Is Auto-Dependent Sprawl worth sacrificing our valuable Farmland?

Courtesy of the American Farmland Trust

America is losing 1.2 million acres of farmland annually, much of it the best and most productive farmland near where most Americans live.

American Farmland Trust is committed to protecting the nation's best farm and ranch land and improving the economic viability of agriculture. During the past 25 years, AFT helped to stimulate the creation of 27 state-level farmland protection programs, as well as countless local ordinances and programs that give landowners the tools they need to keep their land in farming. We've been the catalyst for unprecedented levels of funding for federal programs that protect farmland and improve the environment.

AFT works with federal, state and local leaders and communities to develop legislation, implement policies and execute programs that keep farmers on their land and protect our environment.

Farmland Protection Issues

Approximately half of the two billion acres of land in America is working agricultural land. This productive farm and ranch land is a finite resource as fertile soils take thousands of years to develop and are irreplaceable. The focus of AFT's work revolves around protecting this precious resource—America's best farm and ranch land.

America's Agricultural Land Is at Risk
Every minute of every day, we lose two acres of agricultural land to development. Why? Farm and ranch land is desirable for building because it tends to be flat, well drained and affordable. And the rapid rate of agricultural land converted to development is unnecessary—over the past 20 years, the average acreage per person for new housing almost doubled—with our best agricultural soils being developed the fastest.

Why save Farmland?

National Economy and World Food Security

The U.S. food and farming system contributes nearly $1 trillion to our national economy—more than 13 percent of the gross domestic product—and employs 17 percent of the labor force. World consumers of U.S. agricultural exports are expected to increase their purchases in the future. With a rapidly increasing world population and expanding global markets, saving American farmland is a prudent investment in the world food supply and an economic opportunity.

Protection of the Environment
Well-managed agricultural land supplies important non-market goods and services. Farm and ranch lands provide food and cover for wildlife, help control flooding, protect wetlands and watersheds and maintain air quality. They can absorb and filter wastewater and provide groundwater recharge. New energy crops even have the potential to replace fossil fuels.

Fresh, Healthy Food and Strong Communities
Farms closest to our cities, and directly in the path of development, produce much of our fresh food—63 percent of our dairy products and 86 percent of fruits and vegetables. And for many Americans, compelling reasons for saving farmland have to do with protecting the quality of life in their communities—scenic and cultural landscapes, farmers' markets, recreational opportunities, local jobs and community businesses.

Fiscal Stability for Local Governments
New development requires services such as schools, roads and fire/police protection, whereas privately owned and managed agricultural land requires very few services. Cost of Community Services (COCS) studies show that, nationwide, farm, forest and open lands more than pay for the municipal services they require, while taxes on residential uses, on average, fail to cover costs.

"Another way we can reduce suburban sprawl is to help preserve our working farms.... Unfortunately, many farmers are not aware of the programs available to help them conserve land and improve environmental stewardship.... groups like American Farmland Trust help farmers identify these financial incentives so that we can save their farms, rather than losing them to suburban sprawl.”

—Eliot Spitzer

New York
Governor-Elect

"A society measures its wealth by the amount of land it has and its ability to feed its population. That's why protecting our land is important for future generations.”

-Cathy McNeil

Farming on the Edge Report

What's happening to our farmland?

Each year you have to drive a little farther out to find it. Slowed by traffic, through tangled intersections, past rows of houses that seem to have sprouted from the field, finally, you can see the bountiful farmland. For the past two decades, we've paved over our farmland for roads, houses and malls. Wasteful land use puts America's farmland at risk, especially our most fertile and productive—our most valuable—farmland.

We're needlessly wasting one of the world's most important resources. Less than one-fifth of U.S. land is high quality, and we are losing this finest land to development at an accelerating rate. U.S. agricultural land provides the nation—and the world—with an unparalleled abundance of food.

But farmland means much more than food. Well-managed farmland shelters wildlife, supplies scenic open space and helps filter impurities from our air and water. These working lands keep our taxes down and maintain the legacy of our agricultural heritage. It makes no sense to develop our best farmland. Instead, we have a responsibility to protect this most valuable resource for future generations.

· Every single minute of every day, America loses two acres of farmland.
From 1992-1997, we converted to developed uses more than six million acres of agricultural land—an area the size of Maryland.

· We lost farm and ranch land 51 percent faster in the 1990s than in the 1980s.
The rate of loss for 1992-1997, 1.2 million acres per year, was 51 percent higher than from 1982-1992.

· We're losing our best land—most fertile and productive—the fastest.
The rate of conversion of prime land was 30 percent faster, proportionally, than the rate for non-prime rural land from 1992-1997. This results in marginal land, which requires more resources like water, being put into production.

· Our food is increasingly in the path of development.
86 percent of U.S. fruits and vegetables, and 63 percent of our dairy products, are produced in urban-influenced areas.

· Wasteful land use is the problem, not growth itself.
From 1982-1997, U.S. population grew by 17 percent, while urbanized land grew by 47 percent. Over the past 20 years, the acreage per person for new housing almost doubled; since 1994, 10+ acre housing lots have accounted for 55 percent of the land developed.

· Every state is losing some of its best farmland.
Texas leads the nation in high-quality acres lost, followed by Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina and Illinois. And for each of the top 20 states, the problem is getting worse.

