Development losses: Tiny ranches eat farmland acreage
Source: Capital Press, by Don Curlee
February 08, 2008
Land developed since the Gold Rush is getting paved over or turned to urban use
If you haven't thought recently about the threat we pose to ourselves by paving over California's prime farmland, a new report will help you regain your focus.
It was produced by American Farmland Trust, a watchdog organization that provides decision-making information to help preserve agricultural land.
The report is titled "Paving Paradise: A New Perspective on California Farmland Conversion."
It projects the amount of farm land that will remain by 2050 on the basis of land that has been developed for non-farm uses from 1990 to 2004. In that 14-year period, one sixth of all land developed since the Gold Rush was paved over or converted to urban uses.
Using data from a half dozen reliable sources the report projects that 2.1 million acres of farmland will be converted to urban use by 2050, when it predicts the population of California will reach almost 58 million.
It addresses two key issues that directly affect the loss of agricultural acreage. One is the quality of land that is lost, and the other is the efficiency(or inefficiency) of development.
Data were gathered for the report to show that some urbanization in the years ahead can be directed to lower value farmland, instead of prime land that has the choicest combination of soil, water and climate.
People-per-acre is a measurement reached by analyzing the sources combed by the report's designers and authors. If development can be planned to include a higher number of people per acre, chances are that less land will have to be taken from agriculture to accommodate them. It cites ranchettes (two- to three-acre suburban housing units) as the most inefficient type of growth.
Since they are nearly always located on former agricultural land - prime or not so prime - they gobble it up at an alarming rate.
Most ranchette development has occurred in San Joaquin Valley counties.
Among the report's major findings is the conclusion that ranchettes may be responsible for as much as one fourth of all land devoted to developed uses in the Central Valley. This places development in the Central Valley counties as less efficient than development in the state as a whole.
So, what is to be done to increase development efficiency, and preserve as much prime farm land as possible?
Three principles
The report offers three principles: "1) Direct growth away from the highest quality farmland toward less productive lands. 2) Develop land as efficiently as possible so as not to waste what we must convert, and 3) Avoid rural ranchette development that fuels land speculation and drives up land costs."
The report also points out that most major cities in California are located on what was once the best farm land.
That's because they began as trade and transportation centers for agricultural products produced on the acres surrounding them.
With that historical and geographic fact so ingrained in the state's development, it will be difficult for politicians, especially those at local levels, to take seriously the report's suggestions for increasing the efficiency of development.
However, the report states: "If the state as a whole develops as efficiently as Sacramento County or the Bay Area did from 1990 to 2004, a million acres of California land could be saved within the next generation." Anyone, politician or not, interested in the report in greater detail can link to www.farmland.org/california for a full presentation.
Don Curlee is a veteran ag publications editor and ag freelancer in Clovis, Calif. E-mail: agwriter1@sbcglobal.net.
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