARRY COUNTY, MICH.
The Work of Getting Everyone On Board
This county still has a healthy agricultural economy, but that economy has one major problem: It lies in the middle of four cities, including Lansing and Grand Rapids, only a short distance away.
Six years ago, with a small $4,700 grant from the Kellogg Foundation, Barry County conducted a series of meetings with residents to get their thoughts on agriculture and the community.
The seminars were convincing—96% of the participants agreed that land-use planning was important. They wanted the county to stay just like it was. They liked the farms, the beauty of the area and the small-town rural feel. Things looked promising for a vote on farmland preservation.
"We all wanted the same thing," says Lori Phalen, who at the time was an executive director of the county's conservation district. "We really wanted to help provide tools to protect the beauty that Barry County provides. It was very well received, and it looked like things would move forward."
Now, all that was needed was for voters to agree that buying development rights from farmers made sense—sense enough to pay 50 cents millage for each $1,000 in property valuation.
In 2004, the measure was defeated.
What went wrong?
A survey after the loss showed the problem: People just didn't get the basics of the concept. Voters, especially landowners themselves, thought the tax would force them to actually sell their land to the county and the county would own it.
"It's a multi-year effort," says Phalen, who now is executive director of the Michigan Association of Conservation Districts. "It's quite a process to get your plan up and running."
Even though Barry County has no funds for preservation, it will soon purchase development rights on its first farm. The farmer is donating his value of the purchase, and the state and federal governments will match that value.
"It's a start," says Phalen. "We're still forging ahead. We're not giving up on it."