Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 11, 1995 TAG: 9509110003
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH GROSSI
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But Lancaster farmers are not immune to the development boom sweeping eastern Pennsylvania and, for that matter, most of the suburban United States. Its farmland is in danger of being paved over as nearby cities and suburbs continue their relentless expansion.
Nationally, 1 million acres of farmland disappear each year, some two acres every minute. The problem is as far-flung as the nation's agricultural resources themselves.
In California, for example, Tom Ielmorini wants to save his family's 650-acre cattle ranch and carry on the ranching tradition of his father and grandfather. But his sisters, who have long since left country for town, want to sell their share of the ranch and capitalize on its lush rural setting just north of San Francisco.
Walter Johnson's family farms 460 acres in Peninsula Township, Mich. The township, a spectacular set of hills and valleys that juts into Lake Michigan, was discovered decades ago by wealthy Chicagoans wanting vacation homes. Ever since, housing developers have coveted the narrow peninsula's farmland and scenic views for high-priced subdivisions.
Walter Augsburger, a Lancaster County hog farmer who also raises chickens, corn and wheat, expects a developer to knock on his door the day a sewer line is run through his township, located about halfway between Reading and Lancaster just beyond the expanding Philadelphia suburbs.
Augsburger is one of more than 100 landowners who have submitted applications to sell agricultural-conservation easements - which permanently protect farmland from development - to the Lancaster County Agricultural Land Preservation Board. By covering his 350-acre farm with an easement, he hopes to help create a block of protected farmland that can withstand the lure of development dollars and prevent the string of nuisance complaints that follow when new rural residents confront the noises, odors and 16-hour days of farming.
Augsburger can expect a long wait. The county board has funds to purchase only 15 easements a year. Farmers applying today may have to wait seven years before negotiations can even begin.
Other localities - in California, Washington, Michigan, Kentucky and throughout the Northeast - find themselves similarly hard-pressed. As an American Farmland Trust report pointed out recently, 14 states have spent $665 million to purchase agricultural conservation easements to protect 396,000 acres of farmland since 1977. But the demand far exceeds available funds. Six farmers are turned away for every one who enrolls; three acres of farmland are lost for every one saved.
State and local farmland protection programs need help. In addition to producing food and fiber, agricultural land offers habitat for wildlife, sanctuary for wetlands, a filter for stormwater runoff and the backdrop for tourism and scenic open space. Farmland serves as the fabric holding together countless rural communities. And finally, farmland - retained in a significant block - provides a natural buffer between conflicting land uses.
This year, as the 1995 Farm Bill wends its way through Congress, we have an unparalleled opportunity to fund and fully implement Farms for the Future. Approved as part of the 1990 Farm Bill, it authorizes federal support for state and local farmland protection programs. Unfortunately, it has been inadequately funded and administratively handicapped.
Since 1990, Congress has invested only $10 million on state and local farmland protection assistance - 200 times less than it spends each year on soil-conservation programs and only a fraction of the $12 billion spent annually on farm-support programs. Yet each year in the United States, as much topsoil is covered with pavement as is lost to erosion.
If Congress diverted just three days' worth of federal farm subsidies to farmland protection, it could shore up Farms for the Future with $60 million in matching grants, enough to match current state funds and halve the time farmers must wait to enroll land in protection programs. Another possible funding source is the Conservation Reserve Program. Streamlining the 10-year-old program, which compensates farmers for idling and controlling erosion on our most erodible cropland, could free up sorely needed funds.
But many policy-makers seem unwilling to bankroll protection measures. Most U.S. representatives and virtually all senators have not signed a letter supporting Farms for the Future. Funding has dried up in states, such as Rhode Island and New Hampshire, that once had aggressive programs to buy easements. Legislatures in Michigan and Kentucky, after receiving recommendations from their respective governors to fund farmland protection, are struggling with funding. Even in Pennsylvania, which has one of the country's most ambitious farmland protection programs, 127 applications to sell easements are pending in one Philadelphia-area county alone.
The public will support farmland protection. Last summer, Peninsula Township, Mich., residents voted to fund a new purchase of agricultural conservation easements program, or PACE, and protect the agricultural land of farmers like Walter Johnson.
Many Lancaster County residents also value their agricultural resources, which support their thriving tourist industry.
``If we had diamonds in this area, we would be mining diamonds,'' says Augsburger, the Lancaster farmer. ``If we had oil, we would be drilling. We have the best soil here, and people want to build houses on it.''
Ralph Grossi is president of American Farmland Trust in Washington, D.C.
by CNB