Farming on the Edge:
A Project Overview

Since 1980, American Farmland Trust has been focusing America's attention and action on the tremendous threats facing the nation's agricultural lands: unplanned, sprawling development; inadequate conservation programs; and a lack of options for farmers and ranchers who want to stay on their lands.

Farming on the Edge: Sprawling Development Threatens America's Best Farmland uses the tool of compelling maps to lay out the threats and gives reasoned solutions—so communities, legislators and individuals can clearly see what needs to be done to protect the country's best farmland. The national and state maps, based on data from the U.S. Census and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, offer a true picture of where the issues are most urgent.

By offering study results and data widely through the Web, American Farmland Trust hopes to equip those who want to create effective policies to protect our working lands from development.

American Farmland Trust could not have completed this research without the generous support of The New York Community Trust, W.K. Kellogg Foundations, Philip Morris Companies Inc., and the members of American Farmland Trust.

Farming on the Edge:
How the Maps Were Made

In 1997, American Farmland Trust released a study that showed the geographic relationship between high quality farmland and land development pressure in the United States. To do this, we used the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Resources Inventory. That study used the unit of Major Land Resource Areas to determine where the most threatened farmland lay throughout the United States.

But how was each STATE doing? This 2002 map, Farming on the Edge: Sprawling Development Threatens Our Best Farmland, analyzes how actual land use changes are affecting each state's share of the nation's high-quality farmland. State by state, the areas in red represent concentrations of prime and/or unique farmland coinciding with that state's most rapidly developing area(s).

AFT categorizes these areas as threatened since the data does not allow us to conclude definitively that development in each red area is actually taking place on the high quality farmland in that area. It is also important to keep in mind that we focused solely on threats to prime and unique farmland.

How We Created the Map
We defined high-quality farmland by combining the USDA's "prime farmland" designation (land most suitable for producing food, feed, forage, fiber and oilseed crops) with our own unique farmland definition (land used to grow vegetables, grapes and horticultural crops, including fruits, nuts and berries, that have unique soil and climatic requirements.)

Although based on the definition that USDA uses, American Farmland Trust's definition of unique farmland allowed us to more easily identify variables in the underlying data—the National Resources Inventory—to identify unique farmland. We then determined acreage amounts of prime and unique farmland within each of the 33,000 mapping units included in the map database.

Development is defined as the change in urban built-up land occurring within each of the 33,000 mapping units between 1992 and 1997.

Because farmland conversion is taking place in every state, the map identifies high-quality farmland that is important relative to statistical benchmarks established for each state. In addition to identifying the most intense areas of high quality farmland conversion in the nation, the map also identifies where conversion was most intense within each given state.

To do this, we used two threshold tests:

High-quality farmland included mapping units that in 1997 had greater than their statewide mapping unit averages of prime or unique farmland; and
High development included mapping units that experienced a rate of development greater than their statewide mapping unit average, providing it had at least 1,000 acres developed between 1992 and 1997.

The approximately 33,000 spatial mapping units underlying the map were created by the intersections of counties, watershed boundaries and Major Land Resource Areas. The average size of a mapping unit is 92 square miles. However, because the statistical variance in some of these areas may be large, map readers should use the map to identify broad spatial trends and avoid making highly localized interpretations.

Reading the Map
The resulting map highlights in red those mapping units with a greater percentage of high quality farmland than the average mapping unit within that state, a rate of development higher than the average mapping unit in the state and more than 1,000 acres developed between 1987 and 1997.

Mapping units shaded in green exceeded the average amount of high quality farmland found in mapping units within their state, but they experienced a lower rate of development than the average mapping unit in their state or had less than 1,000 acres of development.

Red areas on the map signal rapid development and a potential threat to high quality farmland. One should take care in interpreting the map, remembering that high-quality farmland areas are relative to their state benchmarks.

While this loss is regrettable, it is not inevitable. We know how to save our farmland; we simply must do more. Communities, states and now the federal government are working to protect this irreplaceable resource by:

Stopping the loss of our best farmland through effective planning and smart growth that directs development to less productive land;
Permanently saving farms through publicly funded agricultural conservation easement programs;
Supporting farming practices that enhance the environmental benefits of farmland; and
Expanding efforts to increase the profitability of urban-edge farming.

Make sure you know what's happening in your state and community.

Courtesy of the Sierra Club

The American Farmland Trust (AFT) developed a method that communities across the nation have used to assess the costs associated with different forms of land use. The method involves calculating the total costs of infrastructure and comparing these costs to revenues received in the form of taxes. Categories of infrastructure include general government expenditures, public safety, fire protection, sheriff’s department, public works, libraries, and community development.

The results are consistent in every study conducted to date. Residential land use costs more in services than is generated in revenues.

For example, in the Northeast, six AFT studies conducted in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York showed that $1.15 was spent on community services in residential areas, compared with $1.00 of tax revenues generated by that land, a ratio of 1.15:1.

Meanwhile, commercial/industry areas was 0.36:1 and for farmland was 0.34:1.

Maintaining farmland also reduces spending on new infrastructure. “For every dollar we spend on agricultural land preservation, we are going to save $10 in highway and road construction costs,” said Michael McGrath, Director of the Delaware Agricultural Lands Preservation Foundation.