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When the American Bird was endangered by DDT, our country responded with one of the most ambitious recovery programs ever attempted. There are now more than 7,000 nesting pairs of bald eagles in America, up from fewer than 500 three decades ago. This effort has been so successful that some nesting areas are approaching capacity and have a density of birds never before experienced.
Now it is time for the public to step up to lead the recovery of another vital endangered American symbol – the American Farmer. For every five farmers reaching retirement age, only one under 35 years is poised to enter agriculture. As a culture, if we do not want family farms to be a fond memory overtaken by large-scale farming operations, we must develop ways to eliminate the enormous speculative increases in land value tied to development.
Over the last five decades, the biggest threat to agriculture in most American communities was conversion of land to residential and suburban development. Today, in addition to those pressures, we are seeing “eco-entrepreneurs” mining conservation programs for tax incentives – and cash – while converting farms to “moneymaking assets” through the sale of credits and development rights.
In September, the Farmland Preservation Report revealed that developers in Montgomery County, Maryland, were competing with farmers to sell development rights to the farmland preservation program. These are properties that were purchased above farm value for development and now that the housing market recovery is unpredictable, the developers are looking to conservation programs to recover cash.
In Skagit County, Washington, wetland mitigation bank developers paid three times the market value for an 800 acre farm to convert to wetland mitigation credits which may yield up to $250,000 per credit. No wonder they can pay so much for farmland.
In Montana, eco-developers offer ranch properties to equity investors promising tax deductions, mitigation credit income and conservation subdivision revenues – all in the name of environmental restoration. These ventures are putting pressure on local land values as equity investors seek havens from traditional markets.
If we want to have economically viable agriculture at a community scale in America, we must adopt measures to assure that farmland remains affordable for the next generation of farmers. It is time to make a serious effort to establish programs to transition young and entering farmers into mainstream agriculture, or we may find future Thanksgiving celebrations short of American bounty.
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We have local food banks running short of food; local families and school kids not getting enough to eat; the cost of food will go up the further it must be transported.
Can ANYONE tell me why it is o.k. to toss 800 acres of #1, prime agriculture land away? That is what Skagit County will be doing if it allows the Clear Valley Wetland Bank to move forward. Our elected officials had better figure out that times are changing by the day, if not the hour, and we will need access to a safe, local food supply.
It appears that outside development interests want to use Skagit County as a dumping ground for “habitat” and “wetland” restoration projects that are funded by grants and State-level approval, flooding valuable farmland in the process to provide salmon enhancement.
Why aren’t the cities cleaning up their own act rather than shifting the load to us? Afterall,runoff pollution from cities into Puget Sound is a huge contaminator. The answer may lie in how close people in State and County government are allied with development interests which are pushing to get rid of farmland because farmland is less expensive and can be flooded, thereby taking away any city’s responsibility to actually plan for salmon enhancement in their own backyards.
It sure seems strange that the wetland mitigation bank(WMB) idea is being pushed so hard here. The banks don’t work. Period. So why are they even being considered in the face of looming food shortages? Thanks for the site. Great articles.
Comment by Gene Derig November 24, 2008 @ 4:53 am