Davis ranch seeks protection
Source: deseretnews.com, by Joseph M. Dougherty
January 16, 2007
CLINTON — John Diamond remembers when farmers were run out of town because their cattle stank.
That happened while he served on the Clinton City Council years ago. A farmer in Clinton had 6,000 head of cattle near 2300 North and 3000 West. Once subdivisions came into the area, residents began to complain to the city, and eventually the man shut down his operation and took it to Idaho.
It's easy to get worried about dwindling farmland. Subdivisions cover what used to be farms. And when barbed wire meets vinyl fence, there are bound to be clashes.
Diamond wants to run his pheasant-hunting, cattle and hay operations in peace, so he and his wife, Marilyn, applied for agricultural protection for 197 acres of land with Davis County in November 2006. If the Davis County Board of Commissioners grants agricultural-protection status to the Diamonds during the board's meeting today, it will be just the third time the status was granted in the county since the law was enacted.
The last time was in 2003, when the commission protected 357 acres in the Syracuse area.
The state law that allows the Diamonds to apply for protection indicates that farmers were there first, so everyone who builds homes near farms should expect farm smells and sounds. Plats for any subdivisions within 300 feet of a protected area are supposed to be recorded with a special note that says residents aren't going to get anywhere if they complain about normal farming operations.
Since the Utah Legislature enacted the agriculture protection law in 1994, only Box Elder, Cache, Daggett, Davis, Iron, Kane, Sanpete, Sevier, Summit, Tooele, Utah, Washington and Weber counties have protected agricultural land for a grand total of 178,862 acres.
While Utah has seen a slight increase statewide in the number of acres devoted to farming in the past decade, the amount of farmland along the Wasatch Front has dropped. That mirrors the national trend of fewer farms on fewer acres.
Between 1987 and 2002, Davis County, despite its large growth, has lost about 2,000 acres, or 2.9 percent, of its farmland, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Other counties have seen more dramatic decreases.
In those same years, Utah County saw 150,000 acres of farmland — 31 percent — turned into other uses. Salt Lake County has about 86,000 acres of farmland — half of what it had in 1987. At about 86,000 acres, Weber County's farmland is about 43 percent of 1987 totals.
From the Diamonds' property in unincorporated Davis County near Syracuse, they can see subdivisions where there used to be open fields. And they've heard more than a couple of complaints since they began working land throughout the county.
Neighbors have called police about the bright lights and noise of nighttime irrigation. And sometimes, the Diamonds find grass clippings and other trash on their property because someone unwittingly dumped waste on what looked like empty land.
During weaning time, calves can bellow for a week or 10 days, John Diamond said. And this isn't lowly mooing. It's frantic crying from separated calves and mothers. Then there's the irrigating and baling, which have to be done at night because you have to trap moisture in hay before it's baled.
Calving should start at the end of this month, and it always seems to happen at night, so the Diamonds stay up at night with spotlights to monitor births.
It's part of a life that John and Marilyn Diamond grew up with.
"It's just like the guy who has a yacht in the Caribbean," John Diamond says. "That's his lifestyle."
The Diamonds' son Jed raises 4,600 pheasants for hunting west of Syracuse and receives complaints about hunters, even though they stay 600 feet away from homes.
The Diamonds are gearing up for more complaints from a subdivision that hasn't even been built yet in West Point.
Kip Cashmore, a developer, petitioned West Point to annex 22.7 acres of unincorporated land into the city in September 2006. The City Council obliged.
During the public hearing, John Diamond told the council he has a large cattle operation near the land Cashmore wants to develop into a subdivision. Some homes are going to be as close as 30 feet to Diamond's feedlot.
Cashmore told the council he's willing to work through issues that could prove to be problematic and doesn't want to be the bad guy.
John Anderson, West Point city planner, said it's difficult to find a balance at times between developers and farmers.
"The city definitely values its agricultural heritage," Anderson said. "Kip Cashmore has the right to develop, as well."
Diamond said homebuyers often don't realize what living next to a farm will entail.
"People want the rural feel, but they don't want the things that go with the rural feel," he said. "Cattle smell. Horses smell."
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